Teacher Absenteeism: An Analysis of the Possible Correlation to Student Achievement in Math and English Language Arts

Teachers play a critical role in the academic achievement of children. Many students are not achieving at the same rate as their peers, leaving educators with the challenge of determining reasons for this variance. This quantitative study examined the relationship between teacher attendance and student achievement as measured by growth on the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) assessment. Data were collected for all students in grades K-8 from an urban Mid-Atlantic school district. A pretest-posttest design was used to determine a growth score on the English Language Arts (ELA) and math MAP assessments during the 2017-2018 school year. Student growth scores along with teacher attendance data were analyzed using Spearman’s correlations. No evidence for a statistically significant correlation was found in math for kindergarten, fourth, seventh, and eighth grade. Evidence for a statistically significant positive correlation was found in math for first, fifth, and sixth grade, but it was a very weak correlation. Evidence for a statistically significant negative correlation was found in math for second and third grade, but it was also a very weak correlation. No evidence for a statistically significant correlation was found in ELA for second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth grade. Evidence for a statistically significant positive correlation was found in ELA for first, seventh, and eighth grade, but it was a very weak correlation. Evidence for a statistically significant negative correlation was found in ELA for kindergarten, but it was also a very weak correlation.