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Back in the Game

September 8, 2015

Finally, at long last, public schools can begin again to open their classrooms to educate students. Most of our state’s college and university classes began a week or more ago. Most of our state’s private secondary schools began classes a week or more ago. Schools in most other states began a week or more ago.

But Michigan public schools stumble to the starting line long after the race has started almost everywhere else.

Each week during the four weeks since I last wrote about this topic, students in Michigan’s public schools have fallen further and further behind other students across the U.S. and the planet.

When colleges complain that our students are not college ready, think about this. When other states win the new business we seek for Michigan, think about this.

A school year start that competes with the rest of the nation and a school year length that competes with the rest of the world – these are two changes Michigan needs to give us a fair chance.

A Backhanded Compliment

April 17, 2012

A year ago this month I listened to the attorney for another statewide high school athletic association pose this question:  “Why is it that people quite readily accept inflexible age limitations over a broad spectrum of American life, including sports, but presuppose it is wrong for school sports?”

This attorney was in the middle of a controversy that more recently has visited the MHSAA:  an overage student seeking relief from a universally applied maximum age rule.  The speaker was perplexed and frustrated by the double standard.

Part of the reason for the double standard rests in the reality that people value the school sports experience so much more than other parts of life, including other sports experiences.  Because they want the opportunity to play, they resort to litigation in an attempt to create the right to play.

Another part of the reason school sports is challenged on an issue on which other programs get a free pass is that school sports has a centralized authority, close to home.  State high school associations are readily accessible targets, easier both to find and to fight with than most other entities with age restrictions.

And, of course, part of the reason for the double standard is the proximity of interscholastic athletics to academics – the former extracurricular, the latter curricular – the former a privilege for most teenagers, the latter a right of all citizens to age 26.

The reasons school sports are attacked on this issue while other entities are not are reasons really complimentary to school sports:  the program is popular, accessible and connected to education.  None of these features of school sports, or its age limitation, should change.