
Public School Teacher Absenteeism Underscores Need for More Choices - tomohawk
https://www.heartland.org/publications-resources/publications/research--commentary-chronic-public-school-teacher-absenteeism-underscores-the-need-for-more-school-choice-options
======
eesmith
I'll quote from [http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2017/09/that-teacher-
abse...](http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2017/09/that-teacher-absenteeism-
report.html) , titled " That Teacher Absenteeism Report".

> I'm going to stick with "cynical bullshit" because what the report, and the
> pitching of it, lacks is anything that looks like a sincere attempt to
> figure out what's going on here. Instead, the whole process smacks much more
> of someone setting out a rack of clubs next to a bunch of baby seals. "We're
> not saying you have to club the baby seals, but if you're so inclined, there
> are the seals and here are some clubs. Just sayin'"

> So the bullet points from this report are immediately recognizable as
> ammunition for some old arguments:

> * Public school teachers miss more school than charter school teachers.

> * Unionized teachers miss more school than noon-unionized teachers.

> * Some states sure do give teachers a lot of sick days.

> * Schools with a better culture have fewer teacher absences.

> And just for some context, donchaknow

> * When a teacher misses more than ten days, students in her class test lower

> * People in other jobs don't get so many sick days, or summers off, either.

> ... this report raises a ton of questions, and it isn't interested in any of
> them as long as it can point out that those lazy union public school
> teachers sure take a lot of time off, you know? I'm just sayin'.

> Pieces of this are bogus. The old research that finds a correlation between
> lower test scores and teacher days missed finds just that-- a correlation.
> Which means that it could be proof that teachers who have low-functioning
> classes that do poorly on tests are more likely to want a break.

> ... while I find the gap between public and charter teachers interesting, I
> can think of plenty of variables I'd love to see explored. Age, for
> instance-- charter teachers are almost always younger, so I'm wondering what
> the correlation between taking sick days and age might be. And I'm wondering
> about state to state comparisons-- Arkansas's charter teachers take fewer
> sick days than their public school teacher counterparts in Arkansas, but
> more sick days that public school teachers in over half of all other states.
> What's wrong with Arkansas? Were cyber-charters factored in? Because how do
> we measure teacher attendance for those? And while the report acknowledges
> that crappy working conditions may exacerbate absenteeism, they don't really
> address the well-known high-pressure 80-hour-week nature of many charters
> and how that fits in this big picture.

> And how do employment patterns factor into this. Is charter absenteeism
> affected by the number of charter teachers who are regularly invited to be
> absent forever? And how is it we are avoiding the obvious conclusion here,
> which is that when you tell people they can't have sick days or they're
> fired, they tend to take fewer sick days. Perhaps we're avoiding that line
> of thought because then we'd be talking about the crappy working conditions
> of charter schools instead of lazy-ass public school teachers.

> What about the policy discussions about sick days for teachers-- do
> communities have a vested interest in saying, "Sick teachers, please stay
> home and don't infect my kids."

> And the other important policy discussion that we never have when discussing
> how cushy a teaching job is-- why do we think that teachers should have it
> as badly as others instead of arguing that others should have it as good as
> teachers? Yes, teachers get 12 days of sick leave on average-- why doesn't
> everyone else get the same?

> ... Meanwhile, various charter organizations and Fox news are jumping on the
> headline because lazy-ass union teachers, amiright? We could dig a little
> deeper, make sure we're really understanding what's really happening, but
> you know, the clubs are here and the baby seals are here. Just sayin'. I'm
> not going to defend excessive teacher absence, but if we're going to talk
> about it, let's really talk about it and not just mine the issue for a handy
> tool for bashing unionized public school teachers.

