{"id":353348,"date":"2026-09-22T09:24:25","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T09:24:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/353348\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T09:24:25","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T09:24:25","slug":"our-schools-need-more-state-oversight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/353348\/","title":{"rendered":"Our schools need more state oversight"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a public high school teacher concerned about the rise of chronic absenteeism, I was encouraged this spring to learn that several state legislators, including Queens Assemblyman Andrew Hevesi, have introduced bills in their chambers requiring all schools in the state to publish attendance data<\/a>. I was even more excited last month when state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli released the results of an audit that exposed low attendance rates at our city\u2019s suspension centers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In recent years, New York City high schools have dramatically weakened grading and attendance standards, essentially making class cutting a widely tolerated practice. So, I\u2019m thrilled to know that some elected officials in Albany care about this issue. As local officials turn to the problem, we desperately need the state to come to our rescue. But, if state leaders really want NYC high school students to go to class more often, they\u2019ll need to take more comprehensive steps.<\/p>\n

People often express disbelief when I tell them that high school attendance in New York City is completely optional. But when schools reopened after COVID, the city\u2019s Department of Education quietly left in place a remote learning policy forbidding teachers from any consideration of attendance when calculating grades. They even removed the comment \u201cExcessively Absent\u201d from the options teachers can include on report cards.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, many schools now mandate artificial minimum grades \u2014 usually 55% \u2014 on all assignments and assessments. So, no matter how many times students cut class, they are never too far from passing.<\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, some students now attend class much less often. But this doesn\u2019t mean they aren\u2019t passing. In many schools, these minimum grading policies, combined with pressure on teachers from administrators intent on improving graduation rates, make it almost impossible for students to fail. Teachers complain of students offering ever weaker excuses for missing class while sharing stories of those who miss months of class and still receive passing grades.<\/p>\n

So, what can state government do? Consider that despite our city\u2019s $41 billion annual school budget<\/a>, we have no idea how often high school students go to class. Available attendance data counts students as present for the day simply if they attend class during their daily \u201cattendance\u201d period. They can miss hundreds of individual classes during the school year and still have high official attendance rates.<\/p>\n

So, a good first step for the comptroller\u2019s office would be to uncover and examine each school\u2019s period-by-period attendance data to determine how many students are chronically absent \u2014 not just from the school building, but from any individual class. Meanwhile, any legislation addressing school attendance should require schools to start making this information public.<\/p>\n

Next, it\u2019s essential that we know how many students receive credit for classes they seldom attend. I\u2019ve heard enough disturbing stories from colleagues throughout the city to feel confident in asserting that widespread fraud is occurring. But no one should take my word for this. To gain a sense of each school\u2019s grading integrity, we need to know how many of their students are missing, for instance, 50, 75, or even 90% of their classes in any subject and still receiving passing grades.<\/p>\n

Once the extent of the problem becomes clear, state leaders can explore potential solutions. But before any ultimate remedies are proposed, taxpayers deserve a transparent look at the data.<\/p>\n

We need to know if our schools are educating students or simply pretending to do so. If our city\u2019s leaders won\u2019t help us determine this, it\u2019s up to our leaders in Albany to take action.<\/p>\n

Dowd teaches social studies and coaches wrestling at Midwood High School<\/a> in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As a public high school teacher concerned about the rise of chronic absenteeism, I was encouraged this spring…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353349,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10,299],"class_list":["post-353348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}