Private-Public talent disparity widening

[bigchief]

You can be a very good high school football player and still not be "D1" simply because of your God-given physical stature. D1 rarely measures heart.

[Archiewho]

I mean you can make the argument for a split for various reasons, but the major one for me is this. There is no boundaries for private schools, they can get students from anywhere doesn't matter what town they live in. Public schools and even open enrollment ones for that matter still have city and county boundaries that students must reside in to attend those schools. That's a huge advantage no matter how you spin it.

[boyfromsi]

After the split, you will never know that the best players who might have played for your school.  

#anotherunintendedconsequence

[tradertwo]

After the split, you will never know that the best players who might have played for your school.  

#anotherunintendedconsequence

An old adage says..."you can not lose what you never had"...at least the public's won't have to compete against the ones who have been lured away.

[youthsportsPIX]

Sorry to ramble with this long post but this thread got me thinking again about the good ole Public vs Private debate that has been going on for years now.   It's interesting that many well-meaning people think that they're actually helping high school athletes by splitting public schools from playing private schools.   The public Private discussion is a very complex topic with a lot of moving parts to consider.   I think people are looking at problem the wrong way.  There’s no doubt that private schools in most states dominate when it comes to championships.  Studies have shown this to be the case over the last 20 to 30  years.  

 

This trend has continued despite states, whether through legislation or schools voting through their high school athletic association, increasingly using something besides a traditional, enrollment-based model in placing schools into classes for competition. However it has had some unintended consequences. In Illinois for example many of the mid-sized public schools were tired of watching aggressive open enrollment or non-boundary schools dominate Class 5A.  Since class expansion in 2001, only one public school (Metamora, 2007) won the 5A title [illinois has eight classes for football].  So they managed to push through a new rule that bumped Montini, or any non-boundary school that goes to two straight state finals in the same class, up a class to 6A.   So Montini went ahead and dominated Class 6A instead, paving the way for another private school, Nazareth, to win the 5A title.  Oops that did not help the public schools at all and made it worse!  

 

Without the success factor, Montini and Nazareth both would have been in 5A and almost certainly would have met in what should have been the game of the weekend.

And 6A would have been a battle of publics, which it typically had been in recent years.

 

Yes, private schools recruit athletes. Why, because they’re private, they have to recruit everybody even academic students as well. So what can be done to level the playing field between public and private schools?  I think that is the wrong way to look at it and the wrong question to ask. In an age when everyone wants to promote school choice and competition.  Public schools recruit, too. However, the schools often don’t even to give a hard sell as many times their own success attracts athletes and their savvy parents.  Think public power house Maryville as an example.

 

Not sure this would ever happen in Tennessee, but how about the TSSAA consider a NCAA-style system that, instead of using enrollment, use the schools’ desire to field top-level athletics as a factor in organization. Instead of the state high school association determining who is in what class, the association instead could create a structure with Divisions I, II, III and IV, in which schools could place themselves depending on their commitment and ability to build championship-level teams. Which is kinda what the DII schools have done to some degree.  

Would this be to far fetched for the TSSAA and there are a lot of details to work out in this proposal, of course.  My 2 cents , which is probably what it is worth.  

[tradertwo]

Sorry to ramble with this long post but this thread got me thinking again about the good ole Public vs Private debate that has been going on for years now.   It's interesting that many well-meaning people think that they're actually helping high school athletes by splitting public schools from playing private schools.   The public Private discussion is a very complex topic with a lot of moving parts to consider.   I think people are looking at problem the wrong way.  There’s no doubt that private schools in most states dominate when it comes to championships.  Studies have shown this to be the case over the last 20 to 30  years.  

 

This trend has continued despite states, whether through legislation or schools voting through their high school athletic association, increasingly using something besides a traditional, enrollment-based model in placing schools into classes for competition. However it has had some unintended consequences. In Illinois for example many of the mid-sized public schools were tired of watching aggressive open enrollment or non-boundary schools dominate Class 5A.  Since class expansion in 2001, only one public school (Metamora, 2007) won the 5A title [illinois has eight classes for football].  So they managed to push through a new rule that bumped Montini, or any non-boundary school that goes to two straight state finals in the same class, up a class to 6A.   So Montini went ahead and dominated Class 6A instead, paving the way for another private school, Nazareth, to win the 5A title.  Oops that did not help the public schools at all and made it worse!  

 

Without the success factor, Montini and Nazareth both would have been in 5A and almost certainly would have met in what should have been the game of the weekend.

And 6A would have been a battle of publics, which it typically had been in recent years.

 

Yes, private schools recruit athletes. Why, because they’re private, they have to recruit everybody even academic students as well. So what can be done to level the playing field between public and private schools?  I think that is the wrong way to look at it and the wrong question to ask. In an age when everyone wants to promote school choice and competition.  Public schools recruit, too. However, the schools often don’t even to give a hard sell as many times their own success attracts athletes and their savvy parents.  Think public power house Maryville as an example.

 

Not sure this would ever happen in Tennessee, but how about the TSSAA consider a NCAA-style system that, instead of using enrollment, use the schools’ desire to field top-level athletics as a factor in organization. Instead of the state high school association determining who is in what class, the association instead could create a structure with Divisions I, II, III and IV, in which schools could place themselves depending on their commitment and ability to build championship-level teams. Which is kinda what the DII schools have done to some degree.  

Would this be to far fetched for the TSSAA and there are a lot of details to work out in this proposal, of course.  My 2 cents , which is probably what it is worth.  

 

Similar to what you have now...DI and DII...public schools are DI , privates have the choice that you are advocating, even to add or reduce enrollment. The privates in DI hold an obvious advantage with the ability to decline admission to students in order to "choose" their classification (A AA AAA)...and/or only admit athletes. Any private in Tennessee has the freedom via TSSAA rules to participate in any classification in the state, and to change back and forth at will during the reclassification years.

[mbsdude]

I do know one thing after last night, the gap between the east and west in the SEC is Widening

[steelcityroller]

Alcoa has open Enrollment where you can pay tutition and attend the school As well as Maryville so i consider those Private schools at a cheap rate

 

I never knew that.... I always wondered those teams always were loaded with talent year-after-year without ever having a drop off.

[YesSir3114]

http://tssaa.org/pastchampions/2001Champions/StateFootball/Class1A/bracket.htm This is just how widening the talent is between the two. Edited September 12, 2016 by YesSir3114