Comments of the week: what to count and what to let go

This week, commenters debated whether attendance should count in middle school admissions, students should spend school days in Albany, and new academic standards for student athletes will help or hurt students and schools.

A Remainders link to a parent and child psychologist’s article on why school attendance shouldn’t be used to screen students for selective middle and high schools sparked a conversation about what role attendance plays in academic performance and whose responsibility it is to get students to school.

A.S. Neill also wrote in favor of taking absences into account, arguing that they pose problems for individual students and for their schools:

Whatever the reasons for excessive absences in elementary school, by middle and high school, these students become problems for schools both because it lowers their rating scores, and they require extraordinary efforts to correct the deficiencies in their lagging education, often unsuccessful. As such, they pose difficulties for other students in the classroom as well, which is why parents know to try to get their kids in schools where the “good” students are. 

Guest argued that attendance provides valuable data, and not only for middle-school admissions:

Psychologists might say that, but any teacher with five days or more experience will tell you that attendance is the most important piece of data we have on a kid.  Can almost single handed predict failure.  Yet another piece of data not included in any value added or growth measure.

Kitchen Sink shifted the debate to the question of who’s responsible for getting kids to school:

Hello?  Does anyone out there think that SCHOOLS have a role in setting expectations for attendance? This problem is the fault of the school system AND the families. Whatever the poverty-related issues, the fact that our school system does nothing systematically to raise and address these concerns is a missing part of the tragedy. The answer is to tackle the problem with the force multiplier of using every angle: schools holding families accountable, schools building institutional trust with families, social service agencies providing wraparound support, broad goal setting with specific outcomes and resources on the city and district/region/network level, creative thinking with new solutions like the celebrity marketing/wake up call ideas and vouchers for taxi rides in specific circumstances, expanded child care opportunities for families in need, and ACS taking educational neglect seriously.

A debate about academics versus other activites also took center stage stage in readers’ responses to a story about the announcement of stringent academic and attendance standards for the 40,000 students who play school sports citywide. (After Boys and Girls High School toughened its academic requirements for student-athletes in 2011, its championship mens basketball team benched seven players and exited the state tournament in its first round.)

Several readers asked whether the new standards would push athletes to excel in classes or walk out on school altogether.

Students Are Not Widgets wrote:

I’m all for closing the achievement gap and accountability but what about the student athletes that legitimately work hard and struggle in their classes and may need 5 years to graduate?  So now these students should be punished and not allowed to excel in athletics?  Maybe athletics is the one thing motivating the student to stay engaged in learning and removing it will lead to more drop outs.

Ellen raised the question of how the new standards will affect students with special needs.

The students who play and have IEPs may not be on track to graduate in 4 years, not because of failure but because of a course load that often includes resource rooms, OT and PT as well as therapy for students with hearing losses, etc.  In light of the new directive from OCR on access to team sports PSAL needs to make reasonable accommodations on the new standards.

Finally, JuggleandHope wondered if the new standards could improve academics beyond simply requiring athletes to exceed a certain cut-off.

Maybe there will be enough concern for academically-weak and athletically-strong students that we will see the development of effective education practices that could be scaled to other students.  Teachers could say, “Let’s do for her what we do for our star point guard.”