Misleading Chicago Tribune Article on Illinois Teachers

Quoting now from today’s headline Tribune article: “Illinois for years has tracked how often students skip school, but data made public last week show how often their teachers miss school — and the numbers are revealing. Across the state, 23.5 percent of public school teachers are absent more than 10 days in the school year. That's almost 1 in 4 teachers statewide who aren't in the classroom, according to data made public by the state for the first time in the annual Illinois Report Card, a compilation of data that paints a broad picture of schools.”

Here’s what the Tribune isn’t reporting. According to the Digest of Education statistics, in 2011-2012 (last year of stats) 76.3% of all K-12 teachers are female. By age, teachers who are under 30 comprise 15.3% of the workforce; another 28.9% are ages 30-39. Those are prime child-bearing years, as well as years when women stay home to care for sick children. That’s nearly half of the age distribution for teachers. Check out the data here.

The Trib does consider this angle, but without getting into these specific statistics that paint a different picture: "However, the federal guidelines for determining teacher absenteeism differ from Illinois law. For example, the federal government includes maternity leave and FMLA leaves as days of absence, but Illinois law indicates that those leaves would not be counted as absences. The maternity leave issue can significantly affect absenteeism rates, especially in school districts that hire starting teachers, who are often women." 

I note that FMLA can only be used for serious medical conditions, so a teacher with a child who has strep throat would be legally barred from using FMLA to stay home with this child. 

Also, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act covers only women through pregnancy and child birth, but not early infancy when many moms stay home to establish a nursing pattern. No federal or state law provides women paid leave for this purpose, so teachers use sick leave.

A good question would be: How many Chicago Tribune reporters take more than ten days off a year. I'm willing to wager that 1 in 4 female reporters take 10 or more days off a year.