When the president of the United Teachers of Lowell denounced on local radio my investigation into teachers' absenteeism, saying, "You can interpret the numbers to say whatever you want," he reminded me of similar words spoken by IRE's executive director Brant Houston. At NICAR boot camp, Houston repeatedly warned journalists to do the legwork and check for the story behind the numbers. I chuckled as the union president spun his damage control.
My computer-assisted reporting training had helped produce an ironclad three-part series that turned never-seen-before records into a powerful exposé on teachers' sick-day abuse and its impact on students. I found data processing errors in nearly every file I received from the School Department It's always easy when it's over, but as an editor-turned-CAR reporter I faced the constant pressure of an editor breathing down my neck to get the project done.
After every computer analysis update he would declare, "OK, you've got the numbers, can't you write it now?" But the numbers were only the lead-in to the story. The numbers, in fact, were a Rosetta stone. As I deciphered their meaning it became clear there was more to teacher absenteeism than just sick days. I had to examine budget issues, the contract, sick leave, accumulated sick leave (teachers can pile up a bank of unused sick days from year to year), and reasons for the absences.
Only then could I put into context the statistics from 20,000 Lowell School Department records that threatened to overwhelm me. It didn't help that I was doing this project at home after my regular workday, since the newsroom lacked the necessary computer and software resources. Moreover, my editor's frustration grew as I put more energy into the CAR investigation. The genesis of the project came in casual conversation with the Lowell City auditor in January.
He said he was processing 70 to 100 paychecks a week for substitute teachers - the most in his two decades on the job. I then filed a Freedom of Information Act request, one of four FOIAs involved in the project, for the substitute payroll accounts. I found that for 1997-98, Lowell had spent $1.2 million on substitute teachers. I was curious, and that's when I began examining the system of teacher absences.
Three months into the project, when I began reporting, I commandeered two general assignment reporters, Jennifer Fenn and Heidi Perlmann, to help conduct interviews and write sidebars. Fenn uncovered 3,000 classroom absences caused by professional development workshops that the School Department had failed to document. Along the way, I adopted a mantra that aided my reporting and writing and led me to the promised land of publication: how does the system work?
Titled "Absent With Leave: Who's Teaching Your Child Today?," the three-part series took four months to complete and chronicled teachers' sick-leave abuse and a union contract that helped fuel it, the lust for professional development grant money that literally pushed teachers out of the classrooms and an overall lack of administrative oversight. It concluded that teacher absences were straining the Lowell Public School System financially and taking a toll on the educational opportunities of its 16,000 students.
'Rithmetic The investigation covered the 1997-98 Lowell school year, which was the most recent year for which statistics were available. The major findings were: Lowell's 1,138 teachers had accounted for 16,224 classroom absences, for an average of 14 days each over the 180-day school year. The highest teacher absenteeism due to sick leave occurred on Mondays and Fridays. The days before and after holidays and school vacations also reflected high absentee rates.
Teachers called in sick two and three days in advance of their purported illness. Attendance records received little or no School Department scrutiny. Professional development workshops for teachers accounted for more than 3,300 documented classroom absences, with as many as 60 teachers out of the classroom on any given day. The School Department paid out $3.2 million in lost wages to teachers and was forced to hire 10,540 substitutes at a cost of $1.2 million, or $215,000 more than was spent to purchase textbooks for the entire school system.
The School Department couldn't keep up with the demand for substitutes, with 1,433 classes going uncovered due to teacher absences. This forced students to double up with other classes, oftentimes eliminating their original course of study, and furthered a dilution of regular instruction. Writing I tried not to make the investigation a numbers story, and I got help in putting teacher absenteeism in perspective by reading articles from the ERIC Database.
The writing was reduced by 11 illustrative charts, all but one compiled by using Excel. The most compelling, however, was a full-page calendar of the school year showing the daily breakdown of teacher absences for sick leave, personal days and professional workshops. This was done through Access. A fever chart that revealed the spikes of absences on Mondays and Fridays, as well as holidays and vacations, accompanied the graphic.
I showed a preliminary version of the calendar graphic to all my interview subjects, and it was effective in getting them to comment. They couldn't duck what they saw in black-and-white. The first part, published June 13, ran 100 inches and highlighted the patterns of abuse associated with teachers' sick leave. It had a sidebar disclosing that Lowell teachers had accumulated more than $21 million in unused sick-day pay which was an uncompensated liability facing the city.
By contract, the city was required to buy back the sick days at 33 percent of their value when teachers retired, meaning taxpayers were on the hook for a budget-busting $7 million. As an editor-turned-CAR reporter I faced the constant pressure of an editor breathing down my neck to get the project done. After every computer analysis update he would declare, "OK, you've got the numbers, can't you write it now?" Part Two focused on reaction from School Department officials and the union president, offering details on how the teachers' contract had tied the hands of principals to deal effectively with sick-leave abuse.
The contract allowed each teacher 15 paid sick days and two paid personal days a year without excuse. Part Three dealt with the professional development program, which was largely built on state and federal grants. It uncovered the School Department's neglect in evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency of the workshops teachers were attending; $17 million in grant money had forced school officials to adopt a "use it or lose it" philosophy.
Research The teacher absenteeism investigation was my first in-depth computer-assisted reporting project since my January "graduation" from NICAR boot camp. As a senior editor who hadn't authored a major piece since the Reagan administration, the project tested my research and writing skills, both of which were rustier than Noah's nails. But my CAR convictions were greater than my doubts and deficiencies.
Instead, the biggest obstacle I faced was my own skepticism as to my self-taught computer skills. As a CAR novice I didn't trust my computer skills. I agonized over making a mistake that would taint the analysis. But I proceeded slowly, beginning the first week in February and working 2-3 hours a night for three months. Overall, I spent 90 hours researching 20,000 School Department records, both electronic and paper.
The computer records amounted to four disks stored in three different software programs, none of which matched up with a common identifier for a clean import and merge. The key information - a transactions file for every documented teacher absence - was stored on an old Wang VS system which I got converted to an ASCII file. I found data processing errors in nearly every file I received from the School Department, the most glaring involving 1,014 teachers who were inadvertently listed as missing school for a religious holiday when they were in the classroom.
In the end, I had to build a database in Access to contain the information I needed. I also relied heavily on Excel to build an updated assignment roster that gave me the whereabouts of every teacher in Lowell's 28 public schools and what they taught. This helped me later when I cross-checked absênces by individual schools and by teacher specialization. It led to two explosive charts, one ranking the schools by absences and the other ranking teachers as to their specialization (fourth-grade teachers averaged 17 sick days a year, the most of any group).
Each night I printed out reams of analysis and brought them to the office the next day where two newsroom secretaries and available copy editors checked them. If something didn't add up, that night I was back on the computer trying to figure it out. Results There was no shortcut to the final conclusions. I had to study the teachers contract, pester the city's chief labor negotiator and interview two dozen school officials, including administrators from outside Lowell who offered valuable insights as to what patterns of abuse I should be looking for.
In addition, I had to dispel my editor's perception that I was punching computer keys without a sense of purpose. In the end, we both learned that CAR projects require trust and patience. James Campanini can be reached by e- mail at jcampanini@lowellsun.com