Gabe1
Northern Illinois
- Joined
- Aug 25, 2008
Let's talk data. Does your "zip" data take into account how teachers went above and beyond to help the student when they missed a week? Does your lack of data account the the amount of time and resources allocated to the students who have to be retaught skills, not only that they missed while gone, but the skills they don't understand because they don't have the prerequisites to understand.
The fact is that good teachers will work to get the student up to par. You can't measure that given those variables, so I'm not surprised there is no data.
Look, this is not rocket science. A kid misses a week of school. Yes, he is most likely going to miss important concepts. Some can overcome that with parents who might have the ability to catch them up. Some have good teachers that spend time after hours to help them. No, it's not the end of the world. However, it's not an ideal situation either. It's something you have to really consider carefully for your child.
In my experience, a child who misses a week of school is worse off than one who didn't. Lack of data is no excuse for not considering the decision carefully.
On a side note to anyone in a school board member position: Despite what Neil Boortz says, most of the teachers I know really do care about the students. Instead of calling us out as excuse makers, try listening to our experience and working as a team. It sounds as if you have already closed your mind to the teachers and administrators because you don't respect them as professionals. That's probably the worst attitude possible for working as a team. I come from a family of private business owners, and that attitude doesn't work well in the public or private sector.
We worked that data from when kids were absent a week or more. There was not data to support the claim that children suffered from being out of school to mess with standardized testing. Yes, they have to make up the work but just so the student does the work they missed they do not fail to do well on standardized tests. IF a parent is too brain dead to be able to comprehend text books written at grade level for elementary school reading, writing, spelling or math, then yes, maybe they should not take their kids out of school. My experience with K-8 text books is that most parents can, if they so choose comprehend the text. If what is taught outside the text that is designed for NCLB concepts it will not be tested for in standardized testing. That is why in High School with so many national students educated by state by state curriculum, high school students can take a uniformed ACT and SAT college placement test.
It is concepts learned over a year whether it is taught by parents or teachers. There is too much over thinking of how much is lost by a week or two during the school year over concepts grasped over an entire year. My parents took my sister and I along with our text books out of school from March 1st to April 15th every year during my childhood to go down to our vacation home in South Florida. We came back to school to finish the school year ahead of our peers. Elementary concepts are not difficult to teach to the general population of students. It isn't that complicated.