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Classification Comparisons

January 27, 2012

One of the ways statewide high school organizations evaluate their operations is to compare their policies and  procedures with similar organizations.  We do so cautiously, however, because there are so many variables – like population and number of schools, as well as the size, shape and location of the state.

We find that the most useful comparisons are with states of the upper Midwest and Great Plains and, even more so, with the statewide organizations of that region with a number of schools closest to our approximately 765 member high schools in Michigan.

By these criteria, Illinois, with about 780 high schools, and Ohio, with about 820 high schools, are most valuable to observe, while neighbors like Indiana and Wisconsin with about 400 and 500 high schools, respectively, are less valid measures for our work here.

Recently, to help the MHSAA Classification Committee have a larger view of tournament classification systems, we provided the Volleyball, Football and Basketball Tournament classifications of Illinois and Ohio, as well as our own:

  • All three states have four classifications in both volleyball and basketball, and only Ohio equalizes the number of schools in each class/division (as Michigan does in all sports except volleyball and basketball).
  • The enrollment ranges between the largest and smallest schools in the classification for the largest schools and the classification for the smallest schools (Classes A and D in Michigan) are much smaller in Michigan than in either Illinois or Ohio in volleyball and basketball.
  • In football, Ohio’s playoffs accommodate 192 football schools in six divisions determined prior to the regular season, while both Illinois and Michigan’s 11-player playoffs accommodate 256 schools in eight divisions determined at the end of the regular season.

Making an Impact

September 11, 2012

Here’s a provocative statement by David Gergen, professor of public policy and director of the Center for Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and a frequent political analyst for CNN:  “The nonprofits making the greatest impacts these days are entrepreneurial, adaptive, outward-looking, and sometimes a little messy.”

I like that, and I think using these four features or criteria to evaluate the MHSAA now and in the mid-range future would be good for those we serve.

  • Are we entrepreneurial?  How could we be more so?

  • Are we adaptive?  Are we flexible in how we do things?

  • Are we outward-looking?  Are we impacting school sports broadly and deeply?  Does the impact have staying power?  Are schools better because of what we do?  Are communities stronger for our doing it?

  • Are we sometimes a little messy?

I suspect that if we are the first three – entrepreneurial, adaptive and outward-looking – then messiness is a natural byproduct.  There will be starts and stops, failures before successes, changes.  There will be disagreements and compromises.

I suspect that we will have to tolerate a little more messiness if we are to move forward, even faster than we have, and if we are to have impact, even greater than we have.