High rates of chronic absenteeism—defined as missing at least one out of every ten school days—have become a national issue.

California has been particularly hard hit. In Los Angeles, more than 45% of students were chronically absent in 2021-22. The percentage dropped to 36% in 2022-23, and while the preliminary rate for the 2023-24 school year shows improvement to 32.3%, it is still nearly double pre-pandemic levels. In Oakland, nearly 32% of students across the district were chronically absent during the 2023-24 school year.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s 2024 Kids Count Data Book has examined the factors behind the problem. Among other things, the organization reports that about 40% of children have “undergone an adverse childhood experience,” including family economic hardship, a child’s parents having been divorced, separated, served time in jail or died, witnessing domestic violence, living with someone who has a mental illness, etc.

While the cause of the absentee problem is understandable for students from unstable homes, what about all the other kids?

A new survey about Gen Zers’ school attitudes released by Gallup and the Walton Family Foundation speaks volumes. When asked whether “my schoolwork challenges me in a good way,” under half of middle and high school students agreed, with only 14% agreeing strongly.

In the latter scenario, a more interesting syllabus and better teachers would greatly improve things. But in Oakland, the school system has resorted to bribery. In early March, Oakland’s high school students enrolled in a pilot program that pays students for perfect attendance.

The Equitable Design Project gives students $50 every Friday if they attend class five days a week. If high schoolers are tardy, cut class, or miss school entirely, they forfeit the money for that week.

This is outrageous. Not only is a boatload of taxpayer money being taken by the government to pay for education, but now additional dollars are also being used to bribe students who don’t find their education meaningful. There are many better ways to deal with this sad state of affairs.

For one, more effective educators would certainly be an impetus for students not to ditch school. However, teachers’ unions greatly impede teacher quality in many places, especially in California.

One atrocity is the seniority, or “last in, first out” (LIFO) regimen. If teachers must be laid off, the typical union contract stipulates that it must be done that arbitrary way. This industrial style of dealing with a teacher overage is typified by Michigan’s Ann Arbor Public Schools system, where the teacher union contract states that after considering years of experience with the district, if two teachers have equal seniority, the last several digits of a teacher’s Social Security number would be the tiebreaker for a layoff.

A study from Stanford University found that only 13% to 16% of the teachers laid off in a seniority-based system would also be cut under a system based on teacher effectiveness.

Additionally, there is tenure, or more accurately, “permanent status,” which in California means that after just two years on the job, teachers essentially have a job for life. We most definitely should not have this awful law on the books for people who are in charge of our most precious commodity—our children.

During the Vergara trial in California, it was revealed that just 2.2 of the state’s 300,000 teachers (0.0008%) were dismissed for unprofessional conduct or unsatisfactory performance in any given year. This compares to 8% of employees in the private sector being dismissed annually for cause. Applying the 8% number to teachers, about 24,000 bottom-performing teachers per year should be let go.

Also, because the collectively bargained dismissal statutes are so laborious, many administrators in the Golden State don’t even bother trying to navigate the 10-step process that must be taken before a dismissal is finalized. It is much easier for administrators to simply “pass the trash” to another school.

Good teachers should be paid more. Whereas private sector employees are paid via merit, K-12 educators are part of a teacher union-mandated industrial-style “step and column” salary regimen, which treats them as interchangeable parts. They get salary increases for the number of years they work and for taking (frequently meaningless) professional development classes. Great teachers are worth more—a lot more—and should receive higher pay than their less capable colleagues. But in California and other teacher union-dominated states, they don’t. Also, if a district is short on math or science teachers, paying them more than other teachers whose fields are overpopulated is logical. But stifling union contracts don’t allow for this kind of flexibility.

Arkansas is one state doing it right. Instead of bribing students to come to school, they now award teachers who have “demonstrated outstanding growth in student performance and served as mentors to aspiring teachers who participated in yearlong residencies or taught in a subject, geographical, or designation area experiencing a critical teacher shortage,” according to Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

About 10% of Arkansas’ certified teachers will be financially rewarded. Statewide, the average bonus is approximately $3,300, and nearly three dozen educators will receive the maximum $10,000 additional compensation provided through the program.

According to EdChoice’s latest Schooling in America survey, parents are increasingly pessimistic about the direction of K-12 education, with 64% of parents nationwide saying that K-12 education in America is on the wrong track. So, it is hardly surprising that parents continue to show strong levels of support toward policies like education savings accounts (ESAs), vouchers, charter schools, and tax-credit scholarships, and the numbers continue to grow. For example, in 2014, 62% of parents supported ESAs. But now, 84% of parents are in favor. In fact, support for all four policies has increased over the past ten years.

There is much we can do to improve education in the U.S., including paying good teachers more, giving parents choices, and getting rid of onerous teacher union mandates. But these changes don’t come easy while the politicians and the unions that control them rule the roost. And further fleecing the taxpayers by bribing students is deplorable.

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Larry Sand, a retired 28-year classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network—a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers and the general public with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues. The views presented here are strictly his own.