Make youth sports community-based
BevK October 29th, 2006
http://www.timesunion.com…&storyID=529757
Preach it John, preach it!
Your Oct. 8 edition featured three stories relating to home-schoolers who want to play on public school sports teams but can’t because of a state regulation. I run the New York Home Educators’ Network (http://www.nyhen.org), the statewide group that’s open to all home-schooling families. I can tell you that this issue is more complex than your stories indicated. If home-schooled athletes want to give up educational freedom for a spot on a team (for example, by enrolling in school), that’s their choice. But that choice must not diminish others’ educational freedom. The real solution isn’t to allow home-schoolers on public school teams; it’s to replace interscholastic sports with community-based sports. If the same leagues were run by municipalities instead of schools, there would be no distinctions between public schoolers, private schoolers, and home-schoolers. There would be only residents, all on an equal footing.
