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Hundreds of thousands of American students have dropped out of public schools since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
自从新冠疫情爆发以来，已有数十万美国学生从公立学校辍学。
They have essentially gone missing from schools.
他们基本上已经从学校消失了。
An examination by The Associated Press, Stanford University's Big Local News project and Stanford education professor Thomas Dee reached some of the "missing" students.
美联社、斯坦福大学的本地大型新闻项目和斯坦福大学教育学教授托马斯·迪伊对一些“失踪”的学生进行了调查。
They found an estimated 240,000 students in 21 states whose absences from school could not be explained.
他们发现，在21个州，估计有24万名学生缺课的原因无法得到解释。
These students did not move out of state.
这些学生并没有搬往其他州。
They did not sign up for private school or home-school.
他们没有申请私立学校或在家接受教育。
Missing students received a lot of attention in 2020 after the pandemic closed schools around the country.
2020年，新冠疫情导致全国各地学校停课后，失踪学生受到了广泛关注。
In the years since, however, missing students have largely become a budgeting problem.
然而，在那之后的几年里，失踪学生在很大程度上已经成为一个预算问题。
School leaders and some state officials worried about how they would lose financing if the students did not return.
学校领导和一些州官员担心，如果学生不回来，他们将失去资金。
More students means more money from the city, state and federal governments.
更多的学生意味着拥有更多来自市、州和联邦政府的资金。
There is no longer urgency to find the students who disappeared from school.
寻找从学校消失的学生不再是当务之急。
Early in the pandemic, school workers would go to students' homes to try and help them return to the classroom.
在疫情早期，学校工作人员会去学生家里，试图帮助他们返回课堂。
Most such efforts, however, have ended.
然而，大多数这样的家访活动已经结束。
The missing students identified by the AP and Stanford represent more than just a number.
美联社和斯坦福大学确认的失踪学生不仅仅是一个数字。
The study represents thousands of students who have may have missed out on the basics of reading and other skills in kindergarten and first grade.
这项调查表明了数千名学生可能在幼儿园和一年级时错过了阅读和其他基本技能课程。
Discussion of children's recovery from the pandemic has centered largely on test scores and performance.
关于儿童从疫情中恢复的讨论主要集中在考试成绩和表现上。
But Dee, the Stanford expert, said the data suggests a need to understand more about children who are not in school and how that will affect their growth.
但斯坦福大学的专家迪伊表示，数据表明，有必要更多地了解失学儿童，以及这将如何影响他们的成长。
"This is leading evidence that tells us we need to be looking more carefully at the kids who are no longer in public schools," he said.
他说：“这是一个主要的证据，它告诉我们，我们需要更认真地关注那些不再在公立学校就读的孩子”。
Over months of reporting, the AP learned of students and families avoiding school for many reasons.
在几个月的报道中，美联社了解到学生和家庭出于各种原因不去上学。
Some are still afraid of COVID-19.
有些人仍然害怕新冠疫情。
Others are homeless or have left the country.
其他人无家可归或已经离开这个国家。
Some students could not study online and found jobs instead.
一些学生无法在网上学习，而是找到了工作。
During the long period of online learning, some students fell so far behind that they no longer knew how to behave or learn at school.
在漫长的在线学习期间，一些学生远远落后，以致于他们不再知道如何在学校表现或学习。
Many of these students are still officially on school rosters.
其中许多人仍然在学校的正式名单里。
That makes it harder to truly count the number of missing students.
这使得真正统计失踪学生人数变得更加困难。
The real number of young people not receiving an education is likely much higher than 240,000.
没有接受教育的年轻人的真实人数可能远远高于24万人。
The AP and Big Local News found that public school enrollment fell by 710,000 students between the 2019-20 and 2021-22 school years.
美联社和当地大型新闻发现，在2019-2020学年和2021-2022学年之间，公立学校的入学人数减少了71万人。
That number includes the 21 states that provided the necessary data.
这一数字包括了提供必要数据的21个州。
It also includes numbers from Washington, D.C.
它还包括来自华盛顿特区的数字。
Those states saw private-school enrollment grow by over 100,000 students.
这些州的私立学校入学人数增加了10万多人。
Home-schooling grew even more, increasing by more than 180,000.
在家接受教育的学生人数增长得更多，增加了18万多人。
But the data showed 240,000 students who were neither in private school nor attending home-school.
但数据显示，有24万名学生既没有上私立学校，也没有在家接受教育。
Their absences could not be explained by population loss, like falling birth rates or families who moved out of state.
他们不去上学的原因不能用人口减少来解释，比如出生率下降或家庭搬离所在州。
States where kindergarten is not required were more likely to have larger numbers of students who are unaccounted for.
不要求孩子上幼儿园的州更有可能有更多的学生下落不明。
That suggests the missing students also include many young learners who have stayed at home instead of starting school.
这表明，失踪的学生还包括许多留在家里且没有开始上学的年轻学习者。
The true number of missing students across the country is likely much higher.
全国失踪学生的真实人数可能要高得多。
The study does not include data from 29 states or the unknown numbers of so-called ghost students -- children who are enrolled in school but rarely make it to class.
这项研究不包括来自29个州的数据，也不包括数量未知的幽灵学生——所谓的幽灵学生是指那些已经注册入学但很少去上课的孩子。
Officials of the Unified School District of Los Angeles, California, have spoken about attempts to find unschooled students and help remove barriers that prevent them from coming to school.
加利福尼亚州洛杉矶联合学区的官员谈到了为寻找未受过正式教育的学生并帮助消除阻碍他们上学的障碍所做出的尝试。
The district has offered clothes-washing services and help with housing.
该学区提供洗衣服务和住房帮助。
But some students and their parents say their problem is with a school system that they say has failed their children.
但一些学生和他们的家长表示，他们的问题是学校制度未能满足孩子的需求。
Allison Hertog represents more than 30 families whose children missed a lot of time learning when California's classrooms closed for more than a year early in the pandemic.
艾莉森·赫托格代表了30多个家庭，这些家庭的孩子在疫情早期加州学校关闭一年多时错过了大量的学习时间。
She said, "Parents are bereft."
她说：“家长感到失落。”
In other words, parents feel hopeless and are without necessary support.
换句话说，家长感到绝望，没有得到必要的支持。
Los Angeles student Ezekiel West is in fourth grade but reads at a first-grade reading level.
洛杉矶学生伊齐基尔·韦斯特读四年级，但阅读水平只相当于一年级学生的水平。
Before the pandemic shutdowns, he moved from school to school when educators could not deal with his poor behavior.
在疫情封锁之前，当教育工作者无法处理他的糟糕行为时，他就从一所学校转到另一所学校。
During online learning, Ezekiel's mother had trouble getting internet for her son to attend class.
在网上学习期间，伊齐基尔的母亲很难让她的儿子上在线课程。
When Ezekiel returned to school in the fall of 2021 as a third grader, Ezekiel was unhappy that other students had made more progress than he had.
2021年秋天，当伊齐基尔作为一名三年级学生回到学校时，由于其他学生比他进步更多，伊齐基尔感到不高兴。
A California judge ruled that Los Angeles' schools had violated Ezekiel's rights.
一名加州法官裁定，洛杉矶的学校侵犯了伊齐基尔的权利。
The judge ordered the city's school district to give Ezekiel a place at a new school, with a special plan to ease him back into learning and building trust with his teachers.
法官命令该市的学区给伊齐基尔一个新学校的名额，并制定一个特别的计划，让他轻松地重新开始学习，并与老师建立信任。
The school did not follow the plan.
学校没有按照计划进行。
Last October, his mother stopped sending him to school.
去年10月，他的母亲不再送他上学。
Last month, Ezekiel signed up for a public online school for California students.
上个月，伊齐基尔申请了一所面向加州学生的公立在线学校。
Hertog, his lawyer, is worried that the program will not work for someone with Ezekiel's needs.
他的律师赫托格担心，该计划对有和伊齐基尔一样需求的人不起作用。
The family is looking for yet another choice.
这家人正在寻找另一种选择。
At least three of the students Hertog has represented have been missing from school for long periods since in-person learning restarted.
自面对面学习重新开始以来，赫托格代理过的学生中，至少有三名学生已经长期不去学校上学。
Their situations, she said, were avoidable.
她说，他们的情况是可以避免的。
She added, "It's pretty disgraceful that the school systems allowed this to go on for so long."
她补充说，“学校系统允许这种情况持续这么长时间，这是非常可耻的。”
I'm Dan Novak. And I'm Jill Robbins.
丹·诺瓦克、吉尔·罗宾斯为您共同播报。
译文为可可英语翻译，未经授权请勿转载！
