Kelvin Davis on Truancy
Labour MP Kelvin Davis has said a lot of things on education, and Maori issues, I agree with. Labour will inevitably become Government again at some stage, and he looks to be potentially a better Education Minister than Maharey and Mallard were.
But I do take issue with his blog post on truancy:
So thirty thousand students a day are not at school. Sounds worrying. I guess 100% attendance is the aultimate goal.
But let’s look at that 30,000 figure. It represents 4% of the total number of students in compulsory education.
So far, so good. His maths is better than Trevor’s.
If a child is away for 4% of the school year that means they are absent an average of less than two days a term.
Now yes on average that is around two days a term, but expressed as eight days a year, and that is a lot – in fact it is around one day a month, excluding the four months of holidays.
I don’t think having a child truant one day a month is anywhere near acceptable.
But even if it was, I think with respect Kelvin misses the bigger issue. This will not be all 750,000 students equalling wagging one day a month. It is probably 50% of students never wagging, 40% wagging one day a month and 10% wagging nine days a month, or around half the year.
I don’t recall when Anne Tolley said she got the figures she’s quoting, but if it was last year we need to remember there was a swine flu scare and the Ministry of Health was asking parents to keep kids home if they had a sniffle.
When I was a Principal, teachers had to mark in the attendance register whether a student’s absence was justified or unjustified.
Justified meant the child was usually sick or at a bereavement. Unjustified meant they were truant.
I’d be interested in whether she’s done any analysis of justified vs unjustified absences. She needs to realise kids do get sick at times and some non-attendance is expected.
I think this is a red herring. Tolley’s press release clearly talks about kids being truant – not just absent.
Now the release links to the actual study, and the study is clear that the 4.2% absentee rate is for unjustified absences. The total absentee rate is in fact 11.6%.
And they even look in the study at the swine flu issue:
Therefore it is likely that the differences observed in the 2009 survey, compared to previous surveys in 2006 and 2004, are not likely to be due to the increased absence rates caused by the influenza (H1N1) 09 Swine Flu pandemic alert.
So Mr Davis really hasn’t done his homework here. He made wrong assumptions, and suggested the Minister did not know the difference between justified and unjustified.
One hundred percent attendance is desirable, but it appears Anne Tolley is trying to over-egg the situation, and my guess is she’s doing it to divert attention from her National Standards shambles.
Quite the opposite. Labour have under-egged the problem. The overall non attendance rate is in fact 11% – that means on average a kid is absent every fortnight!
I do hope Labour have a more inspiring truancy policy than saying it’s not a big issue.
March 18th, 2010 at 12:29 pm
Oh bloody hell David, could you stop telling them when they are stuffing up. Labour MP’s are doing a stellar job of scuttling the decaying ship that is Labour – please dont give them any hints in ship repairs!
Quite frankly Labour have screwed the pooch over National Standards – they have forgotten that there are more parents supporting the standards than there are teachers who oppose them! They are blinded by the facts that their ranks are filled with ex-teachers who think they know what is better for the nations kids, than the nations parents! Please please please dont help them change tack.
March 18th, 2010 at 12:36 pm
Because the school system has been failing kids for many years.. and most of our teachers today are more interested in going to our school to pick up their pay packets than teach.. you could argue that the kids are better off not going to school.
March 18th, 2010 at 1:04 pm
I’m not so sure on his maths either.
Since when did 4% of students being truant each day equate to each student on average being truant 4% of the time?
March 18th, 2010 at 1:08 pm
My question is who the fuck is Labour MP Kelvin Davis?
March 18th, 2010 at 1:10 pm
That’s harsh DPF, I know the school Davis was Principal at ( my daughters both attended it while he was there ), he knows a thing or two about truancy, it’s a major issue in Kaitaia & a wise person would listen to him on this subject rather than trying to score political points.
March 18th, 2010 at 2:19 pm
As peter mentioned its not an average of 4% school missed by all students. Some of these ones are missing 100%. With an education like that you’ll be limited to wealfare handouts, treaty settlements and being a labour party list MP.
If he knows that much about truancy Nigel why is making light of it? Our nation is getting progressively more ignorant and uneducated as time goes by, is it our goal to be a third world crap hole or what?
March 18th, 2010 at 2:20 pm
The idiot Davis misses the real point. With an ageing population and their requirements for medicare and super etc we need every school age child in school every school day getting the best education so they can be contributors to a falling number of tax payers in the future.
We cant afford the alternative having todays school age children either in jail or on a benefit taking not contributing to tax revenue.
When the idiot Davis and everyone else who doesnt get it does get then they will wake up and realise the ticking time bomb that is intergenerational wealth transfer.
But I guess its expecting too much.
March 18th, 2010 at 2:27 pm
I think the real question is not how many children are truant, but why. A child being truant is a bad thing for their education, but just forcing them to be at school without addressing the underlying cause is unlikely to improve outcomes for the child.
I found Green MP Catherine Delahunty’s post on this (at http://blog.greens.org.nz/2010/03/03/why-are-30000-kids-a-day-voting-with-their-feet/) to be the most balanced and sensible commentry on the issue I’ve seen; I think adopting the Green Party solutions to address underlying problems like poverty, and to ensure school is inclusive and engaging for all students – including those that don’t fit the mould that the system currently expects people to fit into – is the only way to actually make a positive impact on outcomes for kiwi kids.
March 18th, 2010 at 2:33 pm
I think adopting the Green Party solutions to address so called underlying problems is the stupidest idea I’ve seen today.
No suprise it comes from a Green party toll. Our tax dollars at work people.
Hippies, do they ever get tired of being wrong.
March 18th, 2010 at 2:45 pm
Murray/lastmanstanding, my point is he did something about it, not talk about it & he was pretty damn successful, he blogged about just one of the techniques he employed, but there were other less obvious ones.
If Politics is about abusing someone like Kelvin who has actually tackled truancy & did a pretty damn good job of making a difference, just because he dared attack a Minister, then maybe politics is missing the point, which surely should be about making NZ better & using the best talent we have to get there.
I’d rarely suggest listening to a Labour spokesperson about Economics or Business, but on Education I think Kelvin is worth listening to.
To A1kmm, I think you are being to airy fairy, partially it’s about why, but more than that it’s about expectation, in terms of expected attendence & also expected results ( that education will improve our lives ). My take was Kelvin’s primary technique was expected attendence, but he was working on expected results as well.
March 18th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
Davis places the 30,000 per day in terms of averages across the student population when in fact as Farrar points out the discussion should be about the hard core of truants (and their parents) who just don’t attend school. Those kids are likely to make up a large proportion of the future prisoners and beneficiaries in New Zealand. It does raise the question of why Labour hadn’t looked more closely at the horrendous number of hard core repeat truants. Good on National for identifying the issue and hopefully putting solutions in place.
March 18th, 2010 at 3:22 pm
Wasn’t it labour who wanted to make it illegal for parents to take their children out of school for holiday etc?
March 18th, 2010 at 5:07 pm
I know a teacher who says some of her class are absent up to a third of the time. Many truants are not just a day here and another there, but regularly missing out. And it appears little can be done about it.
March 18th, 2010 at 5:48 pm
That’s not true Yvette, the school just has to be pro-active. To quote Kelvin ( remember he was a decile 2 Intermediate School Principal ).
March 18th, 2010 at 5:59 pm
So Kelvin compares an avg of 4% across the school population vs 4% per student.
Hmmm.
March 18th, 2010 at 8:42 pm
The more children who wag school the more future voters who will be dependent on the largess of the state.
March 19th, 2010 at 7:09 am
A1kmm – I agree we should move a little towards ensuring school address unique needs in terms of learning styles etc. But too much of that becomes an excuse for weirdness. Part of the education children *should* receive at school is how to fit into the mould. Society works better when we have some commonality between us and some basic standard expectations and common experiences. We’re not getting anywhere by telling every kid they’re a unique and special flower.