Home-schoolers want to play too
BevK October 10th, 2006
http://timesunion.com/Asp…sdate=10/8/2006
Home-schooled students from 26 other states also are barred from interscholastic competition. Eight other states allow home-schoolers to compete if they meet certain criteria, such as taking a few classes at the school.
This is just wrong.
“High schools have a monopoly over the age group. Once you get to high school, there’s no town team,” said Rob McDougal, the father of Josh McDougal. “If you were playing a team sport and you wanted to move on to the next level, it would be devastating.”
University of Minnesota rowing coach Wendy Davis, who has a former member of the Mohwak team on her roster, also takes issue with the state’s policy.
“Are we about educating people? Why would you shut the door on kids?” she said. “It bothers me, students getting denied access. It’s not right. It’s just sad.”
And the key here is monopoly on team sports over the age of 15. But this monopoly is even worse in my opinion because it limits the total number of kids that ever get to play sports. Football teams are larger, so need more players, but other teams sports like basketball are limited to a twelve man roster. That means that 36 kids play boys basketball in a typical high school season. That would be in schools of more than a thousand students. We keep hearing about fat kids. Well, take schools of the sports industry and see what parents will come up with in its place.
Said New York State United Teachers spokesman Dennis Tompkins: “Obviously home-schooling works for families. Most of coaches, they don’t mind if home-schoolers came out to try out for teams. Not sure the reasoning behind the rule. I’m sure it’s logical.”
And I’m just as sure it has more to do with not having complete control over the student.
Over the years, national home-school competitions have burgeoned. There’s a Home-school World Series Association in baseball and the National Christian Home-school Basketball Championship, a 15-year-old event that, in March, welcomed 266 home-school basketball teams from 20 states, more than double what it drew six years ago.
If homeschoolers can make away around the public school monopoly, so can other parents. Just think of the tax savings if we stopped funding school sports.
