Are America’s urban schoolteachers working hard or hardly working? This new report from the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) uncovers some troubling evidence that points toward the latter, at least for a non-trivial subset of teachers. The analysts examined teacher-attendance data from forty large districts in 2012–13, finding that teachers in these districts were absent, on average, eleven days out of the school year. (The analysis excluded long-term absences, such as those accrued due to maternity leave or serious illness.) In fairness, eleven days is slightly less than the average number of absences allowed under these districts’ personnel policies. The averages, however, mask considerable variation across and within school districts. Across this group of districts, two Ohio cities—Cleveland and Columbus—suffered the most severe teacher-absentee problems. Cleveland’s teachers were absent an average of sixteen days, while in Columbus, they averaged fifteen. Indianapolis (six days) and the District of Columbia (seven) had the lowest average number of days absent. Within districts, too, the analysts discovered both “chronically absent” teachers (eighteen or more days absent) and those with near-perfect attendance. In Cleveland, for example, 6 percent of the teachers had “excellent” attendance—bless their hearts—while a staggering 34 percent were “chronically” absent. We can’t be sure why some districts have more acute problems with teacher absenteeism than others. But it is evident that urban districts need to do a better job of ensuring their teachers come to work. The academic stakes are high: those kids need all hands on deck.
Nithya Joseph, Nancy Waymack, and Daniel Zielaski, Roll Call: The Importance of Teacher Attendance (Washington, D.C.: National Council on Teacher Quality, June 2014).
