One In Four Michigan School District Teachers Chronically Absent
That’s twice the rate of charter school teachers
A new report released by the Thomas Fordham Institute found that school teachers in Michigan’s conventional school districts are almost twice as likely to miss 11 or more days of school than teachers in public charter schools.
In Michigan, 24.7 percent of school district teachers miss 11 days or more – which the federal Office for Civil Rights defines as “chronically absent” – while 12.4 percent of charter school teachers miss that many. Nationwide, the report says, 28.3 percent of public school teachers and 10.3 percent of charter school teachers are chronically absent.
The report suggests that a significant factor in the difference between the groups is whether the teacher has a union collective bargaining agreement.
The report backs up this assertion by citing the fact that Georgia and Texas, where union collective bargaining is illegal, have smaller-than-average gaps between rates of chronic absenteeism.
The report also found that nationwide, 18 percent of teachers in unionized public charter schools are chronically absent, while 9 percent of teachers in non-unionized public charter schools are chronically absent. Most charter schools are not unionized.
Doug Pratt, spokesman for the Michigan Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, said that charter school teachers must show up to work sick to keep their jobs, according to the Detroit Free Press. He offered no proof to support his claim.
“He said that in charters, ‘very few have organized themselves to bargain those days off,’ and have to show up for work sick to keep their jobs,” Pratt was quoted as saying in the Sept. 20 Detroit Free Press. “It comes down to a question of do you want sick teachers in front of kids.”
In the Free Press article, Pratt also said, “Teachers often end up taking days off because of extended illnesses or because they're caring for a sick relative.”
Dan Quisenberry, president of the Michigan Association of Public School Academies, which advocates for charter schools, condemned Pratt’s statement.
“Doug Pratt and the MEA should be ashamed of themselves for that unfounded, irresponsible allegation,” Quisenberry said. “Charter school teachers don’t need to be told when to show up to work and when to stay home. They’re professionals, and they’re going to do what’s right for themselves and for their students.”
Pratt did not return an email and a phone call requesting comment.
Michigan Capitol Confidential is the news source produced by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Michigan Capitol Confidential reports with a free-market news perspective.
Jobs Department’s Fake News: $10 Tax return for Every $1 in Subsidies
Program lacks transparency, too
On December 6, 2017 the authors were informed that the input assumption sheets for most finalized MBDP deals will be provided upon request.
In 2011 newly elected Gov. Rick Snyder championed a corporate handout initiative called the Michigan Business Development Program. The program distributes mostly cash grants (and some loans and other favors) to companies that make investments and add new jobs, above some baseline, to their payroll in Michigan. The MBDP was a replacement for the state’s Michigan Economic Growth Authority, which is widely regarded as a multibillion-dollar job creation failure.
The MBDP is very likely ineffective, too, and should be suspended, at least until the state is willing to make public the assumptions that contribute to the credulity-straining claims of the program’s so-called “return on investment.” Ideally, the Legislature would hire some independent academic scholar with no vested interest in the question to assess the value of the program empirically.
There are several troublesome questions about the MBDP. State officials cannot prove that the jobs they are claiming this program is responsible for would not have been created without subsidies. Evidence suggests almost all decisions about business expansion and relocation are not determined by government incentives.
Scholar Timothy Bartik of the Kalamazoo-based Upjohn Institute writes that “the average incentive package … might tip the location decision of 6 percent of incented businesses.” That means that incentives made a difference only 6 percent of the time. The vast majority did not help a jurisdiction’s economy.
The MBDP also lacks transparency. In its fiscal year 2016 annual report, the program’s administrators make outrageous claims that they can’t — or won’t — back up. The report says that the projected return on investment for 2016 projects alone is 10 to one. That is, for every dollar in subsidies distributed by the state, $10 will be returned to it as a result.
They are not even willing to justify their inflated claims. The administrators have refused a request to release the assumptions used to render company ROI results. In other words, the state is saying, “Our program is a huge success but you’ll just have to take our word for it.” It is naive to do so. State jobs officials have every economic incentive to claim success where there may be none. Their own jobs depend on the appearance of job and wealth creation.
To forecast this huge impact the state uses a software model called “REMI,” which scholars have said can be misused to make government programs appear more successful than they really are. Years ago, the state commissioned a study from a consultant about its film subsidy program. The consultant used REMI and reported the program was a success. But the consultant omitted 100 percent of the costs associated with the program. REMI would have likely shown a zero to negative impact from the program had it been fed real-world costs.
How is anyone to know if officials aren’t likewise gaming the model to produce glowing figures if no one is allowed to examine the assumptions fed into the REMI model?
It is worth noting that the state plays a similar game with its Pure Michigan tourism subsidy program. It hires a consultant who claims the program has a ROI of more than $8 for every tax dollar spent but refuses to precisely explain how that figure was generated. The state has made it clear it is comfortable with such secrecy.
The state approved 377-plus MBDP deals, by our count, from March 2012 through June 2017. The total value of the subsidies approved (but not necessarily paid out yet) exceeds $350 million. Not every grant will be paid out. The 2016 report lists nine companies whose deals were revoked and eight of those were for failing to meet at least one performance milestone or parameter. That number might be much higher were it not for the 38 amendments to deals first struck in 2015 or 2016.
Most of the amendments identified in the annual report indicate some type of relaxing of previously established mandates, such as extending the date at which the company had to create new jobs or lowering the job creation threshold.
Most of these dismissed and (eventually) amended deals would have been included in previous projected ROI calculations. As original expectations turned out to be wrong, so too would projected performance. If administrators make incorrect assumptions, their forecasts will be incorrect, as well. It is ironic, but the REMI model cannot predict the future accurately because MBDP administrators cannot predict the future accurately. These and other issues render the ROI pronouncements for this program useless.
The state’s jobs mandarins make outrageous claims for their own success, secure in the knowledge that they don’t have to actually prove it. State administrators can’t or won’t prove that the MBDP is effective and so should stop puffing up the program as if it is. Lansing lawmakers should call on them to justify their claims. People deserve transparency, not unjustified boasts about the results of favored programs.
Michigan Capitol Confidential is the news source produced by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Michigan Capitol Confidential reports with a free-market news perspective.
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