BSD: Where's Johnny today?

Things are a mess in our education system nationwide.  Today's WSJ has a Stanfoo economist estimating that missed learning in K-12 from lockdowns will cost the typical kid $70K in lifetime earnings.  Yikes.  Closer to home the story is not much better.  The Daily Journal has a piece that compares absenteeism rates around the County and while Burlingame is "better than average", things are still not good.

A higher number of San Mateo County students were chronically absent from school in the 2021-22 school year compared to years prior, according to newly released state data, revealing the sustained effects of the pandemic on public education.  At the state level, about 30% of students were chronically absent, meaning they missed more than 10% of the school year. Students from most ethnic and challenging socioeconomic backgrounds experienced even higher rates of absenteeism.

The new interim B'game superintendent, on the job for two weeks as noted here, has some comments

Burlingame and San Carlos school districts fell into the medium category, San Carlos with an absentee rate of 5.7% and Burlingame with a rate of 9.2%.  Recognizing the challenges of providing a robust education to students who are under more pressure to stay home when sick, Marla Silversmith, Burlingame School District interim superintendent, said her staff worked hard to connect students with their classwork while remote, whether through paper packages or online platforms.

Students who did complete the work were given attendance credit, helping to reduce the district’s absentee rate. Just more than 9% of students were chronically absent during the 2021-22 school year, about 4% greater than the 2018-2019 figures.

I put "better than average" in quotes because having about 10% of all kids miss 10+% of school seems like a dire situation to me.  In a 180-school-day year, that's missing three and a half weeks or more!  San Mateo-Foster City, San Bruno Park, South San Francisco Unified and Redwood City were all above 20% -- or missing at least seven weeks of school!  Maybe instead of 87,000 new IRS agents, we should hire 87,000 new truant officers?

Comments

[Mom]

Speaking of rotations here is the new batting order for the schools

San Mateo Union High School held its rotation on Dec. 15 and named Greg Land president, Ligia Andrade Zúñiga vice president and former President Rob Griffin as clerk.

Lisa Mudd is now president of the Burlingame School District Board of Trustees with Elizabeth Kendall replacing her as vice president and Doug Brown named clerk, as of Dec. 13.

[HMB]

I'm hearing from faculty friends at a local private university and from a UC PhD student who TAs that student quality of work has dropped steadily since COVID. Though a couple of them have quipped that they'll be able to tell by the improved writing who is cheating by turning in essays written by ChatGPT.

[Peter Garrison]

In a recent WSJ article, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger noted that America lacks leaders with vision because there is no deep reading anymore.

Folks are more and more limited by their flirtations with quick electronic opinions and subjective venting I guess. Looking at polls and being re-elected is the concern, not the Constitution or defense of the American experiment.

[MBGA]

Even a high school kid is going to be able to dismiss Henry Kissinger's opinions.

https://imgur.com/a/muNJm19

[Peter Garrison]

Watching the holiday news about Christmas and Hanukkah and flight delays I am happy to see that worshiped is regularly spelled with only one P. Now if we could just get canceled to be spelled regularly with one L then I’d be happy.

[Mom]

Thanks, HMB and MBGA. That is pretty cool.