Frederick Hess muses at National Review Online about teacher unions’ responses to a new report about chronic absenteeism among teachers in traditional public schools.
Last week, a new study reported that 28 percent of teachers working in traditional public schools use sick days or personal leave to miss more than ten days of school each year. The analysis, authored by David Griffith of the center-right Fordham Institute, found that the comparable figure at charter schools was 10 percent. Meanwhile, Griffith noted, the typical U.S. worker takes about three and a half sick days a year. The disparity between district schools and charter schools occasioned much comment, given what it says about the effects of collective-bargaining agreements and differences in culture across the two sectors. But at least equally noteworthy was how teachers’-union leaders chose to respond to the analysis. …
… [U]nion leaders might have responded by telling their members, “Guys, this is a wake-up call! We all need to walk the walk, so our talk doesn’t ring hollow.” They could have rallied to the defense of the three-quarters who show up every day, slamming the 28 percent for resting on the shoulders of their colleagues. They could have earned some goodwill by acknowledging the problem and promising to help address it. But, they didn’t do any of that.
Instead, they reacted like petulant middle-schoolers, rushing to offer a medley of complaints and excuses of the kind that any good teacher would laugh off if offered up by a seventh-grader busted for skipping school.