E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSUp to 15 percent of children in the U.S. are chronically absent from school, making them much more likely to fail and eventually drop out, a new national study shows.
As many as 7.5 million students nationwide miss a month of school each year, with absenteeism highest in kindergarten and in high school, according to Johns Hopkins University researchers.
An estimated 10 percent to 15 percent of students are "chronically absent" from school and miss enough class time to be considered a "severe risk" of not finishing high school. In urban and rural areas, where students may be poor and come from families with little education, the figures are as high as one-third of students, the study shows.
In Maryland, chronic absentee rates for poor students were "more than 30 percent, compared to less than 12 percent for students from more affluent families," according to the research.
"Because we don’t measure or monitor the problem, we generally don’t act on it," Robert Balfanz, director of the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins, said in a statement. "Left untreated, the problem will likely worsen achievement gaps between rich districts and poor districts and curtail the positive effects of promising current and future reforms."
Balfanz is one of the Johns Hopkins researchers who worked on the study. Vaughan Byrnes, a research associate, co-authored the report.
According to the study, Balfanz says only six states track chronic absenteeism: Georgia, Florida, Maryland, Nebraska, Oregon and Rhode Island. Several states, including California and New York, do not gather individual data needed to calculate chronic absenteeism, the study found.
The U.S. Department of Education doesn't track the problem; it only requires states to monitor daily attendance, according to the study.
A student is considered chronically absent if he or she misses at least a month of school in a year, or about 10 percent of school days.
Because of the limited data, Balfanz said the study was only an "educated guess" about the scope of the problem.
"Even so, the research shows that we must address the attendance problem if we're going to have the kind of broader school improvement we want and our students deserve," said Marie Groark, executive director of Get Schooled, a nonprofit group that funded the study. "When you think about it, missing one or two days a month doesn't seem like much but it adds up over time. Then, that becomes a problem and that problem has a consequence."
The Get Schooled Foundation is an educational nonprofit campaign focused on boosting graduation rates. It is partially funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:
Leave a Comment:
Parents should be held accountable for this. Put them in jail if the kid misses more than 20 days. The Feds should yank their money out of that system. This is what I hate about taxpayers footing the bill for kids. Parents should solely pay, from day ONE! I bet the kids will go then OR let Bill Gates pay for it from his foundation.
Then, they take their edumacation and inevitably vote for the Party of No.
If parents were solely responsible for the education costs of their child there would no consistency in education and those who cannot afford to front the bills for their children will likely not get a decent education. This will cost our society more in the long run, with both uneducated voters and employment problems.
As for jailing the parents, it might help, but then the child goes through an upheaval with a missing parent and possible loss of income for the family. If there is only one parent, putting kids in foster care will do them no favors unless there is abuse or neglect. As a deterrent I doubt it will work, and most successful kids already have good parents, and unsuccessful kids bad ones.
Reba - lotsabumbers:
Gosh, what a simple solution. Why didn't I think of that? Put the parents in jail. Then the kids will pay the rent, feed themselves, and go to school.
If we can pass your law, I'm going to suggest that we make being stupid a capital crime.
Sure, parents go to jail, lose their jobs and go on welfare--great thinking! AND WHO may I ask will take care of the kids and get them to school while the parents are in jail? More tax dollars? More government spending?
I have five kids; two of them this year have missed about 23 days of school. No, I am not a lazy parent. I am a stay at home mom who is fully engaged . My kids are all straight A students (seriously). This year for some reason they were REALLY SICK! We are never normally sick --but we got hit with just about every virus and bug that went around. So you would throw me in jail even though we are by all accounts pretty fabulous people ;) You are ridiculous lady ! LOL
Luckily my kids love school but there are some kids that just don't do well with lots of other children. I have several friends who have children that are very anti-social. In Ohio we have a k-12 at home education system which is free along with all the tools and computer. I would hope families that are having issues would look into these options.
Remember the school year is usually around 180 days. So with chronic absences there would either be serious medical issues that can be documented from health providers and social workers. Yes - there does need to be a discussion with the parent(s) about the amount of missed school.
It would be interesting to see what those types of discussions found. In cases where there were real medical concerns then they can be addressed and in those cases where it is parents having issues in getting the kids to school it can be addressed with the parents.
And yes the Fed should get out of the education system. Every state has their own education system and there is no reason for the feds to be in it except to meddle. Let the states do it!
Possibly the teaching is so bad that the kids, even if they want to learn, have no desire to go to school.
I am sure that's it. Kids want to learn, but the teaching is so bad that, with a heavy heart, they choose to stay home and play video games.
Disgusting.....and after all the money thrown at the school system by the Feds and the State, and "kids" faill to show up to go to class and get an education.
The last time I checked, 67% of my real estate taxes go towards my school district funding, and our "Golden Castle Builder School Administrators" are putting ANOTHER School Levy on the ballot. The one I really liked was......a $ 42,000,000 football/track field complex (supposed to be used for the community....HA).
Many parents won't even pay for their childrens school lunches, do you really think that these people are going to pay for their kids to go to school, if they arent' concerned whether their child eats or not? The government makes education cumpulsory so just like the mandatory health care insurance now in question, imagine the lawsuits, or the enforcement issues.
Jailing parents not fix the underlying problem.
I was chronically absent from school from kindergarten onward. I was severely bored. It was glorified babysitting in my juvenile eyes. Especially, when you're taking high school level classes and a majority of the teachers would frequently just show us video tapes to keep us occupied, instead of actually spending their time teaching a lesson. I may be the exception, but I would cut school to go to the county library and read.
Something has to be severely lacking in the educational system if a kid is going to play hookey so that they can do research and gain knowledge on their own.
Perhaps, if the school systems were concerned with actually making learning something that engages a child's mind, that child might want to go to school. Instead, our places of learning have just become system of pumping dull canned information designed to get the little ones through another painful round of standardized testing for that particular year.
I was absent quite a lot from high school. The cause was general boredom and frustratiion with my peers. Public schools tend teach to the lowest common denominator which is incredibly frustrating to someone well above average. There was only a limited number of honors/AP classes available which didn't help the matter and being a rural area there was no PSEO option. When I graduated I had only been in school roughly as many days as a junior that had never missed one.
Then many of them they take their lack of education and poor work habits and get affirmative actioned ahead of the harder working students, in the name of justice. Sort of like Barry O
Heck - everyone one in the educational system is supposed to have a degree (administrators have doctorates) but none of them have figured out if school started before 7am and ended after 6pm everyone could make sure their kid gets to school.
How can you be expected to monitor someone who leaves after you do and arrives before you get home. You have a degree and you can't figure out that is why we have teenage pregnancy?
Class is so boring at the high school. I am in a program where I go to a Community College instead of my high school and classes are much more interesting. I actually want to go to class!
I can sympathise. I may have graduated high school a long time ago, but I remember the very watered down history and english classes. I am reading a book on Prohibition, and it's vastly different than what I had learned in school. A millions times more educational than what I learned in school.
Sadly the PC patrol is afraid that someone may be offended or a parent doesn't agree in what is being taught, so out curriculums are devoid of anything interesting.
And yes, once you hit any level of college things are much more interesting and challenging!
Congratulations Satanick! My daughter went the same route and is now working on her Masters. She really enjoyed getting out of high school and all of the drama there.
my fifth grade teacher was kinda grumpy and pretty dull and when i complained i got no sympathy. boring or not, my parents impressed on me it was my job to get as much as i could from any teacher i had. sure i got more out of an education when i was in college. but it was as much as my level of maturity than anything else.
That is a great program, my kids have all utilized that and it put's them so far ahead of their peers, good luck to you in your college career.
Best friend was a chronic absenteer. She did fail a few classes and she had to make up for it with extra classes in College. For her it was a combination of the individual and the parents allowing her to skip school often.
As KimZee pointed out, it's not just lazy students that miss school. Ultimately though, it's up to the parents to end to deal with the reasons why a child wants or has to miss school. Bullying is a reason I can see kids wanting to skip school, and that will need the intervention of both parents and the school staff.
It does need to be addressed, but let's not get zealous about it. I enjoyed my two days with mom when she called me in sick, we went out and had fun, and my grades were fine. But that was it, two days. If I wasn't really sick I was in school.
Some cultures view education in a negative way.
well THAT'S going to work out to their advantage.
Certainly will, we call it affirmative action, they call it equal opportunity employment, go figure.
It's time to cut the underachievers loose. If they don't want to come, don't come. But, no welfare, no handouts. No child left behind? Then all kids suffer. Leave the ones that won't come to class behind, it's better for society as a whole.
You're painting chronic absenteeism with an awfully broad brush there, Mike.
I was chronically absent and ultimately dropped out of high school to get a job with a pharmaceutical company. I have never wanted or asked for a dime of government money and never will.
Missing school was never about laziness. It was about severe boredom and frustration with teachers not doing their job of educating me. I can't possibly be the only person out here who felt that way.
For the sake of reference, I attended high school in a state that required more gym credits to graduate, than credits for math, science and history combined.
Many countries actually restrict enlistment in public schools to the most aggressive learners and students who really want to get an education. In America, it's normal for many kids to 'flunk out' because they have no values or incentives. Unfortunately, there's not much that can be done except just drop these kids from the school rolls. What the US needs is a 'new CCC' (Civilian Conservation Corps) that could put all these kids to work and try to teach them the value of an education. Current education policies of 'entitling' everyone and 'not leaving anyone behind' is flawed, because many kids just do not have what it takes to get an education and you cannot dictate that to anyone. Just find a niche in low paying menial jobs and put these kids to work.
I've always thought there should be a tax credit for any family whose children get perfect attendance, or for high grades. Poor families tend to value education less than affluent families, so they don't see bad grades as a big deal. But they respond well to financial carrots.
But I knew parents that would actually punish their children for bringing home homework or getting good grades. They saw it as "selling out" and worried that their kids were potentially "abandoning" them. Their greatest fear was that their kids would grow up and move away, so they wanted very very desperately for them to fail at school and live at home forever.
It appears we're looking at future Wall Street "Occupiers"
Hey JA, you'd be surprised to know that the average OW protester has far more education than the average republican who hasn't graduated from high school and is raking grass in the parks where OWer's do their protesting.
gee whiz, this must be brand new information, because obviously the creators of "no child left behind" wouldn't have required 100% of students to be proficient in reading and math if they knew some kids didn't even present themselves to the teachers often enough to be taught.
Sure they would still have done it, because it is always the teachers' fault. The students have NO responsibilty under NCLB and the teachers' have no authority to insure homework is done, students get sleep and food, etc. NCLB is doing its' true job: crushing education and crushing unions. Keep 'em dumb so the political and wealthy elite get to keep all the toys. Populace will be so stupid they will support their own repression. It works. We have a Tea Party now to prove that.
"It appears we're looking at future Wall Street "Occupiers""
Unlikely... since many of the people in Occupy Wall Street are educated. Your perception of them as all homeless street people is laughable and typical of what Fox news programming would make you think.
In any case...its easy to handle absent children. Give them some motivational trips... take them to McDonalds and show them what they'll be doing the rest of their lives and ask them if they think thats cool.
My oldest son in junior high says that the lack of discipline is the biggest reason he cannot pay attention and doesn't want to be in school. The annoying students take away from the teacher's time and the students that want to learn. No kid wants to fail, but some of the material as early as the 6th grade is ridiculous beyond expectations to understand or memorize and for what? The entire education system needs to be looked for importance in just basic grammar classes so students can compose written works that prepare them for the college level. Also, all students do not need to prepare for college. An apprenticeship or trade school also works wonders and these workers are still in high demand as more skilled workers retire. Soon my family will switch school districts where school start times are reasonable, high school has art, music, or vocational education as a requirement to graduate, and the student-teacher ratio is 20:1. Students of single parents, have it very hard because one parent has to check their homework assignments and help every night in subjects they may have not done in many years. Students and parents get frustrated and soon the student does not want to go to school. Also, the bullying is out of hand and needs to be treated with a no tolerance discipline of suspensions and expulsions from school. Parents of little miss and mr perfect need to realize that sometimes their kid is the monster of bullying too. I've always told my kids not to start a fight, but it's ok to end it if they must. The way to get kids to want to go to school is to help them not fail with good teachers that can teach without classroom distractions by certain disruptive students on a daily basis. Put the paddle back in the classroom and things will change for the better along with higher attendence.
Twenty to one - wow! In California we now have forty to one. Yes, we need strong disciplinarian teachers in our classrooms. The best teachers are all set to retire - all those women who became teachers instead of lawyers. The young teachers often have little to no control of a classroom or want to be the student's "friend." The strongest candidates find better paying jobs elsewhere. Do you want to control a class of forty fourteen year olds for $35,000 a year? Most of those kids cannot be controlled by two parents in a two to one ratio!
It all has to do with work ethic of both the parents and students. When I attended school in the 60's and early 70's, one of my yearly goals was to attain perfect attendance and be rewarded for that at the end of the school year. Of course sicknesses will occur; in that case, teachers must make it a point to send make-up work home so that the sick students can study at home and not lose any ground in the curriculum. Positive attitudes toward school and learning must be promoted first at home by the parents and secondly by the school teachers and administrators. Another tool that would enhance the school experience is mandatory participation in some extracurricular activities, such as sports, band, choir, etc. Parents are not doing their kids any favors by allowing them to "skip" school or to sleep in on a school day; accountability must be maintained and enforced.
The republican party is growing by leaps and bounds!
What we really need is a few more excuses for the thirty percent of the population that will not graduate from high school. The Girls will end up pregnant and on welfare, the boys will also receive a tax payer housing plan. One thing that they will never have, is a job.
If there is a law, make it so that they are required to stay in school until they are twenty five, or graduate high school.
A lot of these children see no future for them self's. All they see is a life of just getting by and no hope for the American dream.
With all of the illegal aliens, economic down turns and watching their parents struggle they just live for the day.
These statics did not occur when the United States was the major manufacturing center of the world.
You have a choice you as a country can keep turning out uneducated misfits or you can bring the jobs back to the United States.
Researchers have studied this issue for decades. Literally. But--rather than listening to educators and educational researchers--policy makers (both R's and D's) refuse to listen to educators and educational researchers. You want to know what makes a difference-what research has shown makes a difference? Making the school the community center. Creating wrap-around services for students and families. Approaching school attendance as a way to work with families--rather than punishing families--many of whom have to choose between their younger children being taken care of--or sending the older children to school. Working with families who have kids with physical illnesses--so that either the child recovers quicker, or the school provides home services for those children with more significant health issues--so the kids don't lose out on the education. Making the school the center for learning, social services, and even basic health care. What makes the difference are teachers who have the time to make home visits (and are PAID for it!)--all the way through secondary school. What makes the difference is curriculum that is child centered and developmentally appropriate. What research shows makes the difference are teachers with reasonable amount of students in their classrooms. Are high schools that are embraced by their community colleges or near-by universities--are secondary educators and administrators who are open to reform. What makes the difference are teachers who are not prejudiced like so many of you, toward students who are different then themselves. What makes the difference are teachers and adults in schools that believe in students--instead of teachers and adults in the school who are so bullied by out of control administrators, parents, and "the public", so scared of losing their job if the "test scores" aren't high enough--and so burned out that they have learned to not care about their students just for self-survival. You know what it takes to get all of this????? LISTENING TO THE PEOPLE WHO KNOW WHAT THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT--WHO ARE IN THE "FIELD"--WHO WORK WITH THESE KIDS AND FAMILIES!!! Not idiotic people like most of you who like to spout off rhetoric, but are not really willing to do what it takes. There is no "take a pill and it will be all better in the morning". It takes investment--both personal, time, and yes--money! It takes paying teachers as much as the administrators who often create half of the problems in the schools. It takes being willing to do what it takes to touch student and family lives. People are NOT machines--and until the people of this country grasp that concept--and push for policies that stop trying to "make" children learn--as if they were cars on an assembly line--we will NEVER get anywhere!!!
So--if you really want to do something about this--I would suggest calling your state Senators and Congresspeople--and tell them to quit sitting on the reauthorization of "No Child Left Behind"--as they have literally been "sitting" on it since 2008--and likely will make NO CHANGES to it until after this year's election!!!! It was due to be reauthorized in 2008!!! If you really want to make a difference--than DO SOMETHING--rather than just babble about it on here!
I obtained custody of two of my nieces this last fall at the beginning of the school year. I knew that they had many absense throughout their school careers but had no idea of the extent. During the 2010=2011 school year the oldest who was a Junior in high school missed 67 days! That is over one-third of the school year, and the younger one who was in eighth grade missed 48 days, but worse yet the eighth grader failed every class through 6th, 7th, and 8th grade, and they continued to promote her to high school with a 2nd grade reading level, did her parents fail her absolutely, but the school completely dropped the ball, how do you send someone to high school who hasn't passed a class since before 6th grade, and with a 2nd grade reading ability?
We sent our kids to a nice charter school, with some of the best test scores in the state.
My son keeps scoring below proficient in reading, but only by a few points. He improves at a steady rate, but is always behind his classmates.
This year, his teacher has been keeping him after school for tutoring, and we found out quite by accident that he reads better through colored transparencies. (he borrowed them from his dyslexic friend, who needs them to be able to read at all)
By working hard, we've gotten him up to grade level. At this school, 95% of the students read at grade level.
flash to a different school, down in the poor neighborhood, where my wife works as a special-ed pre-K teacher.
In this school, it's reversed. 5% of the kids read at proficient. I think the actual number of proficient readers in the school was 7. Our son, had he gone there, would have stuck out of the crowd -- as one of the top readers in the school. He never would have gotten after-school tutoring, and he never would have discovered the colored transparencies.
According to my wife, they're required to "teach to the median." Even though it's a failing school, they have to pretend like the "median" student there is a "normal" student, and tailor their lessons accordingly. They're not allowed to hold them back grades.
She has parent teacher conferences twice a year. 90% of the parents simply don't show up. She's sitting there with their paperwork, progress reports, examples of their work, and suggestions on how to improve. She waits for an hour, then puts it all away and gets out the papers for the next kid. And sits there, waiting for parents to show up. These are all times the parents agreed to on the phone, and they just don't care enough to bother.
There's no recourse. The parents aren't legally obligated to show interest in their children, or to care about how well they do in school. So they don't. They have a legal obligation to send the kids to school, so they do. They treat it like free, state-funded daycare, and are happy to get the kids out of their hair for a few hours.
The teachers at this school are furious and frustrated and frequently go home crying... they want to help their kids so much, but in the face of such severe apathy there's only so much progress they can make. And now the new plan from the Governor is that teacher pay will be cut if their students don't reach "proficient" on their tests. No rewards for having students who do well -- just pay cuts if they don't. Clearly, they think the problem is that the teachers are simply sitting on their butts and not spending any time trying to teach the kids.
Level 1 teachers qualify for food stamps, they get paid so little (in our state, anyway). Most wash out and quit before they've taught for 5 years. And now if they don't perform miracles in the classroom, and instantly reverse generations of apathy, they'll be even worse off.
Until we find a way to get parents involved in their children's education, this situation will not get better. I don't know how to do this. You can't legislate good parenting. You can't make people have genuine emotional involvement. You can't coerce them into caring. But that is what is so desperately needed.
MSpielman: wow, so very sad, tragic. You are fortunate that the charter school in your area works. In our area, all the charters do is make a profit while the students fail, and the entire public school system may close down next January because there is absolutely no money for the schools at that point.
I doubt that anyone really thinks the problem is the teachers. Instead, what I see most often is that those who blame the teachers are politicians or people in jobs where political connections are critical to keeping the job (like School Superintendents). They play the blame-game with teachers because otherwise, they would have to be honest and fault the voters, aka parents. It is sickening.
Our son attends college. Based on what he tells us, the chronic absenteeism extends beyond kindergarten through high school. It's a problem at the college level too.
I attend college at the age of 45. I don't miss class because I have to pay for it. The younger students who are there on mommy/daddy money don't care. They aren't paying for it.
Of course, it is always the teacher's fault that these chronically absent students don't show up to school. The students and parents have no responsibility to get their children to school - The schools are judged on Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in California, yet if the students refuse to go to school, it is still the school's fault they are not in school to learn. In rare cases, the parents can be fined for their children not going to school.
I think that parents should have to pay $1,000 per year as a "deposit" for each child each year their children are in school. If the student has no unexcused absences for the school year, then the $1,000 could go into a college savings account that would earn interest. For students and parents who refuse to go to school or refuse to make their children go such as walking them directly to class each day, if necessary each day, even for high school students, then these parents would forfeit the $1,000 deposit.
If they don't want to forfeit the deposit, then they would have to do summer school and community service. So, after 13 years of public school ( kindergarten + 12 years) with no unexcused absences, each child would have $13,000 automatically saved for college or put in an account for other students who want to go to college.
The problem with U.S schools is that many students and parents don't value a public education and many students would rather use school for socializing and texting instead of learning. At least by the parents putting a deposit on a federally-mandated "Free Access to Education"- FAPE , they would still have access to a free public education, but there would be a penalty for their children cutting school and education would then have an immediate mark on their pocketbook.
I can't understand why "poor" students in high school don't have money for school supplies, but they can afford a $250 cell phone bill each month. Schools in California cannot require students to pay for supplies or lab supplies or anything. Everything has to be provided - and so of course they don't appreciate it.
Twenty years ago, very few people had cell phones - and there will probably always be landline phones in the school offices for "emergencies." The only reason a student should really have access to a cell phone during school hours is if the student has a doctor's note saying that it is medically necessary. Otherwise, they can use the office phone to call home. I can't believe how many hours of teacher and administrator time is taken up enforcing no cell phone rules in schools- What a waste of time. If parents would program their children's cell phones to be non-functioning during school hours, then this would be a mute point- but it actually might raise test scores. Students don't have the cognitive ability to make appropriate decisions, and using the cell phone and texting is too much of a temptation during class.
If the United States wants to improve test scores, the students themselves need to be held responsible and their parents for getting their children to school on time every day. The schools cannot succeed in a vacuum to improve attendance and test scores, but test scores are not important to students because they are not tied to grades.
At least in Japan, parents and students are very motivated for their children to do well in school - including doing extra studying on Saturdays to be able to pass rigorous entrance exams to high schools and college. Those who don't do well on those tests go on to be laborers or enroll in vocational school, but not prestigious college. In the United States, everyone is expected to go to high school - whether they want to or not - and all schools are ingrained to encourage all students regardless of ability or intelligence to go to college. To make United States schools more relevant to students, we need to bring back vocational training for skilled trades because those professions - welding, plumbing, carpentry, cooking, etc. are always going to be in demand, but don't need a college degree. With college tuition doubling every 10 years, pretty soon very few people will be able to afford to go to college anyway, so no wonder so many United States students are disengaged from school. School is simply not relevant to them.
For kindergarteners, there is no excuse for not getting their children to school. It is just a matter of priorities for the parents. Every day they miss in school, however, means that those students are more likely to not be able to read by 3rd grade, meaning that they will likely be functionally illiterate for the rest of their lives and most certainly not going to college. Most prisoners are functionally illiterate, so I guess that is where this country is going in the next 50 years, when most of our citizens will be in jail and most of the educated people will come from overseas where education is valued by students and parents.
I love how you have a thousand dollars at the beginning of every school year to put down. Too bad most of us don't. My step daughter never misses a class, but she is lazy and dumb as a rock. So she is failing. Money I don't have put towards a college fund for her? Don't make me throw up.
I know a woman who taught in Japan for two years. The children almost never see their parents. They are kept in school activities like 12 hours a day. The teachers become their surrogate parents.
Maybe some day our country will step into the 21st Century and find more creative ways to educate our youth. We are not preparing students to one day work in factories anymore, so why do they sit at desks, listening to lectures, memorizing stuff they can find in books and regurgitating the info on tests? Even Einstein was against memorization - look it up. Was school ever stimulating or interesting to most kids? It was more like an institution, and who wants to be institutionalized? And so it will go until the process of learning becomes more dynamic and interactive. Also, I think this experiment of sending kids to daycare so both parents can work, and then no parent being home to greet kids once they reach junior high and high school is failing miserably. I think it was better when one parent worked and the other stayed home as the gatekeeper.
lolo43: No Child Left Behind turned many classrooms into memorization factories. Yes, school was stimulating and interesting to students with intellectual curiousity and common sense recognition that the more you know, the better prepared you are for life in general, and not just WHAT you know, but the fact that you have learned to learn and to be aware that there is more going on in life that will impact you other than Mary Jane's latest nail pollish or who kissed who last night. One good thing that came of my years many decades ago of sitting in desks and listening was that I first and foremost learned some self-discipline, learned to control my childish urges, and for goodness sakes learned to listen instead of running my mouth with gossip all day and all through class. I have been in many classrooms and not only is there a very large lack of impulse control in about 1/3 of all of the students, many of the students believe they are completely justified to constantly do as they wish and will tell that to any adult straight out. e.g. cell phones, texting, talking all through class because it is 'boring'. Well, every job in the world is boring to some extent, that is why you get a paycheck to do it. Doing laundry and cleaning the house, paying bills and doing dishes isn't exciting either. You have to suck it up and grow up. Students today deny that. And I've seen them come to the job with that very same attitude.
There was a girl at my high school years ago that everyone thought was just a loser who skipped school, but it turned out she was physically abused by her dad so much she skipped until her injurys healed enough so nobody could find out. So sad.
Ah! Good Ole American Justice gone aray! Pure Racism is Alive & Well in America. Beating 15 year olds and killing the Black youth! So why is this happening in our America today? Because "we the Stupid People" voted these racists, liars, and corrupt politicians into office. register to Vote and educate yourselves on the candidates real agenda. Follow their votes, and if they screw up Vote them out. Vote out the politicians who are holding our Nation Hostage. Who are they? Rich white, backed by rich white corrupt Big Corps. March on your state capitols, and Vote like your lives depend on it. Because they do.
what the hell does that have to do with student absenteeism?
The US has the fewest school days for the developed world now and they you miss classes. You can't put parents in jail but if they receive any aid at all it should be tied to making sure their kids make it to class. If they are still not making it to class then maybe we do need to revisit the whole concept of orphanages. What we are doing now just isn't working and you just have babies having babies and it is a vicious cycle.
This is far less about the schools (although some areas need help) and more about the parents and their children's home life. There is a general malaise of accountablity growing in this country and there doesn't seem to be any end to it.
Even when they do attend, there's a degradation of respect and discipline in the school system. No wonder rules and policy carry little weight with the kids.
FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY someone is addressing this problem. I work in a very poor county in NC where 85% of the students are on free or reduced lunches. We buy them clothes, feed them and on mandatory EOG testing days, we have to go track down and start calling first thing in the morning to get them to school. Yet millions are ready to blame the teachers if these students don't make the grade. I can't begin to tell you how absolutely devastating it is to a teacher to have a student to miss school when you know that student is already teetering on failure. Most of our energy goes into trying to save these students, sometimes ignoring those who are either self-motivated or come from homes that push education. So while you think our salary's should be cut, remember this. We are not in it for the money; we are in it to save these children. Very few, and I do mean very few, are in it just to retire and get out. No one stays at my school just to retire. We have very committed teachers who cry when these students don't make the grade. Just saying...