Public School Systems Live By The Numbers

It has been a while since I have mocked the numbers that school systems use to justify their existence and importance. Just check out the label "numbers."

Ms. Sherri Akerman from The Tribune dutifully reports a number provided by our local education agency as the headline of her report. As I was reading the public comments, I started to wonder what type of number all involved were really smoking.

42% absentee rate reported in Hillsborough schools today:

My averaged number crunch based on reported absentee rate by others: 72.5%

Roll your own:

Beth Hamaker , Steinbrenner - her son told her no more than 250 of 1,100 students reported for class - 77.27%

Posted by (jmk22) on 04/02/2010 at 03:32 pm. - 55%

Posted by (silver_springs77) on 04/02/2010 at 04:21 pm.: "I only had a total of about 3-5 students in any one of my classes" ?%

Posted by (mrtdm1) on 04/02/2010 at 04:50 pm. "My Grand daughter is in the IB program at Hillsborough. She said she had at the most 5 to 10 kids in her classes. One homeroom had 1 child show." ?%

Posted by (wanna) on 04/02/2010 at 07:38 pm. :"I know at the high school today where I subbed - it had 235 out of 1610 students" 85.40%


(historyteacher) on 04/02/2010 at 07:42 pm.: "To those comments who suggest that it should have been a normal day for students in the classroom I would like to add that I wish it could have been too, but when you have three students in a class normally of 24 you are really left with no option. " 87.5%


(historyteacher) on 04/02/2010 at 07:42 pm.: "My school had over 50% of students stay home." 50%+

Posted by (Gigi1182) on 04/02/2010 at 07:43 pm.: "Freedom High school's enrollment is 1900. 400 of them showed up today." 78.95%

Posted by (unvme) on 04/02/2010 at 07:46 pm.: "I am a teacher in Hillsborough county and while my attendance was between 4 and 9 students per class,.." ?%

Making the PRO looking like he understands the game: "Posted by (pvmichaels) on 04/02/2010 at 08:31 pm.

The 42% is totally wrong! We, at my school, didn't take attendance the normal way (which is by the computer). I think some students weren't counted as being absent to make the number of students at school look better!"

Posted by (hiphugger67) on 04/02/2010 at 08:42 pm. "I went into school for 1st period... where there were 3 other kids in my class. I had 2 teachers come into my classroom, one of which had 1 student present, and the other who had no students present. That's not 42%!" ?% and 100% (absent)

Posted by (historyteacher) on 04/02/2010 at 09:01 pm.: "To janeyouignorantslot - I believe you assumed that I did not teach today - In fact I along with my students (35/121).. " 71.07%

Posted by (reptaddict) on 04/02/2010 at 10:10 pm.: "One last comment. I visited my son's high school today. The absentee rate had to be at least 75%, and that's being generous. It may very well have been worse."