Thompson: Attendance Challenges For Charters & Nabe Schools

The New York Times report on absenteeism at Chicago's Talent Development Charter is important, but I was struck by its mention of the city's Marshall High School.  It has an attendance rate of 53.5%! After checking out that story, I concluded that Chicago's leadership was absent without leave of their senses!  According to a 2008 Catalyst report, students at Marshall missed an astonishing average of 50 days of school. So, the district addressed the truancy problem with a new rigorous curriculum, as if it was the lack of engaging instruction that was the real problem.  Little was done to address attendance and in-house suspension was cut.  - JT (@drjohnthompson) Image via.

Comments

[Alexander Russo]

from bruce w. smith :

Probably the best quotation I have ever encountered regarding educational attendance comes from Adam Smith, of all people: "No discipline is ever requisite to force attendance upon lectures which are really worth the attending, as is well known wherever such lectures are given" ("Education of Youth", in The Wealth of Nations, Bk. V, Ch. I, Pt. III).

[john thompson]

Are you saying that kids are absent 47% of the time because they are such critics of their teachers' lecturing skills? Let's just say there is some truth that lack of effective instruction is to blame. How much of the blame goes to the high school teachers? the middle school teachers and the elementary school teachers? Then, making high school instruction more rigorous and engaging will undo the harm done to the 300 freshmen who didn't show up when they started high school?

I'm not trying to be a jerk about this. We need better, instruction. But the blame teachers for absenteeism explanation won't get us anywhere.

[Bruce]

I imagine Adam Smith's riposte here would be that the students involved will often have decided, even before they get to high school, that school has nothing of worth for them. Whether that perception is mistaken or not, the fact that they see it that way is a problem for all of us.

[john thompson]

Yes, it is a problem for us all. Hope is the createst learning aide. If students and their families lived in a world where a respected and secure job was more likely, we'd have more hope. that is not a defense of weak instruction. But the Chicago School Consortium has clearly explained why more "rigor and relevance" won't work until we lay a foundation, including teaching students to be students. The emphasis on instruction to address attendance and discipline is just a distraction from comprehensive solutions that require team efforts. Using instruction-driven professional development to address these issues is like a drunk looking for his lost keys under the street light because the light is better. The pd might have worked had it been a part of a viable, comrehensive solution. These quick fixes are chosen because they're cheaper. But millions wasted here and there add up. Someday, we may miss the money wasted on trying to build a skscraper without first laying a foundation.

[Bruce]

I agree. You and I having both worked in high schools where students lacked those foundations, we know how hard it can be to build anything lasting.

[GED Online]

I agree this become very serious situation to deal with.

[essp]

I wrote more about this

[Custom Essay Writing]

Hard to say anything about this. But i agree with you.