So, Eduwonk says I can't read, that's why I don't understand the teacher absence calculations in the new Ed Sector report. Not much of a response, but maybe he doesn't like being compared to Rachael Ray? (C'mon, she's cute, what's not to like?) Just to be clear on my end, I understood Podgursky's calculations based on his (uncited) "U.S. Department of Education survey," but I did not understand the relationship to the BLS tables where I don't see much of a difference between teachers and other workers.  Plus, I would like to see if the ED survey data included personal days, as the BLS data does not.  I guess in Eduwonk's book that makes me illiterate.  So be it.

On to another part of the Ed Sector report that was sketchy to me, the section on teachers' allegedly "above-average health and insurance benefits."  Roza relies on Podgursky's work to argue that teachers get better health insurance than private sector employees.  I went back to the Podgursky article she referenced and then found the same BLS tables (I think) for 2006.  I see how you could interpret them to mean that, based on hours worked, the percent of total compensation is higher for teachers than for other professionals.  But I think there is a problem with this interpretation. 

Health care premiums are based on the cost of the underlying claims and have nothing to do with the amount of hours that are worked in a given period of time. So, if a worker has a health plan that costs $1,000 per month, and worked 40 hours one month and 60 hours the next month, the monthly cost of $1,000 would not change.  Unless, of course, Podgursky and/or Roza are implying that teachers should pay their actual health insurance costs in July and August when schools are closed.