Resisting the Inevitable?

This article was tweeted by @smartbrief today: http://ow.ly/gBsO It's the story about a district that is trying to get its best and brightest students to come to school more often. "While the attendance rate for the district is very good, Stockman said, 26.6 percent of the Top 50 students in the district’s seven high schools have missed between 10 and 19 days of school and 6.3 percent missed 20 days or more."

When you do the math, this isn't a lot of kids we're talking about. What is 6.3% of 50, anyway? 3.15? It must be either an exceptionally large student that makes up the .15 or a VERY small one. But, the point, of course, is that this district is making the statement that the only place that a student can learn (properly?) is in school. Note, however, that the article does mention that many of these students are taking online courses, as well.

How about this quote from the article, "'We have students who miss 50 days of school and graduate in the Top 50 of their class. And we know the reasons. A lot of them are working on Florida Virtual School to get (Advanced Placement) and honors credits.'"

I wonder if the reason for this fuss doesn't have more to do with NCLB and the attendance requirement than it doesw any question about the nature and quality of the education. Ya think?

Posted in: attendance,NCLB