My Perspective: Are Schools and School Districts Cheating States when it comes to Attendance?

A recent article by the Chicago Tribune entitled In Chicago high school: Class attendance or numbers game?, where Bowen Environmental Studies Team High School keeps dropouts on attendance books. The article made me wonder is this the only school in America that does this in order to receive state funds so that the school itself can make sure it has funds to achieve academic success. In fact I know it isn’t because my dad is an assistant attendance agent and he has shared with me that schools in Detroit Public Schools does this and from talking to friends who are in education all across America, this is an issue everywhere.

While many teachers mark students absent if they are not in class, some have to change it because administers at the school or in the school district want to maximize as much of state funding they can get from the state for having students enrolled in their school or school district. This is not only wrong but it just goes to show how shabby our attendance policies are in America when it comes to education. The reporter of the Chicago Tribune article Azam Ahmed reported that on paper, Deandre Sheppard has an attendance record that should be the pride of his high school. However according to one teacher's attendance sheet, the junior hardly had a single unexcused absence this past semester but there's just one problem: "Man, I left school around November or December," said Sheppard, 19. "I basically had to go out and get some money."

Now this is astonishing to some but as a student who prided myself on perfect attendance from grade school to high school, I know firsthand from working with my dad and other attendance agents just how broken down the attendance policies in not just DPS is but throughout America. Think about it, in most states, students can drop out of school at the age of 15 or 16. There is no national drop out age for students so it is up for the states to choose what is best for them in deciding the drop out age of each state. I wrote about this issue back in a previous article entitled “National Dropout Age Should Be 18”, where I described how we can’t fix education in America until we deal with the attendance issues involved with education.

Therefore when I read the Chicago Tribune article, it opened my eyes yet again to how bad attendance is nationally in terms of schools doing any and everything to compete for state dollars even falsifying attendance records. Now to be fair, this is not just a school problem but many school districts indulge in this because they fear losing funds due to a drop off in enrollment at many large school districts. If you look around America, the issue with attendance in education and the national dropout rate constantly rising is a clear reason why our youth in America can’t succeed until we implement a national attendance policy as well as a national drop out age. We can change academic standards and through money toward education without addressing attendance issues in education. That is the essential piece to education that hasn’t been addressed in any national education policy but this is the time where it is imperative that attendance is dealt with once and for all.

Just reading the Chicago Tribune article, it should make the taxpayers of Illinois outraged at how their state is being bamboozled out funds for education that could have went to other schools and perhaps other school districts who actually had students on their attendance rolls who went to school. Attendance records obtained by the Tribune showed that a handful of chronically truant students at Bowen Environmental Studies Team High School on the South Side of Chicago were rarely marked absent. Instead they were listed as being on "school function" -- such as field trips -- for at least a month at a time. One girl was placed on "school function" for 50 straight school days, according to attendance sheets. This is the type of cheating and illegal practices that need to be addressed and dealt with. While Chicago Public Schools officials said they would launch an investigation into how Bowen Environmental is counting attendance after the Tribune revealed this to the CPS but the truth of the matter is that the a school district should have attendance officers not just in schools but for the district that monitors who attending school in the district and who isn’t.

You would think that large school districts would have a better mechanism to monitor attendance throughout the schools in their district in terms of monitoring who is dropping out, transferring within the district and out of the district as well as who is still in the district attending school. Now if you ask many principals and public school administrators nationally, they would say attendance fraud is rarely proven but has long been suspected at certain schools and school districts nationally. However the documents from Bowen Environmental reflect a problem at just one school, Inspector General James Sullivan told the Tribune his office is investigating at least two other schools suspected of altering attendance records in Chicago.

But a lot is riding on attendance rates. Research shows that regular attendance is crucial to students' success. Public school districts receive state and federal money based on how many students are in school, so when kids drop out, funding dries up. Many large school districts like Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, and New York have lost between $18-$50 million a year in state money because of dropouts and truancy. Student attendance also helps determine staffing levels -- and whether school employees keep their jobs. This is why attendance is so important to not only students but to schools and school districts. When students don’t attend school, they are only cheating and depriving themselves of a higher education in the short term but in the long term it affects the entire society and community because we as a society will have to make up for their educational lacking when perhaps they become another statistic in terms of a dropout and perhaps a cell number later.

Nonetheless when schools and school districts fraudulent attendance records for students, they are cheating that student but most of all they are cheating the state out of money as well as us the taxpayer who fund education in the state. This is the reason why attendance is so important and why accurate attendance records need to be kept in schools and throughout school districts. What the Chicago Tribune uncovered at one high school in Chicago is not nothing new when one speaks to educators across America but actually proving it is. Not many schools are reported and those schools that are reported are rarely investigated by the school districts that govern them properly because that would result in the school district having to cut funds elsewhere if the evidence is found to be true. In fact many times, school districts are in on the fraudulent attendance cheating that schools implement because that is what school districts tell many schools to do when attendance for the school district is not looking as good as the district would like to pay for the current school year.

"When you have that kind of pressure, human beings tend to cheat," said William Gerstein, principal at Austin Polytechnical Academy High School. "There is a lot of incentive ... to report students present on days they missed." One teacher at Bowen Environmental, Eugene Hill, said a school official told staff that attendance data was being inflated to save jobs. "There are students being marked as present who haven't been in school for months," said Hill, who claimed he was reprimanded for questioning how attendance was kept. Now Chicago Public Schools spokeswoman Monique Bond said the computer system that teachers use to take attendance restricts which employees can place students on "school function." That designation is only available to certain clerks and the principal, she said.

But Bowen Environmental's principal, Camilla Covington, said she was not aware of attendance irregularities at the school and emphasized the positive things the school is doing to promote neighborhood involvement. She said Hill is upset that he was graded poorly following a recent observation of his classroom. Bond said the district randomly audits attendance records but could not say the last time Bowen Environmental was audited. The student listed as being on "student function" for 50 straight days could not be reached for comment. But the Tribune interviewed three Bowen Environmental students who had left school after the first semester and continued to be marked as present or "school function."

Clearly this should make anyone made that such attendance irregularities were taking place but just imagine that this is a school in your school district or the school in your community. In fact you can interview students who have dropped out of school and I guarantee that if we pulled their attendance record at their last school, they are perhaps being marked present on some days when they are not there. The truth of the matter is that attendance policies in not just Chicago need work but throughout our nation need to be altered and strengthen so that we improve our educational structures across America. At the same time, we need to fix the enforcement of school attendance because such fraudulent reporting is a disservice to not only states but to the taxpayers of the state as well as to those students who actually attend school on a daily basis.

The Chicago Tribune should be applauded on reporting on that one school in Chicago that was practicing shady attendance recording but the truth is that there are more schools in the nation who do it and more school districts that practice this in order to get funding from states. When it comes to attendance schools and school districts are cheating states and that is something that needs to be addressed in this nation. Bowen Environmental High School is just one school but this school could be a school in anyone’s community that is cheating the state out of funding that probably should have went to other schools in need of funding. Cheating states out of educational dollars is a crime and it is disservice to the fundamental of education because it makes it seem as if school officials and school districts will do any and everything to get the most funding as possible to stay afloat and to save jobs.

No matter how we cut it in this nation, education is the future but we can’t simply think funding is the key to solving the problems we face in education. Funding alone won’t fix our educational woes and neither will academic standards unless we include getting serious about attendance policies and the enforcement of them as well as crafting a national dropout age of 18 which is long overdue for this nation. Too many schools and school districts are cheating states out funding because of attendance practices that are shady and fraudulent. It is to be a better way to give funding to schools and school districts while at the same time making sure students are actually in the schools that are carrying them as present. It has to be a better way and we as a nation must find it.

We must put a stop to schools and school districts cheating our states out of funding because of attendance. When it comes to attendance in school, one can only be marked present if they are actually in the seat of the classroom teacher they are suppose to be in. Otherwise a student is absent and school teachers, administrators and district officials must realize that it is unfair to report students present if they are not in the classroom. This practice must stop and the fact that many in education know about this and are not reporting it, makes me question if corruption in education just as common as corruption in politics. Now I understand why schools and school districts do it but still it is wrong no matter if its intentions are good. Wrong is wrong and this is the problem within our society but with education in America, we need to find ways to improve this situation.

Attendance is a major key to the future of education and that’s why national attendance policies as well as a national dropout age of 18 needs to be enforced. This is the only way the future of education will be vibrant and stronger for the future.

Sources:
In Chicago high school: Class attendance or numbers game?
Bowen Environmental Studies Team High School keeps dropouts on attendance books
By Azam Ahmed
Tribune reporter
June 14, 2009
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-bowen-attendance-14-jun14,0,1258068.story