Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2006 > September > 15 > Entry
The best and worst teacher attendance
There’s a ton of data in the school district report cards, including a bunch of data about teachers. I’m going to throw some of it out here on Get on the Bus over the next several days.
Today, let’s look at teacher attendance. The truth is, teacher attendance is very high across the board. All but four districts in the entire state are above 90 percent for teacher attendance.
Locally, districts range only from 94.9 percent up to 97.4 percent. Here are the best and worst ranked out of 82 Dayton-area districts in Preble, Shelby, Darke, Miami, Champaign, Clark, Montgomery, Greene, Warren and Butler counties:
At the top: Districts with better than 96 percent teacher attendance
Anna 97.4
Graham 97.3
Russia 97.1
Botkins 97
Monroe 96.9
Tipp City 96.8
Wayne 96.5
Mad River 96.5
Northeastern 96.5
Miamisburg 96.4
Jackson Center 96.3
Ross 96.3
National Trail 96.2
West Carrollton 96.2
Oakwood 96.2
Brookville 96.1
Southeastern 96.1
Hamilton 96.1
Fort Loramie 96
Twin Valley 96
Piqua 96
Arcanum 96
At the bottom: Districts with less than 95 percent teacher attendance
Madison 94.9
Preble Shawnee 94.9
Vandalia-Butler 94.8
Urbana 94.7
Northwestern 94.7
Fairborn 94.7
Fairfield 94.6
Clark-Shawnee 94.6
Springfield 94.6
Versallies 94.6
Beavercreek 94.6
Huber Heights 94.6
Northridge 94.4
Mechanicsburg 94.3
West Liberty-Salem 94.3
Mason 94. 2
Trotwood 94.1
Dayton 94
Greenville 93.4
Cedar Cliff 91.8
Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: Teaching and Learning
Comments
By Oldprof
September 16, 2006 9:43 AM | Link to this
Rick, your link doesn’t seem to have an article behind it. But when I go to Buckeye’s site, I find one report, http://www.buckeyeinstitute.org/docs/PolicyReport-DeterminantsofStudentAchievementinOhio.pdf, in which the data shows that just about none of the factors involved do anything for charter performance—in fact, the article doubtfully acknowledges “It could be argued that the results turned out this way [e.g., mostly null] because NOTHING [emphasis mine] can make charter schools work.” (p. 12) But overall, when I look at Matthew Carr’s reports, I am once again reminded of the old text “How to Lie with Statistics”: he finds that student-teacher ratio is one of the biggest factors in public school success, yet concludes that reducing class size doesn’t work. In another report, http://www.buckeyeinstitute.org/docs/PolicyBriefCharter_Achievement.pdf (is this the one you wanted to cite?), the raw data shows charters are WAY behind traditional schools in achievement scores. Any competent statistician would tell you that his analysis, based on “percentage increase”, is flawed; using the same standard to judge quality would, for example, award this year’s world series immediately to Cincinnati. Percentage increase is always greater among those that started at the bottom (ref. Dayton’s ‘continuous improvement’ status). Sure, a nice percentage increase is a good thing, but the public schools (in aggregate) can’t improve at the same rate because there are some of them (Oakwood, Stivers, Dayton Early Academy) that have little room for improvement. Hope you understand that now, and consequently will read Carr as he deserves—a salaried hack for a biased organization.By Mary
September 16, 2006 12:16 AM | Link to this
I agree you should not equate attendance to job dedication. However, the rate is significant from a financial angle. If 5% of say 300 teachers in a district are absent any given day, that is 15 substitute teachers at say roughly $85 per day or a total of $1275 per day or $6375 per week or $25,500 per month or $224,900 per school year, not counting sub retirement contributions.By Joel Brown
September 15, 2006 3:11 PM | Link to this
It might be interesting to see if there is a statistical connection between teacher attendance rates and teacher experience. A more experienced faculty would mean an older faculty, and that could equate with more health problems and reduced attendance. On the other hand, a younger faculty that is majority female could result in more maternity leaves. I don’t know how these are calculated in the percentages. I hope people don’t start to equate teacher attendance rate with teacher dedication to their jobs. There are often other outside factors at play.By Rick
September 15, 2006 2:38 PM | Link to this
Rigorous analysis of Ohio’s charter schools reveals that they are doing better than regular public schools, when demographics are taken into account. See http://www.buckeyeinstitute.org/docs/PolicyBriefCharter_Achievement.pdf