The Wall Street Journal has an article out today describing the problem of persistent absenteeism among some teachers in New York City’s public schools. According to the article:
One-fifth of New York City teachers missed work for more than two weeks last school year, with absenteeism most acute in some of the poorest districts, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.
The reporter goes on to write that in Brownsville, 24.4% of teachers were absent more than ten days, while 22.1% of teachers more than exhausted their leave time in the South Bronx and 13.2% did so in the Upper East Side.
Most of us are familiar with what happens in classrooms when teachers are away. Too often students are given “busy work” assignments, shown films only tangentially related to academic content, or barraged with worksheets and crossword puzzles. The monetary and student achievement costs of teacher absenteeism are high, as both the journalist and CAP’s Raegan Miller aptly note:
The city spent $119 million on substitute teachers last year, and studies show that, particularly for poor children, teacher absences affect student progress.
“It’s one of those underbelly topics that no one focuses on, but contributes to the achievement gap,” said Raegen T. Miller, associate director for education research at Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank. He pointed to research that has found that every 10 absences lowers math achievement by the same amount as having a teacher with one- to two-years experience instead of a teacher with three- to five-years experience.
If true, that’s startling!
But (and this is where I’m a softy): Isn’t missing ten days of work sometimes understandable? Even though teachers only instruct students for about 180 school days each year, the rigid school day schedule blocks their calendars from 8 AM to 4 PM, Monday through Friday, for ten months each year. Sure, teachers are free on holidays and for extended breaks twice a year, but those are dates when dentists’ offices are closed, children’s school plays aren’t happening, and sickness rarely sets in.
When it comes to schedules, planning, and time, teaching is a demanding, inflexible job. The way teachers and schools use time has been studied thoroughly by my colleague Elena Silva, who has an outstanding piece on the topic in Educational Leadership this month. Her message: Improving the school calendar can improve teacher quality and make teaching a more attractive profession.
Until school schedules are redesigned for the 21st century, policymakers and school system administrators must search for creative ways to ensure that our nation’s poorest students continue to learn while their teachers are out of school. These could include:
- Encouraging newly retired teachers to serve as substitute teachers for a few years so that they can continue academic instruction while classroom teachers are absent.
- Requiring teachers to design lesson plans at the beginning of the year that review basic grade-appropriate material and can be carried out by any substitute teacher.
- Building virtual learning labs that allow students to review new or old topics and complete assessments while their teachers are away.
Continuing with the status quo in policies related to teacher absences and school time is simply too costly—for our budgets and for our students.
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I’d come to settle with you here. Which is not something I typically do! I love reading a post that will make people think. Also, thanks for allowing me to comment!
Teacher absenteeism is always a difficult subject to discuss. One way school districts can maintain the quality of education while the permanent teacher is unavailable is to train substitute teachers in classroom management, teaching strategies, as well as professionalism.
Another aspect to training is teaching permanent teachers how to write subplans. Permanent teachers need to go back to their “college style” of writing lesson plans which include an objective and clearly defined procedures. This helps substitute teachers know what the permanent teacher expects of them.
Once a school district will train their substitute teachers and ask permanent teachers to write more detailed lesson plans, they will see the quality of their substitute teacher pool increase.
I’m sitting here with fever and a raging sore throat. I teach kindergarten in Elmhurst, Queens. Parents send their children to school sick, coughing, sneezing,
and drippy noses. There are bedbug bites, head lice to contend with, and stained, dirty clothing that is rarely changed. Then we have the filthy rugs in the classroom, that haven’t been cleaned as they should have been because of budget cuts.
It is more than easy to sit back in your lily world and comment to lay blame and find fault with teachers. Do the employees at Goldman Sachs work in an environment similar to the one described above?
Bet you didn’t even think about those things.
Anathema,
I agree with your point about the current incentive structure attached to teacher absences. It’s almost as if the system wants you to be absent at least ten days. You’re right: Who would take half a candy bar tomorrow when you can have a whole candy bar today?
TFT,
We were so close to fully agreeing on a point until you threw out the carpool lane idea. What about fire fighters, ditch diggers, construction workers, social workers, and furniture makers? Teaching is an noble profession, but too many other people out there are working hard as well.
Public sector absence is causing a lot of headaches in the UK. The gap between public and private sector sick days has not escaped the media’s attention, but obviously it’s a very politically sensitive topic.
The relative generosity of public sector absence pay and conditions is part of the issue but not the whole issue by any means.
I’ve had a year where I missed more than ten days, I was hospitalized for eight days with a stroke and required heart surgery. I only missed eight school days due to this, sometimes it is simply unavoidable. Also, I tend to miss one or two days a year simply due to bad weather. This year was the first time we had two snow days and one of those I was already half way to work when school was finally closed (the Klein/ Bloomberg administration has been terrible when it comes to having a clue on these snow days).
Also, this system encourages people to use their ten “sick” days. If you don’t use the days, you only get paid for half of them upon retirement, thus it’s better to use the days rather than lose them.
Really? The calendar is the problem? Or the swine flu? Or meetings and conferences? Those things affect all schools equally..
Interesting ideas. Though what bothered me about the WSJ piece (beyond the bashing in the comments section- I felt like I was reading the post) was that included in those days were days that teachers took to attend meetings and conferences. So it appeared that people were taking more than ten days to not go to work, when that may not have been the case. I am always sent to 2-3 meetings a year and I take 2 days to attend a statewide conference for teachers in my subject area. I always get great ideas to bring back to my classroom.
I also wonder, with the swine flu epidemic, if that made the numbers higher. I missed three days in the third to last week of school because I had swine flu and at least two other staff members had it as well. Fortunately my own child didn’t get sick or I would have missed even more time.
One of the problems any substitute faces is behavior. When you don’t know the kids like the regular teacher does, classroom management becomes one of the only things a sub gets to deal with.
So, it’s not so much about better subs or sub plans, it’s about allowing teachers, who get between 10 and 15 paid sick days, to use those days as necessary to do those things you so generously point out are necessary for even teachers–dentist appts, your own child’s production or conference, etc…
If folks don’t want teachers taking 10 days off a year, maybe they should renegotiate the contract that gives teachers those days off!
But slamming teachers for using their allowed days seems unfair.
Another suggestion that could help teachers: give teachers carpool lane access, even when they are alone in the car, like hybrids!
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