BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — About one in six teachers in some of
the country’s largest public school districts are out of the classroom
at least 18 days, or more than 10 percent of the time, for illness,
personal reasons and professional development, according to a report out
Tuesday that urges districts to make teacher attendance a higher
priority.
Even teachers in line with the average of 11 days out
may be hurting their students’ progress, the National Council on Teacher
Quality said.
"Given the time and attention spent on school
programs, new curriculum and strategies to strengthen teacher quality,"
the report’s authors wrote, "we may be overlooking one of the most
basic, solvable and cost effective reasons why schools may fail to make
education progress."
The Washington-based think tank examined data
provided by 40 large school districts for the 2012-13 school year and
found that, on average, teachers were in the classroom 94 percent of the
186-day school year. About 71 percent of the time taken was because of
illness or personal leave, with the rest for school business.
The
American Federation of Teachers’ president, Randi Weingarten, said "an
overall 94 percent attendance rate shows the extraordinary dedication of
teachers across the country."
The report cited studies showing students suffer when teachers are out 10 days.
"Yet
in the average classroom in this study, teachers exceed this level of
absence, often for perfectly legitimate reasons and even in pursuit of
becoming a more effective instructor," it said.
About 16 percent
of teachers missed 18 or more days and were considered chronically
absent, accounting for almost a third of all absences. The same
percentage missed 3 days or less.
The National Education
Association said the report alone would not change the way school
districts approach attendance but that the single-year snapshot fit with
larger discussions about why teachers miss school and how to give them
time out to collaborate and improve.
Some districts have raised
standards for substitute teachers to accommodate for such "productive
absences," said Segun Eubanks, director of teacher quality for the
National Education Association union, but others still require only a
high school diploma.
To train teachers only while students are off
is prohibitively expensive at more than $2 million a day for a large
district, he said.
The NCTQ report found districts spend an average of $1,800 per teacher to cover absences each year.
New
Hampshire social studies teacher Ben Adams said it’s rare he’s anywhere
but his classroom when school is in session because his consistent
presence is part of the learning environment he cultivates.
"Attendance
for a teacher, it’s not curriculum, it’s not the star of the show, but
it’s one of those subtle things that goes a long way to dealing with
other parts of teaching — classroom management, trust, risk," the Salem
High School teacher said.
Omaha, Nebraska, teacher Maddie Fennell,
on the other hand, said her national work around professional
development and policy took her out of the classroom 20 to 30 days some
years and her students and the others in her building have benefited by
posting measurable academic gains.
"When I go out and do this
work, I come back and bring the learning with me back to my school," she
said, adding that a consistent substitute teacher has helped.
Among
the report’s other findings, while some districts, including
Indianapolis and the District of Columbia, had both higher rates of
teachers with excellent attendance — three or fewer days absent — and
lower rates of chronically absent teachers, that wasn’t the rule.
Buffalo
Public Schools, for example, had the second-highest rate of excellent
attendance (30 percent) of the 40 districts studied but also the highest
rate of chronically absent teachers (37 percent) in 2012-13. The
district did not respond to requests for comment.
The report also
found no measurable relationship between teacher absence and the poverty
levels of a school’s students, nor any difference in absentee rates
among districts with policies meant to encourage attendance, such as
paying teachers for unused sick time, and districts without those
incentives.