School officials in Cleveland are concerned with chronic student tardiness. Just over 24 percent of elementary students were late more than 15 days during the 2006-07 school year. By high school, it’s more than 41 percent, reports Cleveland.com
Tardiness is epidemic in the district, with double-digit percentages of students showing up late at some schools on any given day. School board members want to put an end to what they see as a casual attitude toward education, not only among children but also by parents seen dropping them off well after what are typically 8 a.m. starts.
Some blame not lax attitudes, but children seeing younger siblings off to school for working single parents, long walks and rides on multiple public buses in a district that limits transportation. Metal detectors at the schools also may prevent students from getting to class on time.
At the city’s John Marshall High School, tardiness continues despite detentions, phone calls to parents and other strategies to curb it, says Principal Rhonda Saegert. She reminds the students that they would be fired from their jobs for being late. “A lot of times I will hear, ‘But this is not my job,’” Saegert says “I say, ‘You need to treat it as if it were your job.’
Our school has put considerable effort into this problem and had considerable progress. In doing so, we had even better conversations with students and parents. Much of the problem is laxness, especially when students get home from work after the mom is asleep or at her job, and the student text-messages for a few hours rather than going to bed.
But the tardiness problem is insoluable, and the reasons are so complex that we need to back off from the moralizing. Even if a high school student’s biological clock wasn’t set later, there are just too many other factors that create tardiness. About 40% of our high school student will always be so late that they are counted absent to many times to earn credit.
So, we have two main options. Continue the CYA remediation efforts where we give students credit they did not earn for “seat time,” or other bogus measures that offer a fig leaf to all.
Or we could rework the schedules. We could drop the blame game and allow students who can’t make it first hour to have a seventh hour option. Teachers, like students, could choose the first six or or the last six hours, or more if needed.
Link this up with the discussion on Eduwonk about absenteeism of teachers and an office for Grow What Works. (as our profession ages, absenteeism especally in stressful high poverty schools will become equalli insoluable through conventional solutions.) We should see the complexity of American society as an opporunity, and abandon the lockstep, one-size-fits-all quick fix of NCLB. Recruit all types of talent into schools. Encourage a full range of innovative programs. Devise new schedules for the welfare of children, not the convenience of adults.
Of course, there would be at least two prequisites for a creative and innovative systems. Data-driven accountability along the lines of NCLB would have to be replaced, and not just by less objectionable value-added models. Unions must lead their teachers to innovation and collaboration.
Which gets us back towards your point, lowering the levels of mistrust. As we look at problems through the eyes of parents, students, teachers, and policy, we should recognize that the simplistic “reformers” vs. “status quo” conflict is debilitating. Now is the time for a Yes We Can attitude toward education.
After all, this is education! Isn’t education supposed to open new horizons?
Comment by john thompson — November 7, 2008 @ 10:21 am
Smart, thoughtful stuff John, as always.
The post that John refers to at Eduwonk can be found here:
http://www.eduwonk.com/2008/11/time-off.html#comments
Comment by Robert Pondiscio — November 7, 2008 @ 10:36 am
Excellent idea, John. Let’s change the school system to accomodate those students who cannot or simply don’t want to show up on time. Showing up at a fixed start time is such an outdated, old fashioned notion.
Then when these students enter the work force, let’s have businesses change their hours to accomodate their employees’ chronic tardiness. I see no reason why all of a company’s employees have to begin a business day at some ungodly hour like 8:00 in the morning. Companies should become flexible and start the work day whenever their employees can get there. Some may come at 8:00, some at 9, some at 10. Heck, some may not be able to make it in before noon. It makes no sense to lock a business into an NCLB posture where one size fits all. Some would argue this may play havoc with conducting co-operative activities such as meetings. But who needs meetings so early in the day? Or meetings at all? Just text message your input.
After all, why shouldn’t the asylum be run by the inmates?
Comment by CodyPT — November 8, 2008 @ 8:18 am