Chicago teachers who didn’t have tenure took fewer days off after principals were given more flexibility to dismiss probationary teachers, a new study has found.
The policy reduced teacher absences on an annual basis by about 10 percent and cut the number of teachers with 15 or more annual absences by 20 percent, according to the report by Brian A. Jacob, a professor of education policy and economics at the University of Michigan. It has been published as a working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research, for which he serves as a research associate.
“We think teacher absence is somewhat correlated with student achievement,” said Mr. Jacob, who is the director of the university’s Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy. “Some of it is hard to measure.”
In Chicago, principals were given the ability to dismiss the probationary teachers—those with five years of experience or less—without completing elaborate documentation or attending a dismissal hearing, under a 2004 collective bargaining agreement between the 409,000-student school district and the Chicago Teachers Union.