Sat May 3, 2008 at 11:29 AMBy: ms g Perfect Attendance Creeps Me Out Totally agree with both Mom above and Alexander (though I don't think I'd say "creepy"...it's somewhat depressing to me, though I can't succinctly explain why here). I find it especially daunting as 7th grade approaches--when my kid's attendance is going to be a part of the selective enrollment equation. She and I are firm believers in mental health days, heading out of town if the opportunity presents itself, and actually (imagine) enjoying stopping to smell the flowers as we toddle along through her ever-shortening childhood.

Although, I was a perfect-attendance kind of kid. They used to give us White Sox tickets for that--do they still?

Sat May 3, 2008 at 4:36 PMBy: congrats, kids Perfect Attendance Creeps Me Out This is one of those areas in which I try to check my own normalizations. Though I personally feel it's important to have days away from school, I also know that our society "taints" the absence of people in low-income neighborhoods quite differently -- and having perfect attendance can be one way in which parents fight those latent dominant-culture assumptions. If the families of my Latino students insist that their children always be in school, that attendance percentage will speak favorably for the children as they try to be seen as serious students in other arenas.

I also think that

Sat May 3, 2008 at 6:00 PMBy: EPD Perfect Attendance Creeps Me Out I don’t understand why something that is valued and a source of pride has to be shredded by your catty insinuations to something objectionable? Can't we just stick to attacking the Union, CPS, principals, LSCs, NCLB, Daley, each other and leave the functioning students alone?
My guess is the students and their families might find you rather creepy.

Sat May 3, 2008 at 10:47 PMBy: Porky Perfect Attendance Creeps Me Out Want to know what creeps me out?

Chris

He rants and raves like a lunatic. His lack of respect and common decency is one thing. His threats clearly indicate a disturbed personality. A major concern of mine is all those other personalities he pretends to be. He aint foolin me, does he fool you? The only one fooled is him.

He is Creepy!

Sun May 4, 2008 at 2:46 AMBy: George N. Schmidt Perfect Attendance Creeps Me Out I personally think that anyone with "perfect" attendance over a long period of time deserves some recognition, but that was far from my interest in last week's honors reception.

Most of the honors, as even a quick read of the list shows, were for academic events that aren't comparable to the rest of the public schools in the USA.

But in the area of National Merit Scholarship finalists (based on PSAT scores, then maybe some other indicators), CPS has fewer in a system with more than 400,000 students than Naperville's high schools have. Why is it that none of my colleagues in the press asks Arne Duncan about these sillinesses when he's rattling on across his talking points about what a great job he's been doing?

And -- this question's up close and personal -- how is it that CPS can't manage to get scholarships for all of its National Merit Finalists? I know we're in a town run by one of the lowest scoring mopes ever to take a standardized test -- from elementary schools all the way through the Bar Examination -- but you'd think there's be some consistency.

Sun May 4, 2008 at 2:34 PMBy: Comes to school sick Perfect Attendance Creeps Me Out I have seen toomany parents send their children to school sick just for the [erfect attendace award and becasue they do not want to stay home with them adn nurse them. I have seen too many children in the main office, sleeping there with fever and atrash can next to them for a day, instead of the parent picking them up. This, since there are so few and the linmos they buy for 8th grade graduation has to go.

Sun May 4, 2008 at 11:44 PMBy: Dallas Cheerleader Perfect Attendance Creeps Me Out Nice try Johnny O. Problem is that the Housekeeper and I both agree that Dallas never spoke that night. After Madame Mumbles' sickening sellout, she and her crew went back to the Mart to celebrate. The House was a disaster and Dallas went home pissed. You see, you will never succeed because you continue to openly tell lies. We, on the other hand tell the truth. And there are so many more of us. And the numbers just keep getting larger and hungrier...

Mon May 5, 2008 at 2:12 AMBy: George N. Schmidt Perfect Attendance Creeps Me Out Perfect attendance always means a couple of things in a child's life. The most important is a safe stable home. Another is a schools where the child actually has some interest, usually joy. Even after six years of Arne Duncan's attacks on Chicago's real public schools, the majority are still providing that, as most parents here know.

The others have problems, which are being doubled each years by the teacher bashing and other corporate "school reform" attacks on public schooling in Chicago.

One piece of advice I'd give every teacher -- and principal -- in a community high school or elementary school is to begin saving all of the attendance information for each class (especially the low track classes) and overall. Graph the days per student and look at what you are seeing -- generally a bi-modal curve. The kids in crisis have absences five or even ten times the "average rate" at your school, and the data spread in two humps on your curve, not one (with a nice bell-shape at the "median").

Arne used "absence" data to attack more than a dozen schools during the past year, and nobody held him accountable for not having truant officers in CPS. More than that, as I've pointed out here and elsewhere, the data themselves were "cooked" (as in Enron).

By reporting on "average" (i.e., it turns out, in this case, "Mean" absences), Arne's claims (put before each hearing officer by Research and Accountability, usually Ginger Reynolds) were completely dishonest in any statistical sense.

It will be possible for every principal in a challenged school (that's the nearly 200 at or near "probation" any of which can go on the hit list next year) to take all the data on absences for this school year within the next month. Set the date at, say, the 150th date of attendance, and then spread the number of days along the "bottom" (we won't even talk about the axes here; just try it) and the number of kids along the vertical and look what happens. You have some kids whose median absences are at or above 100 days; then another group whose median absences are about ten days -- and not one kid, in most schools, at the "average" that Arne was bullshitting about when he was reading his mindless talking points back in January and February attacking those schools.

CTU could have done this independently of Arne and maybe saved a couple of schools if the leadership hadn't combined an awesome amount of stupidity with an equal amount of simple arrogance.

Which is why Chris is rightfully in this thread. One of the reasons CPS attacked Orr was the stupidity of Richard M. Daley, but the pretexts lined up against Orr in the "public hearings" included the shocking "absence" situation (without mentioning the failure to deploy truant officers or any context) and a bunch of other data mendacities that can still be picked apart and reported down the road the next time these dataheads raise their heads and expect anyone to do anything more than laugh.

The numbers are going to bite you in the glutes unless you master them. The "performance" data discussed here provide on set that's being spun against you. And beginning this week (and into next month) you're going to hear all the lies (including those simplistic "deficit" claims) that go with the financials.

Thu May 8, 2008 at 10:33 AMBy: Jamie Perfect Attendance Creeps Me Out After reading the list of 12th graders with 12 years of perfect attendance, I was wondering why it only contained the names of minorities? Am I wrong to think that the minorities of this country seem to value their education more than the rest of the country? I am kind of upset to not see any of our children, as in white students, represented on that list. It seems like we're just sitting back and letting the minorities claim all the awards when we should have our children compete with them. That is why I expect nothing less than A's when it comes to my child's grades. What do you guys think?

Thu May 8, 2008 at 11:00 AMBy: baited Perfect Attendance Creeps Me Out Is Jamie baiting or for-real?