skipping school

Educating Kids In Nyc details

• article with focus on trying to identify Out Break-s from attendance records. The median, unadjusted, daily percent absent over the three-year period was 7.3% (range 4.4%-38.9%) among elementary/middle school children and 17.8% (range 3.3%-63.2%) among high school students (Wilcoxon p < 0.01). (If you look at the chart, you see the bulk of the data points are in 5-12% for the younger group, and 13-22% for High School.)

• Republican Gov. George Pataki's [Moreland Commission] on New York City Public Schools issued its report charging systemic attendance fraud. Titled "Presumed Present: An Investigation into the Board of Education Attendance and Enrollment Systems," the report showed that thousands of students were being marked present - and even issued grades - who were in fact attending private schools, attending other New York City public schools, abroad, in jail or even dead. Since the state funds the public schools based on attendance figures, the attendance fraud bilked taxpayers of as much as $100 million per year.

• New and redesigned schools in New York City are inspiring students to come to class more often. In 2003-2004, the average attendance rate at these schools was 91%, compared to 83% citywide.

• All these numbers understate the issue, because there's apparently a big pattern of kids "checking in" for homeroom in the morning, then skipping most/all of their actual classes.

or is this just a Route Around a broken system? John Holt thinks so.

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