Extracurricular Programs Must Be Heard
December 17, 2012
A team assembled by our Governor has brought forward the most thoughtful and comprehensive proposals to overhaul public education our state has seen in a long time, perhaps ever.
Nevertheless, there is little evidence that the hard work has included more than cursory attention to the extracurricular programs that create a point of connection for students and a sense of community from small towns to urban neighborhoods across our state – programs that provide motivation for students to stay in school, like school and do better in school, and for parents, boosters, friends and neighbors to invest in that school.
Some may argue that the neighborhood school is as anachronistic as the nine-month school year. While I’ve long and often criticized the school year as too short, I continue to advocate for neighborhood schools.
I’ve seen too much harm to students educationally and to communities economically as a result of sending students hither and yon for their schooling. And the so-called innovations have been resegregating public education every step down this ill-advised path.
The mantra “any time, any place, any way, any pace” may be a catchy phrase to describe where reformers wish to take public education in Michigan. It may also be the wrong direction for students, communities and ultimately our state, taking us back to a time when students dropped in and out of schools without much accountability.
As for our little piece of this – emotion-charged extracurricular programs – we’ll do our best to maintain a little order, some respect for rules and responsibilities, and a sense of fairness and equity.
There are many days in many places where 40 or 50 or 60 percent or more of a high school’s student body is participating in extracurricular athletics and activities. They are not unimportant to the education of those students and to the quality of life in those communities. Even if they haven’t been consulted during recent planning, extracurricular programs will be heard from during the coming debate.
Students of Rules
November 12, 2013
Those who make rules ought to be students of rules. We mean this in at least the two ways this posting and the next will address.
First, rule makers should know the essence of the existing body of rules which they will be responsible for upholding or modifying during the necessary ongoing review of those rules. These rule makers should have a general awareness of when and why each rule was first adopted, how it might have evolved, how it is now applied and what the major compliance problems have been in the past or may be in the future.
This first requirement is as important for those who prepare the rules for the contests – the playing rules – as for those who promulgate the rules that establish the minimum eligibility standards and the maximum limits for competition. In the face of any proposal to eliminate or greatly modify any rule, rule makers must ask what problems may return if they remove the rule that solved those problems.
Dov Seidman writes in how: Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything: “Rules, of course, don’t come out of thin air. Legislatures and organizations adopt them usually to proscribe unwanted behaviors but typically in reaction to events. They lower speed limits after automobile accidents become too frequent, regulate pit bulls after a series of dog bites, or institute new expense-tracking procedures after someone is caught trying to get reimbursed for their new iPod. Rules have been established for a reason, but most people are out of touch with the rationale and spirit of why. They don’t read legislative histories and so have a thin, superficial relationship to the rules . . .”
That is not acceptable for those who write, review and revise rules. They have to know where each rule has come from. This is why for the rule makers and for those in our member schools responsible for applying the rules day in and day out, the MHSAA keeps current “The The History, Rationale and Application of the Essential Eligibility Regulations High School Athletics in Michigan."