Standards Promote Value
October 29, 2012
I can’t speak for every state, but it is probably true for most states, that (1) no school is required to provide a program of interscholastic activities – such are not curricular activities; and (2) participation in voluntary interscholastic competitive activities is a privilege offered to those who meet standards of eligibility and conduct of the school and standards of ability for the activity involved.
It is not a liability but an asset of competitive interscholastic activities that they are not co-curricular, but extracurricular – voluntary programs with extra standards, extra requirements, extra expectations.
We don’t need to sell the public on the value of participation; they desperately want their children to participate, and they will even sue us for the opportunity. What we have to do is sell the public on the value of the standards we maintain for participation.
Much of the value of school activities results from the standards of school activities. Many of the benefits of school activities accrue from the requirements of school activities. Raise the bar, raise the value. Lower the bar, lower the value.
Activities are much less capable of doing good things for kids and good things for schools and their communities where there are lower standards of eligibility and conduct. It’s the difference between interscholastic and intramural, between tough and easy. It is because schools have raised the bar for interscholastic activities that these programs have value to students, schools and communities.
Mission Control
May 5, 2015
As we survey all that might be done in the future to improve the health and safety of student-athletes, it is good discipline to look to the past and recall when hype or hysteria caused well-intentioned people, and some not-so-well-intentioned people, to campaign for solutions to problems that either did not exist or could not be effectively addressed through mandates on school sports.
Over the years, school sports has been asked to address much more than what occurs on the practice or playing field. We’ve been asked to address drunk and then distracted driving; bulimia and bullying; texting and sexting; hazing and homelessness; seat belt use and steroids, which provides a perfect example of the limitations of fixing societal problems through mandates on school sports programs.
After more than a decade of voluntary educational efforts and just about the time when steroid use in schools began to trend downward, state legislatures caught wind of the “problem” and perhaps of potential political gain.
The University of Michigan Institute for Social Research reports that steroid use has been declining since 2005, which was just before the first state – New Jersey – enacted a law requiring schools to test high school athletes. Undaunted, the Texas legislature followed suit three years later. Undeterred, the Florida legislature followed the next year, and then Illinois lawmakers acted.
Florida discontinued its mandated drug testing program after just one year, and Texas is about to end its program, after spending nearly $10 million. Florida conducted 600 tests. Texas ran more than 60,000. Florida had one positive test. Texas reported less than one percent positive tests.
Because leaders of school sports have the statistics to link sports participation with improved attendance, achievement and attitude at school, we make our programs vulnerable to assault by passionate people who want our good programs to fix their bad problems. We have to be careful to avoid a situation where, in trying to address so many of society’s problems, we actually solve none; and worse, become distracted from our core chore of conducting safe, fair and sportsmanlike programs that make schools a happier, healthier place for student academic achievement.