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Hit Again

April 1, 2013

Education reform needs a Mulligan.  A do-over.  The opportunity to go back to “Go” and start over.  For example . . .

  • Back to a time before the attack on neighborhood schools closed those schools and contributed to neighborhood collapse and community disconnect.

  • Before suburban schools were allowed to prey on and profit from an urban school’s misfortunes.

  • Before large buses lumbered down narrow residential lanes to transport our littlest learners from the shadow of their local school to another across town, where all the other littlest students were gathered for more “cost-effective” education.

  • Before schools shuffled off low-achieving students to alternative schools in order to elevate their ranking on standardized test scores.

  • Before teachers based their lessons more on test preparation than learning.

  • Before education re-segregated through specialized charter schools with non-inclusive curricula.

  • Before public schools were barred from beginning their instructional days before Labor Day, or whenever their community thought it best for the education of its students.

  • Back to a time when pedagogy more than politics planned and delivered education.

 Let’s tee it up and hit again.

Football Follies

October 7, 2014

Notice reached the MHSAA office of a so-called “2014 Michigan Youth Football Classic” that invites youth league teams to “a great weekend of youth tackle football.” For $450 per team, youth football teams will bang bodies for two days – Nov. 8 and 9 – with each team guaranteed at least three games. Three!

No level of football but this – for the youngest players who have the most vulnerable skulls – allows the idiocy of three games in a weekend. Most limit competition to a maximum of one game in a week!

In my opinion, this isn’t a football classic. It’s child abuse.

I wish the foolishness would stop there, but even an organization called USA Football seems to have lost its head. Initially and mostly with funding from the NFL, USA Football was focused on teaching youth football coaches and players safe blocking and tackling techniques. Good.

But now this pseudo-national governing body for amateur football is planning events for various age groups that will extend tackle football practices and games throughout what used to be an off-season. Multiple competitions in tackle football are scheduled for high school age players in January, February and July of 2015.

At a time when professional, college, school and Pop Warner football are all reducing contact during practices in-season, USA Football wants to expand the contact experience out of season. It makes about as much sense as three games in a weekend.