Whats wrong with total public/private split?

[BDURHAM]

Baldcoach,

 

I appreciate you giving reasons, but they are direct

rebuttals to what mphstiger fan was saying. It may

appear to be oversimplistic to interpret your remarks

this way, but it is very clear -- you stated that parents

wanted to separate their kids from public schools.

 

No matter the reason, you have gone on records stating

that parents have separated their children from public

schools for the reasons stated. If I was a parent at a

public school whose son competed against your school,

I would have some issues with your statement.

 

For example, my kid is in a less spiritual, lower academic,

higher crime environment at Public School A, but Private

School X who has separated their kids from mine, want

to compete against my kids.

 

That logic does not make sense to me. You cannot

separate yourself and demand equality on the athletic

field.

 

Stan,

 

I wasn't trying to imply anything, just giving the reasons that parents stated for sending kids to small privates.

 

Since most small privates are in metro areas, I would not deny that the reasons are valid. However, most small publics are in rural areas and are community schools. They are NOTHING like metro schools, thus there isn't so much of a need for an alternative. I have found that the small rural schools are actually very much like the small privates...they have a built in set of community values and standards that are lacking in larger metropolitan systems.

 

Of course, I could be wrong, but I find that the people and kids at the small publics around our area are the same types of people in our school...good, hard working people who care about their school and their kids. And I find that many of the people who move into town from a small rural situation are attracted to the small privates because they are much more like the school that they came from than the larger metro schools.

[VolunteerGeneral]

Then send your kids to the tax supported schools then. The private school people chose to get out of the public school system. I say get out totally and stay out. Good riddance!

 

Laz...this is what mphstigerfan said. I could easily turn that around and ask...If you don`t want to play against private schools then are you willing to give them back their tax dollars?

 

He doesn`t want to play against privates but he is quick to accept their tax dollars they spend for public schools.

[VolunteerGeneral]

I`m going to add one more thing to this thread.

 

I don`t keep up too much with the other end of the state (East TN, but as far as the Western part of the 1A bracket I want to point out that Lake County was a #4 seed out of an all public region.

 

Lake County knocked off one of the top ranked teams in the state. They beat Fayette Academy who was the #1 seed in their region. They also knocked off TCA who was a #3 seed in their region. JCS who was a #2 seed had to convert a 4th down and 10 for a TD from 32 yards out with 20 seconds to go in the game to come from behind and beat Lake County.

 

All I`m saying is that is a #4 seed can do that then it seems like, at least on this end of the state, that it`s fairly competitive here. For someone to complain about JCS earning their way into the championship just seems totally biased to me.

[derek782]

A lot of you guys are very well versed on the differences between public and private schools and why they should or shouldn't compete against one another. Here is my 2 cents.....Are we really helping kids on either side of the argument by not allowing them to compete against one another? What does a split accomplish? I guess it gives a few public schools a few more wins but what does it do for the individual kid long term?

 

I posted the following on a previous thread and think it applies to this one as well:

 

In my opinion, the proponents of a total split seem to make a very "real world" argument (sarcasm). Let's all tell our kids in the public high schools that they are at a huge disadvantage to the ones in the private schools. After that we will teach a great lesson by eliminating the "advantaged" competition. Then we can have a "disadvantged" state champ and an "advantged" state champ. Before long those "disadvantaged" public school kids will be in college classrooms trying to keep up with the "advantaged" privates school students and then what are they to do??? What about intermurals? Should they have a league for the gifted private school athletes and a different one for the "disadvantaged" public school kids? And more importantly, how can you expect a young man who went to a public school to compete in a job interview when kids from privates might interview as well? Perhaps we should have corporations ran soley by people who went to privates and others ran by those "disadvantaged" public shcool students.

 

Of course I say all this "tongue in cheek".

 

Let's look big picture here, high school sports is to teach character, teamwork, responsibility, and commitment. It isn't to hand out trophies. Lets think about the kids here and the lessons we are teaching.

[BDURHAM]

It's not that simple.

 

A lot of you guys are very well versed on the differences between public and private schools and why they should or shouldn't compete against one another. Here is my 2 cents.....Are we really helping kids on either side of the argument by not allowing them to compete against one another? What does a split accomplish? I guess it gives a few public schools a few more wins but what does it do for the individual kid long term?

 

I posted the following on a previous thread and think it applies to this one as well:

 

In my opinion, the proponents of a total split seem to make a very "real world" argument (sarcasm). Let's all tell our kids in the public high schools that they are at a huge disadvantage to the ones in the private schools. After that we will teach a great lesson by eliminating the "advantaged" competition. Then we can have a "disadvantged" state champ and an "advantged" state champ. Before long those "disadvantaged" public school kids will be in college classrooms trying to keep up with the "advantaged" privates school students and then what are they to do??? What about intermurals? Should they have a league for the gifted private school athletes and a different one for the "disadvantaged" public school kids? And more importantly, how can you expect a young man who went to a public school to compete in a job interview when kids from privates might interview as well? Perhaps we should have corporations ran soley by people who went to privates and others ran by those "disadvantaged" public shcool students.

 

Of course I say all this "tongue in cheek".

 

Let's look big picture here, high school sports is to teach character, teamwork, responsibility, and commitment. It isn't to hand out trophies. Lets think about the kids here and the lessons we are teaching.

[derek782]

It's not that simple.

 

Why not? If it isn't that simple it should be. High school sports is about competition and character. I played 6 years ago and I can't tell you what my record against public schools or private schools was but what I can tell you is all the lessons I learned about responsiblilty and hard work. When we make it about a whole lot more than that we are doing the kids a terrible disservice.

 

I think a lot of this Public/Private debate is about parents wanting their kids to have a deep run into the playoffs their senior year instead of teaching them good life lessons. When we teach kids in public schools to win by eliminating the competition we aren't doing them any favors.

[VolunteerGeneral]

derek..I agree with you.

[lazarus]

derek,

 

wouldnt the logical conclusion of your philosophy be for your school to play within the highest classification?

because otherwise you are playing in a watered down division against artificailly weak competition. when you teach kids in the private schools to win by eliminating the competition, are you doing them a favor?

[VolunteerGeneral]

derek,

 

wouldnt the logical conclusion of your philosophy be for your school to play within the highest classification?

because otherwise you are playing in a watered down division against artificailly weak competition. when you teach kids in the private schools to win by eliminating the competition, are you doing them a favor?

 

laz...what do you mean by artificially weak competition?

[derek782]

derek,

 

wouldnt the logical conclusion of your philosophy be for your school to play within the highest classification?

because otherwise you are playing in a watered down division against artificailly weak competition. when you teach kids in the private schools to win by eliminating the competition, are you doing them a favor?

 

The logical conclusion of my philosophy is to play the teams on your schedule and do so without complaining about advantages the opponent may or may not have.

 

In response to your question: How would a school eliminate competition (that they never had in the first place) by moving up in classification? For example, how is Nashville Christian (single A private) eliminating competition by not moving into Antioch's region (5A public)? The two schools have never met and likely never will on a football field. However, if they did I doubt Nashville Christian players and fans would demand that Antioch be removed from the schedule based on the advantages they may have because of a dramtically larger enrollment.

 

And furthermore, your statement implies that all competition statewide is "watered down" and "weak" unless it is in the largest classification. Of course that is ridiculous.

 

Your looking for flaws in my argument and thats fine but you can't argue with teaching kids to focus on bettering themselves instead of worrying about the other guy. Public schoolers have no choice but to think they are at a disadvantage because they hear it and read it on here from their parents and members of their community constantly. To relate it to the business world.... it would be easy if Adidas executives could just tell Nike to leave the country, but its not real world and its not happening. Eliminating the competition doesn't work and isn't a respectable solution in any other walk of life, why should it be done in high school sports?

 

This whole debate is all about wanting your kids or your community school to get more wins. When the small privates were getting stomped this talk was non-existent. The same supposed advantages were there back then; kids from all over could come to one school, the kids parents were willing to put their own dollars into sports facilities, private schools required students to participate in sports, and on and on and on.... but the fact is no one was talking about these supposed advantages until CPA, DCA, and Boyd-Buchanan dominated single A football for about a decade. If small public schools had been winning none of this split talk would be going on.

 

Which brings me to my original point, proponents of the split only want it to allow their kid to win a few more games a season instead of thinking about the lesson it teaches.

[Indian]

I bet Red Boiling Springs would learn some character if they were lined up against Riverdale. Why not that matchup? The comparisons to the business world, the real world, whatever it is being called are meaningless. This is high school athletics we're talking about. A Smith County, for an example, would still have a Milan or Alcoa in the way this year if there was a split, so nothing would be easy. It would just be against students with parents who didn't feel they needed to be divided for academics and school in general, but brought back together for athletics.

[Lions4ever]

I`m going to add one more thing to this thread.

 

I don`t keep up too much with the other end of the state (East TN, but as far as the Western part of the 1A bracket I want to point out that Lake County was a #4 seed out of an all public region.

 

Lake County knocked off one of the top ranked teams in the state. They beat Fayette Academy who was the #1 seed in their region. They also knocked off TCA who was a #3 seed in their region. JCS who was a #2 seed had to convert a 4th down and 10 for a TD from 32 yards out with 20 seconds to go in the game to come from behind and beat Lake County.

 

All I`m saying is that is a #4 seed can do that then it seems like, at least on this end of the state, that it`s fairly competitive here. For someone to complain about JCS earning their way into the championship just seems totally biased to me.

But VG the west private schools are at a disadvantage that the more "metro" schools don't encounter. They have alot of the same barriers that the closed zoned small rural schools do... much less population per square mile to draw talent from, longer distances between townships, and in JCS, TCA and USJ's etc... case a smaller talent base to draw from because the Jackson area is saturated with a large number of schools for a relatively small population base. I agree that there is more equality between the privates/publics in the west, but considering that the majority of private schools do not reside in the small rural western part of the state, that is the exception and not the rule.