The Rachael Ray of Education Policy
January 16, 2007 11:00 AM
Update: Robin Lake writes in to say that the table shows a ratio not days absent. True. However, I think the comparisons still stand. The ratio for employees in education services is not that different than for other professionals. Also, it is worth noting that the ratios include absences due to child-care problems, other family or personal obligations and maternity leave, which, as I light-heartedly argued here, do tend to affect female workers disproportionately.
It seems that Eduwonk has more in common with Rachael Ray than I had previously thought. In addition to being overexposed, he prefers the "quick and dirty"--but not necessarily accurate--approach to education policy analysis, as evidenced in the latest Ed Sector report by Marguerite Roza of the Center for Reinventing Public Education. In this NPR story, Eduwonk says that the new report shows that teachers have "sick leave allowances that exceed industry norms."
So, what data does Roza use in this report? She cites research by Michael Podgursky that is purportedly based on Bureau of Labor Statistics' (BLS') data indicating that, on average, teachers take 9.4 sick days per 180 day school year. The problem is, looking at the BLS data tables, it's unclear how Podgursky got to this number. I looked at this table from 2005 on employee absences, and I was only able to make the following comparisons:
Management, professional and related occupations: 3.0 ratio days absent
Education, training and library occupations: 3.5 days absent
Private sector/professional and business services: 2.9 ratio days absent
Educational services: 3.3 ratio days absent
I can't come up to anything that is close to the 9 plus days that Podgursky and Roza cite. I am not an economist (Podgursky is, Roza is not), but it seems to me that if you are going to to use data to argue that teachers take more sick days than other professionals, your calculations should be explicit to readers somewhere in the document or an appendix--a table number would help--otherwise, why should we trust the research?
Comments
I don't think it's Andy Rotherham's fault that he didn't dig through footnotes, even though it's in his shop. It's part and parcel of think-tankdom that the staff read and consume research but are not necessarily people who go through everything with a fine-tooth comb.
Posted by: Sherman Dorn | January 16, 2007 03:08 PM
You completely misread the table. The figures represent an absence rate, not days absent.
Posted by: Robin Lake | January 17, 2007 10:09 AM
Thanks Robin for your comment. I understand your point that the numbers are a ratio, but in comparing them, I still don't see a major difference between the ratio for education employees vs. professional/managerial employees.
Posted by: Michele at AFT | January 17, 2007 10:53 AM