Sick Leave Abuse—The Latest in Teacher Bashing
36% of teachers nationally were absent more than 10 days during the 2009-10 school year, according to Raegen T. Miller, Associate Director for Education Research at the Center for American Progress. Miller goes on to complain about how teacher absenteeism negatively affects student achievement and costs districts billions of dollars, implying that this is a big problem that needs to be addressed.
While this statistic might seem high, it needs to be placed in perspective. Only 5.3% of teachers nationally are absent on any given day. This compares with a 3% rate for other full-time wage earners.
This is not a huge difference, and it can be explained and justified.
The public sector, which includes teachers, has a much higher rate of union membership than
