Reply to Who leaked the MCPS attendance documents to the Washington Post?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
But let's take one step back. What is the goal of public education? I would posit the goal is for every child in the system to leave with certain base skills that will allow them to be a functioning member of our society.

Now, if we fail the kid who is late because they were working at their parents' restaurant the night before, and we fail the kid who left school early because they are the emergency contact for a younger sibling who got sick at school, then we are actually failing society as well.

Strict enforcement of the rules works great if your only goal is serving the 75% who turn up to school regularly and on time. But if you want to capture the remaining 25%, there has to be some flexibility.

[/quote]

Is this really the main cause for all these unexcused absences? Kids working late in their parents' restaurants? I really doubt it.

When I was in HS, I had a few friends whose parents were recent immigrants and worked almost all the time in the restaurant, gas station, or convenience store they owned, all for their kids. The one thing they never did was ask the kids to forego schoolwork to work there. They instead made the sacrifice and worked super-long hours, so their kids could focus on their schoolwork.

Looking at how common the high unexcused absence rate was at Einstein featured in the WP article -- I just really doubt this is due to all those kids working late in their parents' businesses.[/quote]

True, but many are caring for their little brothers and sisters all night while mom cleans offices. Others oversleep on Mondays because they helped their dad do landscaping jobs all weekend. Maybe an older sibling has moved in with a colicky newborn and no one is sleeping at night in a two bedroom apartment.  I’ve taught these kids, but I’m also from that world. I had a job in a restaurant at 12. Not my parents’ restaurant because we weren’t that well off. After work, I might come home to find the power shut off and I needed to use the streetlight to finish reading a book before tomorrow’s English quiz. If I was lucky, there was money to pay the water bill and I could handwash my uniform in the sink and hang it over the bathtub. Everything was ten times harder than it should have been. [/quote]

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