"It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

 gb 3-257 O’Connell Novick (November 28, 2023) 

To submit testimony in opposition to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s proposed increase in weight in the state accountability system for chronic absenteeism at the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education’s December meeting.
from the December 7, 2023 Worcester School Committee agenda

I suspect that you might need to be deep underground, beyond the reach of cell service, in order to have missed that there is some concern on children's school attendance. Just in the past two weeks, you could read about it in The New York Times, The Hill, USA Today, plus about every corner of the country. 

If you've been following Board of Ed meetings here in Massachusetts, you may have noticed that this has been a frequent topic of Commissioner Riley at meetings; he spoke about it in October, and then again last month. He has declared, absent any research or even discussion, that the uptick in students being absent is a result of their falling out of the habit of going to school. When asked if he's discussed this with families (which Member Mary Ann Stewart has done at both meetings), his response has been that he's talked to--not with, let alone listened to--them. 

He has decided, not only that this is a focus of this year, but that it is such a focus that the state accountability system needs to be reworked, so that districts can be (my quotes) "held accountable" for student absence. 

Now, let me first be clear: yes, we have more kids not attending school than we did before the pandemic. The presentation at the October meeting made that very clear.

But what Massachusetts as a state does not know is why. We haven't asked. We haven't delved into the various and many reasons why kids might be missing more school than they were. What the Commissioner--and make no mistake that it IS the Commissioner--has done has simply asserted, in his ongoing conviction that school buildings being open is both an unequivocal and irreplaceable good, and that closing school buildings was nothing but harmful, that having buildings closed meant that kids "fell out of the habit."

In marked contrast, and just for example, last month The 74 suggested six reasons for children being increasingly absent: 

1. worsening mental health
2. death of caregivers
3. teacher absence
4. remote assignments
5. higher minimum wage
6. better record keeping

To those--none of which has been mentioned by the Commissioner, note--I'd add offhand that the pandemic did give some of us an increased appreciation for not spreading illness when we have it. I know I, both for myself and my children, am more apt to stay/keep home when ill, both for my own health and for the health of others.

This is a good thing. 

Many of us as parents also know--and maybe we learned that from those remote learning days--how much is and is not missed, in actuality, when our child misses school. Considering that balance on a day when a child is iffy is, I would assert as both a parent and as an educator, part of the balance of making decisions as a caregiver. 

 The Commissioner's solution to this has been twofold: he has given, he's said, about $4M in grants statewide. $4M in a state in which the total for K-12 spending is somewhere in excess of $20B a year. 

He's also going to put the Secretary of Education on billboards to emphasize to parents that it's important that their children attend school. 

Now, I'm more than happy to see Secretary Tutwiler's general enjoyment of his job in more places. But the implicit condensation in billboards telling parents that school is important is a demonstration of just how little the Commissioner is connecting with anyone on this. 
He's certain he knows what the issue is, despite no information.

Doing the actual real work of getting kids back to school more is hard, time consuming, and, yes, quite probably expensive work. It's about relationships, and health, and better support for families and students (and staff, come to that). It's about finding out why each student isn't coming to school, and what it would take to get them there.

That isn't what the Commissioner is doing here. There's no time, no relationships, very little money, and zero interest in the actual why's here. 

The Commissioner now going to jump straight to punish--and that's all this is going to be is a punishment--districts who don't pull those rates up, with very little state support to do so.  

Thus my item on Thursday's Worcester School Committee agenda. The only way we have of stopping this is for many--MORE THAN WORCESTER, please!--push back from the district level on this one. 

The next meeting of the Board is on December 19. 

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The post title is attributed to Mark Twain, but there is no evidence that he said it.