You can’t teach kids when they aren’t in school.
Articles like this one, by Karen Ann Cullotta in the New York Times yesterday, feature the lengths administrators go to to get kids to show up at school. It is important work; absenteeism is one of the biggest problems in education, and complicates everything else schools are trying to do. (Including value-added scores for teachers: If a student fails to make a year’s worth of progress but was only in class half the time, is that a measure of the teacher’s abilities? The best VA models account for absenteeism but not all do—what is the case in the school system you cover?)
I think it is time for journalists to take another step forward on this topic. Coming to school, or getting a kid to