AM News: Attendance Averages Hide Absence Problems

Up to 15 Percent of Students Chronically Skip School, Johns Hopkins Finds NYT: A study by researchers at John Hopkins University found that as many as 15 percent of students miss at least one school day in 10, and have gone undetected because of the way attendance is measured. ALSO Chronic Absenteeism Hurts Millions Of Students HuffPost, Study: 7.5 million students miss a month of school each year USAT

Fla. Students Crash After State Raises Bar On Test NPR: The Florida Board of Education has voted to temporarily lower the passing grade for its state writing test after a dramatic drop in scores on this year's exam. The state had made the test more difficult and raised the passing grade in an attempt to upgrade standards. But education officials were stunned when preliminary results showed the passing rate for 4th graders this year had plummeted from 80 percent to less than 30 percent.

House Panel Takes A Look at School Choice, Parent Triggers Politics K12: Parent trigger laws have gotten a lot of attention lately—and they're about to get even more when theHollywood version comes out later this year.

MORE NEWS ITEMS INSIDE

What Does a First-Grade Journalist Look Like? PBS: When my colleague Mike Fritz and I headed down to St. Petersburg, Fla., recently, we knew we were going to see young journalists at work. It's not too hard to imagine that middle school students with a bit of training can write for a newspaper or even shoot video; plenty of kids have cellphones with cameras these days. But birthing journalists from first grade? I couldn't imagine how it was done -- until we arrived at Melrose Elementary, a journalism magnet school.

CPS plans 60 more charters in 5 years Chicago Tribune: Chicago Public Schools plans to create 60 more charter schools over five years, which would increase the share of privately run charters to about a quarter of all schools in the district.

OSSE report: District pays at least $10 million to educate non-resident students Washington Post: The District has been trying to save a few dollars by reducing the number of special education students in expensive private schools at public expense.

Some elementary foreign language programs losing ground as budget cuts take toll Boston Globe: Biting into foreign tongues Traditional foreign language classes have been stripped from Massachusetts elementary schools over the past decade, forced out by tight budgets and high-stakes testing.

99 Percent of N.Y. School Budgets Meeting Tax Cap Pass NYT: School officials said the high passage rate reflected tight budgets and staff cuts as most districts fought to stay under the new limit.

 

Comments

[Sarah]

Re: School Choice - The town I grew up in always had high school choice. It worked great when I was in school. A couple years ago, the town started to explore choosing one high school and forcing all students to attend that school. While their numbers looked great, they ignored little things like how would a rush of 180 students affect this school that already had full classrooms. In the end, it came out that the school would have to double some of their teaching staff and bring in trailers to handle the classroom overflow.

It's parent involvement that kept school choice from being eliminated. Sadly, this community also has a higher than normal percentage of parents who either work from home or gave up careers to stay home. In communities where parents must work one or two jobs to stay afloat, getting them as involved is tricky.

[Sarah]

Re: Chronic Absenteeism - I know chronic absenteeism is a problem at schools, but it can also be a problem with students who are legitimately sick and named a chronic offender by the school. While I've never had an ear infection, my brother got them all the time. He had tubes put in his ears twice, adenoids removed twice, and nothing was helping. The doctors stopped letting him have antibiotics because they feared he was building a resistance to them and that frequently lead to his eardrums rupturing from the pressure if the tubes had fallen out. One year, he missed 5 days of school due to doctor/specialist visits or simply the pain of the infection itself. My mom felt if he was in pain to the point he was crying, it was pointless sending him to school where he'd simply be a distraction and be unable to focus on his work anyway.

After missing five days, his 4th grade teacher sent home a note saying he was chronically absent, just after 5 days. My mom had to attend a disciplinary hearing over this, even though the doctor sent them a letter stating the problem. When he missed two more days, they threatened to report her to the state if he missed three more. Meanwhile, even with the absences, his grades remained straight A's. Kids who were barely pulling C's and missed days here and there didn't get any notice or warnings. It seems to me that the school in our area targets specific kids and I can't figure out why.