Tulsa Public Schools (TPS) is confronting a problem that is stickier than most understand. Absenteeism or truancy is clearly a major problem. Truancy and frequent absences always has been, and sure as night follows day, will continue. The problem is how to handle it.
The problem is historical and education leaders going back to Horace Mann understood that children need to be in school. Schools need them in school as well. No children mean less money going into the system.
Many laws have contributed to the current environment. In modern efforts to fight absent children, one could look back to President Bill Clinton’s welfare reforms which called for a tracking of children from schools and attaching benefits to attendance (1996).
TPS is planning to track absenteeism much like President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act. Bush followed that up with crackdowns on truant children and supported state laws that did everything from jailing students and parents to removing driver’s licenses from truant students.
President Obama also dipped his toe into the truancy issue in what seemed like a minor way. He proposed expanding the age of compulsory attendance to begin at five years old. The problem was that it also expanded the number of children and parents potentially exposed to criminal liability. As it stands, lead pipe cruel laws dealing with truancy have not changed truancy/absentee rates. They have created a lot of stress and placed thousands of children and their parents into jail and gave them records. That is not helping anyone.
Tulsa and other schools eager to increase test scores for regular students have moved many students like those experiencing high absenteeism into alternative schools. Those who are segregated into alternative classrooms are also removed from standard test populations at the school. The school can literally increase their scores by doing nothing more than putting problem students into alternative classrooms. Of course, the education there is not the same and some describe it as subpar at best. These students are more likely to drop out and have the stigma of being separated for being poor or for reasons uncontrollable by them and their families. But, what to do?
President Barack Obama pushed an Absences Add Up and My Brother’s Keeper program that advocated a public information campaign and a mentoring program designed to bring down chronic absences down by 10 percent each year. Tulsa Public Schools did not participate in this program. However, Tulsa has one of the worse absentee problems in the nation. Chronic absentee rates in Tulsa are 88 percent higher than the national average. Suffice to say these high rates have dominoed into other education problems like low graduation rates and test scores.
The national average is 17 percent which sounds disturbing, until you consider McLain High School for Science & Technology has an absentee rate of 38.9. It is not an African American problem, as schools like Webster have an absentee rate of 31.8. Native Americans and Pacific Islanders have the highest rates among races. Asians are less likely to be absent.
Oklahoma joined other states in making frequent absences a jailable and fineable offense. Oklahoma, unsurprisingly, is harsher than most states. In Colorado a parent can be fined $25 per day, with no definable jail time. Kansas leaves fine amounts up to each district and county and does not list a fine or jail rate. Arkansas can fine up to $500 and jail time is not defined. Texas also has a fine of $500 and undefined jail time. Oklahoma has a fine of $50 for first offense, $100 for second offense, $250 for third offense, five days in jail for first offense, 10 days in jail for second offense and 15 days in jail for third offense. Imagine the strain this puts on a struggling family. Some reasons for absences are bullying and violence in the schools.
The tough boot of the law is not solving the problem of absences. Schools already struggling with shrinking funds can ill afford to lose a dollar under the current environment. However, tougher fines only exasperate the problem. Time to look at new initiatives like mentoring and perhaps make the schools safer.
Humphreys Should Step Down For Intolerant Views
Kirk Humpheys, the former mayor of Oklahoma City and current member of the Board of Regents for the University of Oklahoma said Sunday on a radio show that homosexual people are the same as pedophiles. The outrageous statements were quickly condemned by OU President David Boren and the rest of the Regents. At press time no action has been taken by the Regents who met and discussed the incident. Humphreys has refused to step down.
Humphreys is also chairman of the Oklahoma Gas & Electric Board of Directors and is slated to become Chairman of the Board of Regents in July of 2018 of the OU Board of Regents. His views, however personal, do not belong in any part of the public trust. He, of course, apologizes for anyone offended but he stands by his comments of homosexuality as being an abomination according to his views of Christianity. However, he can’t force his personal religious beliefs on the public and he is of course wrong in his assumption that homosexual men are also pedophiles.
As a leader of all people, his out of touch views have no place in the public square. No one intolerant and ill-informed should be in a position of authority overseeing public monies and personnel.
