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WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING ABOUT
THE PROPOSED LEGISLATION
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Here's an assortment of opinions from different
newspapers around the state regarding the concept of unenrolled
students playing on school sports teams:
"For those who eschew public school education
for their children, to expect to win favored positions for them
in school sports is rank hypocrisy. Arguments about home-schooled
youngsters being entitled because parents pay taxes are fatuous.
"Similar arguments would have us put toll-gates on each
major thoroughfare so Toledoans who don't travel those roads
don't have to pay for them. Or they would exempt from city street-cleaning
fees a homeowner who chose to decline the service and do his
own sweeping in front of his property.
"If each citizen gets all those choices we wind up with anarchy, not a community."
The Toldeo Blade (April
20, 1999)
"The proposal is riddled with problems. It
wrongly assumes that charter schools can't be self-sufficient.
Charters were created as options to traditional public schools,
not just as classrooms that depend upon their public counterparts
for non-academic activities. School choice involves what's offered
after the final bell rings as well as the school-day curriculum.
Sure parents aren't likely to find outstanding music programs
or competitive football teams at a fledgling charter or a small
private academy. If they think those are important elements in
their child's education, they should pick another school. That's
why it's called choice.
"Some charter and private schools might regard the plan as a license to skimp on extracurricular offerings. The larger, more established public schools would have to pick up the slack, and the tab. The legislation makes no mention of having dollars follow the students as they hop from school to school. Mr. Engler says their taxpaying parents already are footing the bill. That's sophistry. The parents do pay the taxes ticketed for schools, but Proposal A provides funding to schools only according to the number of students attending them. A school gets no payment for a child who attends somewhere else."
Grand Rapids Press (April 19, 1999)
"How would you like it if your son was cut
from his school's basketball team to make room for a student
who doesn't even attend the school? How would you like it if
you had a daughter playing three sports at Catholic Central,
and over the course of one school year she played against a girl
who spent the basketball season playing for Creston, the volleyball
season playing for Union, and the softball season playing for
Ottawa Hills? And then a year later, that same girl wound up
playing basketball for Union, volleyball for Ottawa Hills and
softball for Creston, because those teams would be better than
her previous ones?
"If that ever happens -- and it is closer to reality than you might think -- you will have only yourselves to blame."
Grand Rapids Press
(April
11, 1999)
"Not only would the alternative school be
able to participate in public school athletics, he could select
his school. There are always allegations concerning recruiting
of high school athletes. This would only compound the problem."
"Now, a potential blue chip athlete could enroll in an alternative school and then let the bidding for his services begin.
When it comes to bad ideas, this one ranks right near the top of the list."
Alpena News
(April 2, 1999)
"Lawmakers who care at all about public schools,
which educate the vast majority of students in this state, ought
to beat this idea into oblivion.
"Public schools would have to open up all their extracurricular activities to their choice competitors - at no cost to the alternative school or its students."
Bay City Times
(April 2, 1999)
"One of the great things about extracurricular
activities is the off-the-field comraderie created by athletics
or band or the mock trial team. You see your teammates in class
and then you compete with them after school.
"The bill would create mercenary students who could sell their talents to the highest bidder. The hated-and-feared word "Recruiting" could come into play."
Kalamazoo Gazette (April
1, 1999)
"Parents choose to keep their children from the public school
system for a variety of reasons. Some have to do with academics,
some with safety, some with something else.
"So why would they want their children put back into the public school world? In activities coached and directed by the same staff that teaches classes during school hours? Alongside the same students who sit in the classrooms, learning whatever it is they learn? Can you pick and choose education options the way you buy groceries?"
Grand Rapids Press (March 30, 1999)
"Pat Ball…is dead set against Engler's plan.
" 'It's bad news,' said Ball, currently the athletic director at Class A Oxford High School. "If this bill passses it would create a whole lot of new problems.'
" 'We are fighting for the same dollar as the charter schools and why should they be allowed to be on our teams when they don't pay a penny,' Ball asked. 'If you want to play on a team, be part of a school. It's your choice.' "
Holland Sentinel (March
29, 1999)
"Charter schools must reckon with its limitations
in offerings of extracurricular activities, or gradually include
them as a priority. In fact, 15 charter schools in Michigan already
offer some varsity sports.
"That's the way to do it -- not on the backs of traditional public schools."
Lansing State Journal (March 28)
"School sports is about more than competing
on game day. It's about pep assemblies, decorating lockers, wearing
the school jersey to school on game day. It's about wearing the
school colors with pride. It's about walking the halls the day
after a game and rehashing the night's memories with friends.
"It's about bonding as a unit and sharing experiences on the court and in the classroom.
"It's not about everyone going their separate ways - even separate schools - the day after the big game. It's not about kids from outside the school breaking up teams and groups of friends who have been together for years from the elementary school level through the middle school and the junior varsity."
Jackson Citizen-Patriot (March
25, 1999)