Should homeschoolers be allowed to play on public school teams?

@boomerang,

boomerang wrote:

Virginia is thinking about it, several states allow it and many others oppose it.

The arguments for it: the families pay taxes and, even though they don't use the actual schools,
they should be allowed to play on the sports teams and take advantage of other extra curricular activities.

Yea, that s convincing. The schools shud be glad that
thay have been relieved of the responsibility to any extent.

Does Mo wanna be homeschooled ?

boomerang wrote:

The argument against it: students who want to participate in extra curricular activities
sponsored by the school have to meet certain scholastic benchmarks that the homeschoolers don't.

Let those students hire legal counsel
and complain to the school board.
Their cheerleaders can chant: " 2, 4, 6, 8; we r gonna LitiGATE! "

boomerang wrote:

What about kids who go to private schools? Should they be able to join in their area school's teams?

Yes.

1 Reply

@ehBeth,

Quote:

It may have to do with coming from outside of the American culture ...

Yes, my perspective on school sport (& other education issues which have been discussed here, usually in boomer's threads) is very much influenced by my own local (Oz) knowledge & experience, fairly obviously. So if I sometimes seem to get my wires a bit crossed, that's probably why. Smile

I'd suspect that sports participation in US schools (especially at senior high school level) is quite a different matter to what it is here.
In Oz public schools (which are regulated by state laws & financed through Federal & state taxes) the question of anyone from outside participating in a local government's sports team would be most unlikely to arise.
.... largely due to potential legal ramifications. State governments would simply be unwilling to accept legal responsibility for "outsiders" who are not officially enrolled in government schools.

There is a strong amateur community weekend sport tradition (tennis, football, cricket, athletics clubs, etc) , though, where students from all variety of school backgrounds participate. That is where quite a few sports "stars" get their initial training & experience.

Interestingly, re the issue of gifted students being "poached" by other schools .... that is quite common practice in private schools here. Scholarships are offered to gifted students (usually academically gifted, but sometimes sports "stars", too) , particularly by the wealthier schools .... great marketing PR for them, creating the impression that that they do a "better" job than the state schools ..... where they poached quite a few of their high achievers from! Wink

(BTW, private schools also receive government funding here .... even the wealthiest. But that's another (highly contentious) issue! Grrrrrr! )

Most of the really intense inter-school rivalry in sport tends to be between rival private schools .... "traditional rivals", old boy networks & all that ....
In public schools the focus of sport in the curriculum seems to be very much on participation, fitness & health & teamwork , though of course, every team likes to win!
-

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@OmSigDAVID,

OmSigDAVID wrote:

boomerang wrote:
Virginia is thinking about it, several states allow it and many others oppose it.

The arguments for it: the families pay taxes and, even though they don't use the actual schools,
they should be allowed to play on the sports teams and take advantage of other extra curricular activities.
Yea, that s convincing. The schools shud be glad that
thay have been relieved of the responsibility to any extent.

But, the obvious objection is that 'Yes, homeschool parents do indeed pay taxes for something they are not directly receiving, but so do childless couples, parents of privately schooled children, and indeed so does everyone in the school district.

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@Ceili,

If the scholarships you refer to are publically funded, yes.

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@boomerang,

What personal attacks are necessary?

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@ehBeth,

What does it have to do with the homeschoolers "around here?"

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@Linkat,

If you homeschool your kids you still have to pay local taxes for public education.

If you keep an expansive library in your home you still have to pay local taxes for public libraries.

In the second case, should you be barred from the benefits of the public library system because you have your own library?

If you consider that public school taxes can be translated to a per child expenditure, homeschooling families are actually making it better for all the kids who attend public school. Because they don't use all of the benefits their taxes pay for they shouldn't enjoy any of them?

As for childless couples paying taxes, it's a non-sequiter. They're not looking to avail themselves of the benefits for which they pay.

1 Reply

@boomerang,

boomerang wrote:

Should homeschoolers be allowed to play on public school teams?

To me that's the wrong question to start with, because I disapprove of school sports in the first place. They teach students a pack mentality among themselves and bigotry towards outsiders (read: other schools). As a tax payer, I don't want to support that, no matter who instructs the students academically. I prefer to achieve fairness by closing down public-school sports teams, not by deciding who else gets to play on them. All students who still want to play on sports teams can do it in out-of-school clubs. That's true whether they go to public school, private school, or home school. Everyone would be equal this way.

But I know that few Americans share my preference for abolishing high-school sports teams. Barring that, then, I think public-school sports teams should accept home-schooled students on the same conditions as public-schooled students. And they should frame their conditions on terms that don't discriminate against the home-schooled. As Boomerang points out in her initial post, their parents, too, pay the taxes that finance public-school sports teams. Sure, they chose to forfeit the academic instruction they paid for. But that doesn't mean they must forfeit the sports-team experience they paid for as well.

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@boomerang,

boomerang wrote:

Although it might encourage a lot of kids to leave public school in favor of "homeschooling" if the homeschoolers had a great team.

So what? Although I find it idiotic when American students pick their colleges according to their sports teams, it seems to be common practice in this country. Given that it is, why shouldn't the dynamics work that way, too?

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

As for childless couples paying taxes, it's a non-sequiter. They're not looking to avail themselves of the benefits for which they pay.

Of course we want a say in where our tax dollars are spent.

There's absolutely no upside to me to my tax dollars going to school sports teams. It's hard enough to rationalize the money going toward the education costs I approve of.

But if Set wants to play on the local school baseball team or Thomas wants to run track with the local cross-country team, why should they be prevented from doing so.

Quote:

Because they don't use all of the benefits their taxes pay for they shouldn't enjoy any of them?

By your reasoning, their tax dollars give them the same right to use the school facilities and resources as students in schools.

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@ehBeth,

Local schools here do open some facilities to the public. The high school tennis courts and ball fields are used by the public when schools are not in session. All the elementary school playground equipment and fields are likewise public facilities when school is out.

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@ehBeth,

ehBeth wrote:

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

As for childless couples paying taxes, it's a non-sequiter. They're not looking to avail themselves of the benefits for which they pay.

Of course we want a say in where our tax dollars are spent.

And so you should have one. The odds are though that you are in the minority and probably can't advance a program that only or primarily benefits childless couples. If you can though, so be it. You could choose to side with the group who don't want homeschoolers to be allowed to participate in public school sports and other functions, but why would you? It doesn't benefit your interests in the slightest, and those tax dollars that go to public school sports will be spent whether or not homeschoolers are on the teams.

There's absolutely no upside to me to my tax dollars going to school sports teams. It's hard enough to rationalize the money going toward the education costs I approve of.

If you wish to argue that tax dollars should not be spent on public school sports, I've no problem with that. The absence of such programs would reduce your tax burden (and mine too by the way - empty nest), but clearly that is a different issue than whether or not homeschoolers can participate in the sports programs that do exist.

But if Set wants to play on the local school baseball team or Thomas wants to run track with the local cross-country team, why should they be prevented from doing so.

Because it is inapproriate in a number of ways.

It's a stretch to equate a right of homeschooled children to particpate in the childrens' sports programs their parent help fund with a right for any taxpayer, irrespective of age or other characteristic, to participate in such programs.

Quote:
Because they don't use all of the benefits their taxes pay for they shouldn't enjoy any of them?

By your reasoning, their tax dollars give them the same right to use the school facilities and resources as students in schools.

That's right.

Since public school students (and their parents) are clearly benefiting from the fact that the parents of homeschooled children must still pay to support the public schools their children do not attend, it seems perfectly fair that the homeschooled children can avail themselves of some of the facilities and resources their parents are helping to pay for.

For the sake of discussion, let's say that it costs $1,000 per year to provide public school benefits to a child, and taxes are essentially based on this figure.

If I have three children then I am expected to cover, roughly, $3,000 in public school costs. If I don't send my children to public school and still pay the $3,000, the kids who do attend have the benefit of a surplus provided by me.

Let's assume that $100 of the $1,000 is needed for school sports programs. By allowing my children to participate in these programs, I will at least get $300 of benefit for the $3,000 I pay and the public school attendees still benefit from a surplus I provide.

How is this not fair?

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I am a guy who homeschooled three kids over 6 years......my answer is "no". The reason being that I believe that one should be either in or out of the public school system, you either believe in it or you dont. People who say "your public school is not good enough for MY kid" and then turn around and say "but I want my homeschooled kid to be allowed to be on your football team" piss me the **** off.

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

So you homeschooled your children because you don't believe in a public school system?

I would like to think most homeschoolers do so because they think their children will get a better education.

It shouldn't be a battle.

1 Reply

@Finn dAbuzz,

Quote:

So you homeschooled your children because you don't believe in a public school system?

I did not believe in the schools in the DODDS system of germany that we military had, nor the schools of California at the time which were largely destroyed by extensive cost cutting due to the inability of the state to collect reasonable taxes. I thought that I could do better, and in hindsight I think that I was right. We went into the schools only after we relocated to Arizona were the base schools were run by the military and were reasonably OK.

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In the Chicago area, some of the "best" schools for athletic teams, especailly for basketball, are the Catholic schools. Sports rivalries between schools are very intense in the United States, and Illinois is no different in this. The parents who want their children to play on the best high school teams, whether they hope for university scholarships or not, send their kids to Catholic schools there. That means they pay tuition to do so, without reference to tax dollars which go to public schools. There's a wonderful irony in so many Baptists from black neighborhoods attending a Catholic school so they can play ball.

EDIT: I should qualify that to say that this was true many years ago when i lived and worked in Illinois. I can't say if this is still the case.

1 Reply

My neice is homeschooled, she has very poor social skills, so I would welcome anything that gave her the opportunity to interact with other children. Having said that, it is inconceivable over here that anyone who does not attend a school should play for their team.

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@izzythepush,

Quote:

My neice is homeschooled, she has very poor social skills, so I would welcome anything that gave her the opportunity to interact with other children.

I've often wondered about that. Do you have sufficient experience of home-schooled children to say if it's common?

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@Setanta,

I mentioned the same thing about my son's former girlfriend. Beautiful girl, but lacking in social skills. As soon as she began to attend a community college, she suddenly had many boyfriends.

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@Setanta,

I can only talk from personal experience, and it's definitely the case with her, she's a single child and always seems to get her own way. They have driven to a caravan about 100 miles from home for the weekend, she has thrown a strop, and they've turned around and gone back home. I don't know how she's going to deal with the real world.

My daughter went to a rough school, was bullied terribly, until I showed her how to throw a punch, now she's at a top University studying foreign languages with a wide circle of friends. Sometimes you've got to let your kids take a few knocks.

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Should homeschoolers be allowed to play on public school teams?

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