Should homeschool kids be allowed to play school sports?

Since when is playing time a right? There is more to sports than just playing time. Great tool for life lessons, too.

 

So we don't have hundreds of millions of illiterates walking around and we have at least a mildly educated workforce and citizenry?

Noted. But I would turn around and say that even in a case where you take the better freestyle time to decide who's in the relay, you're back in the pickle.

 

OK, so you are saying it's good for society when children who will someday be adults in society are exposed to the benefits of public education?

Agreed.

Which relay? The A relay, the B relay, the C relay or the @#$%@#$ D relay that's still going five minutes after the other teams have finished.

Fucking swim meets.

 

I might have mentioned this earlier, but this debate is an indication of why, despite all evidence they're on the decline in terms of their need to produce elite athletes, school sports have a lot of power. It's like NBA players getting giddy about being on the U.S. Olympic team -- there's just something about nominally representing a group of people that makes an activity feel a little more important.

When the elite soccer player with the UVa scholarship I referenced earlier in the thread testified about why Virginia should force public schools to accept homeschoolers, he talked wistfully about seeing the lights on at the stadium, and hearing cheers of students, and wishing he could have that same experience. This is a kid who played elite soccer since the age of single digits, who had coaches fawning all over him, and yet -- as we all know with AAU sports and the like -- wasn't representing anyone but himself, and wasn't getting anyone to show up to see him based on the name in front of his uniform.

I don't know that kids live and die by their school teams anymore, but certainly when my son takes the field for varsity football for the first time this fall, there will be a lot of kids from school there. It's an atmosphere he's never going to forget, and it makes the whole school experience that much more valuable and enjoyable for him.

 

That's what YOU think they're for.

It's not what the people who are running (and promoting) them think they're for.

The objective is to get rid of public education.

 

Bad news, pal. The only people running home schools are parents. For the most part, they couldn't care less about getting rid of public education.

As for the others, the objective is to make money. Just like any other business. They see a demand and are meeting it. They're more interested in getting parents' money than in somehow rigging the system to deprive the public schools of theirs.

I just love the idea that somehow, people who pay taxes into the system but don't take anything out are costing the schools money. You can talk about per-pupil funding all you want, but the fact is, homeschoolers pay money in and don't take it out. Period. What happens after that is all bookkeeping -- you already have my money, now it's just a matter of how you dole it out.

We're not depriving anyone of anything by homeschooling. I pay property taxes to the school district, sales taxes to the state and income tax to the federal government. I haven't seen one dime of that come back to pay for books, educational materials, supplies, etc. Nor have I asked for a dime. The idea that we're killing public education by bleeding it of its money is downright ludicrous.

 

Poor kid. Got beaten out by somebody better. I just feel awful for him. That should never happen to anybody.

 

Ideas that are downright ludicrous are the stock in trade of many 'round these parts!

 

To clarify what I posted earlier, Texas home school teams compete in an organization called T-CAL, which includes private schools and a few charter schools, including Prime Prep.

TAPPS, the biggest of the private governing bodies, does not accept charter schools or home school teams.

 

Let's get rid of school sports altogether. Club teams will suffice fine to fill the void. Those who want to play can do so without the additional bureaucracy that comes with school attachments.

 

That's part of the plan, too.

 

Oh, my God, IT'S A CONSPIRACY!!!!!!111!!!!!!!!!!!!