Last week, a new study reported that 28 percent of teachers working in traditional public schools use sick days or personal leave to miss more than ten days of school each year. The analysis, authored by David Griffith of the center-right Fordham Institute, found that the comparable figure at charter schools was 10 percent. Meanwhile, Griffith noted, the typical U.S. worker takes about three and a half sick days a year.

This failed attempt to link collective bargaining and teacher absenteeism by an extremist group is junk science.

According to Charles Goodmacher, a spokesman for the National Education Association of New Mexico.

When nearly one-fourth of  teachers are missing another two weeks of school a year on top of all that, it’s a problem. But it’s an even bigger problem that those who speak for the profession respond to the news as the children they teach might do — with anger at being busted — rather than like responsible adults. It will be hard for teachers to earn the esteem they seek until those who claim to speak for the profession start to grow up.

Read the full article at AEI