Teacher Absenteeism Epitomizes Our Failed Pandemic Recovery

Districts struggling to provide basic information. Schools stuck in a downward spiral of lost purpose. If you needed a snapshot of our education crisis, this is it.

If you read part one of this month’s newsletter, you know that rising teacher absenteeism is among the most under-discussed trends of the pandemic. Last week, Brent Staples from the New York Times drew attention to it with an opinion piece that referenced Sarah Mervosh’s reporting and The Education Daly. Perhaps it will be under-discussed no more.

I’m thrilled to see this progress. But can we fix our problem with teacher absenteeism?

Today, we’ll focus on Illinois, one of the only states that has consistently published teacher attendance data. Turns out, it can be difficult to get reliable information, let alone traction on solutions.

What do the numbers tell us? We don’t know because it’s unclear if they are accurate.

I opened part one by referencing teacher absenteeism in Chicago. It’s up. But Chicago isn’t the only district facing a challenge. According to state data, 71 percent of Illinois districts have more teachers missing 10+ days than was the case in 2017-18.¹

That’s a striking data point - if it is right. But I am not sure it is.

When I looked at the jurisdictions with the largest increases in teacher absenteeism, no. 2 on the list was Hinsdale Township High School.² Located west of Chicago, it personifies suburban affluence. Its two schools enroll just shy of 4,000 students, only 15 percent of whom qualify as low income. Two-thirds are White or Asian. The district spends an average of $28,000 per student. US News ranks one of the schools, Hinsdale Central, as the 10th best high school in Illinois.³

According to the state’s website, in 2017-18 fewer than one percent of Hinsdale’s ~300 teachers missed 10+ days. That’s a remarkable feat - perhaps befitting the district’s elite reputation. Things continued to be pretty good through the 2020-21 school year, which was conducted primarily in online and hybrid formats.

Then, an abrupt change. Teacher absenteeism grew to 46.6 percent in 2022-23. Hinsdale previously had just a handful of frequently-absent teachers. Last year, it had about 138 of them.

Oh - I almost forgot to mention - Hinsdale now has a higher proportion of teachers with at least 10 absences than Chicago Public Schools.⁴

The numbers struck me as odd. How does a district go from less than one percent of its teachers qualifying as frequently absent to nearly half?

Percentage of Hinsdale HS teachers meeting the state’s attendance target of fewer than 10 absences. https://www.illinoisreportcard.com/District.aspx?source=teachers&source2=teacherattendance&Districtid=19022086017

I reached out to the district to verify or correct the figures. They were quick and courteous in their reply. But they told me that out of six years of teacher absence data on the state website, they could only confirm the accuracy of the most recent two. They did not have updates for the other years. Which means that absenteeism is definitely high today… but nobody knows how much of an increase this represents over past years.

How can four years of teacher absence data - some of it pre-pandemic - be unreliable? Did the district already know this? Have they contacted the state to correct it? I have no idea - but it’s worth some follow-up.

Is this just a Hinsdale issue? It’s not.

I contacted another affluent high school district near Chicago, Evanston Township High School. The state’s data for Evanston shows that the number of teachers missing 10+ days miraculously decreased in recent years - from almost 40 percent in 2017-18 to less than five percent the past two years. Again, quite a surprising result given that most districts are seeing large increases.

I asked Evanston if they could confirm the numbers from the state website. They initially thanked me for my inquiry and said they’d get right back to me. Then, nothing. I followed up and got no reply. Doesn’t necessarily mean there is an issue with the data, but it raises questions. This is a district with a full-service communications department and all the HR resources in the world. Can they not tell the public whether official data on teacher absenteeism - which they submitted to the state - is correct?

If Hinsdale and Evanston have problems reporting their teacher attendance data, how much confidence can we have regarding smaller districts across the state with far less infrastructure? I truly don’t know. Maybe these are random outliers. But it worries me that pulling just a few threads frays the sweater.⁵

What worries me more is the way the districts responded. That combination of ambiguity and silence. It’s becoming familiar.

Our schools have lost their sense of purpose

This brings me to the real issue. Teacher absenteeism is just one facet of a broader, grimmer reality.

Our education system is struggling in its entirety. The bounce-back we once envisioned - a fiery national mobilization to overcome learning setbacks - has eluded us. It’s depressingly easy to list the evidence:

• More families are choosing to have their children skip kindergarten.

• Homeschooling is here to stay.

• Fights are breaking out far more often.

• Schools are assigning lenient grades even when students are struggling academically and missing school frequently.

• We lost a generation worth of learning progress on national tests.

• Students in lower income communities are on such a gradual trajectory that they may never recover.

• College enrollment is down and far fewer Americans believe in the value of higher education.

Against this backdrop, higher teacher absenteeism is predictable. It would be shocking if it had not increased. No group, from students to parents to teachers to administrators, feels the same connection to our schools that they once did. No matter how many times we try to psych ourselves up that now, finally, we’re going to cue the Rocky theme music and sprint up the stairs to the Philly art museum, all we have is false starts. We have districts struggling to count the number of days teachers miss.

Why does it look like Rocky was filmed during COVID?

Teacher absenteeism isn’t the cause of our funk. It’s just another symptom.

This, ultimately, is why I suspect the issue has gotten so little attention. It’s depressing. We don’t know how to solve it. Nobody wants to make teachers feel bad after all they’ve been through. I share that feeling.

But I also believe this: If we don’t start talking openly about the failure of our pandemic recovery, we will be slipping and sliding for another generation. It’s a crisis.

Teacher absenteeism will normalize when everything else normalizes. When our schools regain their core sense of purpose.

Here are some steps that might help:

1. Let’s officially move forward. It’s been almost exactly four years since kids nationwide were sent home during the first wave of COVID. A full Olympiad. After all that time, there’s still residue in our schools that needs cleaning out. We need to move on - collectively. I don’t mean we should abandon health mitigation measures and leave those with vulnerable immune systems to fend for themselves. I’m talking about the psychological end of the pandemic’s hold on schools. A national day of remembrance for all those lost during the pandemic; a chance to appreciate everyone from health care providers to neighbors who pulled together to help us get to the other side. A true holiday. And then, a new chapter where schools (and state leaders) re-embrace norms around attendance, engagement, and achievement. It’s time.

2. Set some goals. What would it mean for our schools to “recover” from the pandemic? What’s the finish line? Have you seen anyone define it? Lack of clarity about what we’re trying to achieve and by when is impairing our progress. As calls increase for another infusion of federal funding, it’s important that new resources be paired with requirements for states to clearly articulate their targets and timelines for COVID recovery. We need a plan here.

3. Focus on first principles at the school level. Some schools lost the thread somewhere in the fog of COVID. Understandably. But now, their attention is all over the place. Folks are tired. Instead of staying the course with more professional development sessions on differentiating instruction, such schools should take time getting clear about their basic goals. Back to square one. Physical health and mental well-being have required outsized attention during this era - for good reason. However, we need to refocus on our academic mission. There’s no shame in high standards for our students and high expectations for our educators. Kids can do homework. They can study for tests. They can write essays. They can stay off social media during class. They can submit science fair projects. They can show up five days a week. If we treat our students - particularly those from lower income backgrounds - as though they are so damaged by the pandemic that they can’t possibly meet real challenges, they won’t. We’ve learned that the hard way.

4. Restore state-level accountability. States hit pause on gathering key information and using it to intervene with struggling schools. They had no choice. But some states have waited too long to resume healthy oversight. Data-rich states like Illinois have a head start. However, when districts aren’t accurately reporting basic data like teacher attendance and it isn’t being flagged and addressed through routine quality controls, it’s probably a sign that state agencies can play a more assertive role. Let’s give the public confidence that our schools can execute.

5. Sell the value of education. It’s no longer a self-evident proposition for anyone involved. Why does this enterprise warrant so much of our attention and funding? We desperately need to invest in our young people. But taxpayers will be increasingly skeptical if all they read is headlines about kids and teachers not showing up. States - especially those with declining enrollment - should be preparing now. More importantly, our young people aren’t buying in. What’s being done to change that? Until we win them over, we’re stuck.

All of these things are related. Teachers will stop missing days when schools are exciting, vibrant, successful places where they want to spend their time. Students will stop missing days at exactly the same time. It’s been four years. The clock’s ticking.

1. Only districts with at least 500 students enrolled in 2022-23 are included in this calculation. N=583. https://www.isbe.net/pages/illinois-state-report-card-data.aspx

2. The largest increase belonged to Grant CCSD #110, which is based in Fairview Heights, near St Louis. I contacted their superintendent twice through different channels to confirm the teacher absenteeism data shown on the state website. No response.

3. I’m not endorsing the US News rankings. I recently wrote a post explaining my skepticism of their system and others like it.

4. While major news outlets have not covered teacher absenteeism in Chicago Public Schools, a local news site, Patch, has written about the issue in Hinsdale. https://patch.com/illinois/hinsdale/teacher-absenteeism-high-hinsdale-d86

5. As a starting point for further analysis, there were 23 Illinois districts with at least 500 students that reported 99 or 100 percent of their teachers as meeting the attendance target last school year - meaning, they missed fewer than 10 days. If you spot check a few of them, you’ll almost certainly see things that look fishy. Decatur, for example, where I began my illustrious educational journey as a kindergartener at Dennis Elementary, reported 99.8 percent of its teachers meeting the attendance target in 2022-23. In 2017-18, it was 63.7 percent. (This is the state’s report card website: https://www.illinoisreportcard.com/Default.aspx if you want to look any of them up.)

• Lyons SD 103

• Macomb CUSD 185

• Community Unit School District No 196

• Township HSD 214

• Alsip-Hazlgrn-Oaklwn SD 126

• Pleasantdale SD 107

• River Trails SD 26

• Brown County CUSD 1

• Twp HSD 113

• Prairie-Hills ESD 144

• Calhoun CUSD 40

• W Harvey-Dixmoor PSD 147

• Milford Area Public Schools District 124

• Schaumburg CCSD 54

• Decatur SD 61

• East Alton-Wood River CHSD 14

• Trico CUSD 176

• Glenbrook HSD 225

• Fox Lake GSD 114

• St Charles CUSD 303

• Kaneland CUSD 302

• Mattoon CUSD 2

• Will County SD 92