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School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

nytimes.com

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Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#41

Post by Cthulhu_ »

cies wrote: post #13
janwillemb wrote: post #11

> attendance has become optional I recognize this with my own kids and my students. Two things: 1) since the pandemic the bar for a sick day has been lowered drastically. 2) Educational material can be found online in most of the cases, at least in my university. Students think they can handle it themselves from home. These are not necessarily bad developments. What would be interesting to see is if the drop out rate…

> Students think they can handle it themselves from home. Some have show to do well from home, especially when schools opened up a little bit at the end of the pandemic: all was online, some students thrived!

Oh for sure, but the challenge is that every student has different needs; some thrive in at-home self-directed study, others need one on one care, others need a classroom environment, etc.

Policy is set through statistics and cost / benefit though; the protestant classroom setting for a good while was the most cost-effective way to get many students up to a specific level. It wasn't perfect, but it worked at the time.

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#42

Post by dr-detroit »

fideloper wrote: post #26

Our kids were too young for school during the pandemic (thank god, it seems like it really messed up kids lives). Now they're both in early-years of school. Attendance is kinda interesting! We parents EXTREMELY want the kids to go to school as it's the much-needed break to get our own work done - both in basic upkeep of our lives/household, and in our careers. We need the school hours to be long. Longer than they are…

[dead]

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#43

Post by bluedevil2k »

diggan wrote: post #5

> In a working-class pocket of Michigan, school administrators have tried almost everything, including pajama day, to boost student attendance. Wow, pajama day didn't bring back students? So strange. I wonder if they tried less homework, shorter school-days and/or later start of the day? Basically the three reasons I myself was chronically absent from school for as long as I can remember.

Less homework? My teenage children are in honors and AP classes and barely have any homework. I think they should have far more homework. When I was their age I spent a few hours a day on homework. Parents I talk to feel the same way. Give the kids more work to do at home to keep them off their phones and YouTube.

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#44

Post by candiddevmike »

jawns wrote: post #18

Is it possible that expectations around attendance have never been reasonable or even safe? In an ideal world, people shouldn't go to work or school when they are sick. Not only does it slow their recovery, but in the case of communicable diseases, it spreads the illness. Yet a lot of schools have released post-pandemic guidance about how students should still come to school with minor illnesses. And most workplaces…

In my area, you get 10 days of unexcused absence per year before parents and kids start receiving fines and possibly a referral to CPS. That number is way too small IMO, and it forces folks to go to the doctor constantly for getting small illnesses excused (school policies are 24 hours without a fever, but they don't take temperatures, it's honor based...), since you want to keep those 10 days for an actual vacation.

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#46

Post by eptcyka »

mattw2121 wrote: post #9

"because teachers must slow down and adjust their approach to keep everyone on track." Do this and then you'll have your top performers start being absent as well -- out of boredom. I'd suggest sending kids that are lagging behind, and those that have high absentee rates, into remedial classes. Education should get kids excited about learning. From my experience, nothing gets kids more excited than the feeling that t…

Clearly you were a highly performant pupil. Most absentees in my experience were excited about tagging, smoking tobacco and other substances, working on their mopeds, consuming alcohol and going on adventures to other cities/countries.

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#47

Post by EZ-E »

A tangent thought - I may be out of touch but I am amazed of little the school system changed over time (at least in my country), while in 2024 literally all the knowledge and all there is to learn in school (at least until university) is available on the internet with top quality video or resources. Yet students are expected to show up every day at 8 AM to 5 PM in my country.

When I remember my classes in high school - 90+% of the time is just the teacher talking, us copying on notes, the teacher demonstrating something or letting us do assignments present in the school book, it might as well be a video or interactive content. Do we really still need children to learn in this way and structure nowadays? Or is it just to let parents work they 9 to 6? It all feels... very inefficient somehow.

(ps : I do not have children in school, as most readers probably guessed)

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#48

Post by Filligree »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #35
mattw2121 wrote: post #9

"because teachers must slow down and adjust their approach to keep everyone on track." Do this and then you'll have your top performers start being absent as well -- out of boredom. I'd suggest sending kids that are lagging behind, and those that have high absentee rates, into remedial classes. Education should get kids excited about learning. From my experience, nothing gets kids more excited than the feeling that t…

Yeah, the ones that are lagging need more personal attention and fine-tuned lessons; unfortunately part of the issue is the teacher shortage, so they can't really make smaller classes.

Maybe sort the classes by ability, then?

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#49

Post by mhitza »

542458 wrote: post #19
diggan wrote: post #5

> In a working-class pocket of Michigan, school administrators have tried almost everything, including pajama day, to boost student attendance. Wow, pajama day didn't bring back students? So strange. I wonder if they tried less homework, shorter school-days and/or later start of the day? Basically the three reasons I myself was chronically absent from school for as long as I can remember.

The article highlights that many parents whose children are absent are treating the posted assignments/homework as the primary teaching tool, so cutting that back hurts absent kids (I also understand that homework’s has been massively scaled back already in most places). Shorter days unfortunately interferes with school’s role as state-provided daycare for working parents. Later days is a solid idea, and I believe re…

> Shorter days unfortunately interferes with school’s role as state-provided daycare for working parents.

If that would be the intent, arcade cabinets, open play fields, parks and other social areas within school grounds would be the way to go.

My understanding is that the current school "format" was developed during the industrial revolution stage, and its meant to instill into kids that schedule and "lifestyle". Which to many extents hasn't kept up with the way society is evolving.

More funding into schools would help (which countries contribute significantly to education anyway?), but also by helping kids develop and learn in what they have an interest. Instead of the currently standardized boring circula. And the sometimes insane hours.

On that note, during highschool I had days where I've had up to 7 different classes a day. At least when you go to work, even if it's 8 hours, I (and maybe you as well) got to slack at least 1 hour a day in the morning, or even in the afternoon after the 1 hour lunch break.

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#50

Post by alpaca128 »

fullshark wrote: post #16
janwillemb wrote: post #11

> attendance has become optional I recognize this with my own kids and my students. Two things: 1) since the pandemic the bar for a sick day has been lowered drastically. 2) Educational material can be found online in most of the cases, at least in my university. Students think they can handle it themselves from home. These are not necessarily bad developments. What would be interesting to see is if the drop out rate…

They are probably bad developments, as much as we want to pretend kids are strong minded independent learners, the reality is they are kids and need guidance and a teacher to instill discipline. This is something we've known for millennia that we want to pretend isn't true because it's more convenient to ignore, also because of our obsession with venerating youth culturally.

Based on my experience the first problem there is that many teachers are incapable of providing guidance or enforcing discipline. And that's assuming the teacher still cares, which isn't guaranteed either. And with teachers having to deal with bad pay and crazy parents thinking it's the teacher's job to raise their kid that's not surprising.

Kids not going to school is a symptom, and it's not going to be solved with attempts to make school more attractive without actually changing anything.

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