Sick Days and control

From a column in the AJC today.
Good question posed by Christopher Johnson of Atlanta in the AJC’s Letter’s column: Why do teachers miss more work than others? Concludes Johnson: “There is no credible reason why teachers should use sick leave at the rate of 1.6 to 2.3 times that of the non-teacher workforce.” One of these days politicians do need to screw up the courage to give Johnson a rational reason — or change the system.



One of the responses gives something to think about:

Jim you want a pretend answer or a real one on teacher absences Wooten?

How many days would you miss if you were held accountable for the performance of 25-30 employees, but those employees could A) refuse to work B) not show up for work C) curse fellow employees D) curse you E) threaten fellow employees F) threaten you G) assault other employees H) assault you? And most important of all, engage in actions A-H with little to no meaningful consequences?

Yet you are told it’s all your fault when production slips, even though you have little or even no authority to enforce consequences that could address actions A-H above.

Think you might miss a day or two Jim? Think you might feel a little stress?

Deal with actions A-H above, and especially deal with the fact that they occur with little to no meaningful consequences for the students who engage in them, and then you’ll be having an honest discussion.
But we don’t want to deal with A-H, because we don’t want an honest discussion. We want to blame our teachers for how we don’t raise our children.