Give me a break! For crying out loud, did Williams transfer to Dowling (or countless others over the past decade) to increase their devotion to the Blessed Sacrament? I wish it were so but just be honest, it’s the only Catholic HS in the greater DM area and happens to love it’s FB success...so just admit they fill the holes as needed, period! As for Valley, they have twice the enrollment of Cedar Falls, Bett or CRK, so congratulations for pasting the smaller schools. Yeah, I’m beyond fed up with the disparity which has been on display for the past decade, it’s high time for the serfs to rebel!
Reasoned-on the one hand, Dowling, being a private school, can draw students from all over the metro, but with open enrollment policies at public schools, students sometimes CHOOSE to transfer to public schools as well, for either academics, other reasons, and yes, sometimes sports (see Valley and Roosevelt basketball programs the past few years). Do you want to ban private schools? The parents sending their kids to these schools still pay local property taxes that go to the local school district, but they decide to invest their own money in a private education (although, not to start a debate, but perhaps churches/religious institutions in particular should not be tax exempt as they are? I don't know the answer to that question).
I think if you look at the data, you would find the vast majority of football players for Dowling in particular come from the K-8 parochial schools in the metro area, and a sizable minority decide to come to Dowling from public middle schools all over the metro, either freshmen year or later, for various reasons or their parents were planning on the switch once their kids reached high school because they couldn't afford K-8 parochial but then want their kids at Dowling.
Truly, most of the students at Dowling (and Xavier and many other parochial schools around the state) aren't actively recruited by coaches, their parents just have a higher SES and were planning on sending their kids there, which is also why parents CHOOSE to and have the ability to choose high SES districts to live in Ankeny Centennial/Waukee/Johnston districts, which tend to have money to invest in sports programs, but also their teachers, extracurriculars, facilities, and this also correlates with having strong communities. Also, realize public schools districts aren't really fair (although I believe the state of Iowa guarantees a minimum of funding if the local properties tax revenues are too low), because houses and neighborhoods tend to get built by developers and neighbors and homes/communities tend to be similar in SES. Look at the various mini mansions (and actual mansions) in WDM, Waukee, Johnston, Ankeny, Bettendorf, Iowa City-because many of the households have high incomes, they own more expensive property, and therefore the schools get more money AND this is also compounded by parents with more disposable income to invest in their children's athletic development or to donate even more money and energy to school programs! So if anything, you should be raging about the vast inequalities between DMPS and rural/poor school districts that don't have the same funding/are plagued by poverty, lack of community investment, and lack of opportunities as the kids at Dowling but also Waukee, WDM, Ankeny, Cedar Falls, Bettendorf, IC West, etc. These inequalities reflect wider population/demographic trends in society, as seen through Robert Putnam's work (Bowling Alone and his more recent " Our Kids", which denotes the widening wealth gap in the USA with a handful of thriving upper middle class communities that are separated from the have nots). Taken altogether, all those schools blow DMPS schools out of the water, despite DM East and DM Lincoln being in the top 5 largest high schools in the state by population depending on the year. Do you think the people in Cedar Falls/Bettendorf are really the serfs if we are looking at the broader picture?
But going back to your main argument about Williams, when it comes to Dowling, there are a few things at work as I see it: 1) Students like Williams are attracted to the school for its football prowess but perhaps others reasons as well, just as some parents pick their homes because of the school district (for example, my friend who chose parochial schools and then Dowling because he was bullied at public schools), and remember, although an overused phrase, lets remember 'it is a free country': does Gavin Williams somehow owe his athletic prowess to the Southeast Polk school district? He can do what we wants, just as we allow our kids to go to whatever college they want to/get accepted into, work where they want, and when we as adults we consider and take better job offers that are good for our families and ourselves (often in new locations), we move-so maybe chill out a bit and realize he is a young kid and he had an opportunity and took it. Maybe he owes something to his community, but to what extent? Maybe he didn't go to Dowling for religion, but more students (and parents) than you realize send their kids their because it is private and they can afford it-although there is a minority of super Catholic families at Dowling, many are nominal Catholics or Christians (like the rest of America, and there are plenty of increasingly secular families) that don't really go to church and aren't that interested in religion, or only vaguely. As a graduate of Dowling, my parents saw it more as a private school (and investment in my future) with a religion class, as studies show that one of the most important decision our parents can make for their children are their sociocultural surroundings, and in particular, who will be our friends/peers as our peers habits will influence us and our futures, see literally any book on social psychology, emotional contagion, etc. ((seriously, I often think of where I would be if I was sent to the local public school which was not well funded and had fights and gangs-many of my friends who went to the k-8 parochial school and then to the local public schools that had lower SES, on average, tended to not go to nor graduate from university, whereas the one's that went to the high SES public schools often went to university)).
2) On the other hand, although Dowling doesn't actively recruit to my knowledge, it is clever/smart in many ways: it has a very strong youth football program for kids from ages 6 up, as well as their basketball youth program (used to be called M.A.C. in my day, or Maroon Athletic Club), and they make relationships with families from all over the metro and create summer teams/AAU teams at a young age so even if parents didn't think about parochial schools, they start to think about it more and some switch their kids into the parochial schools. So one could argue that this is a subtle form of recruiting, as they harness the relationship at a young age, and yes, sometimes these students then might get a scholarship because of low SES when they go to Dowling as many who get scholarships for low SES but don't play sports (or, I hope its still not a practice, but they would sometimes have these students work after school to pay off some of their tuition), and then they have to keep their grades up or they lose the scholarship (I remember friends, mostly non-athletes on scholarship because they had a low SES, getting yelled at to keep their grades up). However, again, the VAST majority of players come from parochial k-8 schools and were planning on Dowling all along (if you are Catholic, the diocese covers 30-40 percent of the tuition costs for you as an incentive to go there, depending on the year/coffers). Other students chose to go to Dowling as a high school for other reasons, such as more personal attention, academic reputation (there has been quite an influx of wealth throughout the metro, and sometimes these parents just want a private school). As many have said, it is more about SES-the parents that were already going to send their kids to Dowling have a generally higher SES, and therefore can pay for the tuition at k-8 schools and Dowling, and therefore are also more likely to invest in their sports program and the development of their children's abilities, whether it be through AAU, Summer camps, special trainers, etc. Again, THIS is the same as many strong public schools and I'd like to point out how many suburban schools in the metro have really close football games with Dowling, and in nearly every sport, many are on par-Dowling hasn't won a basketball championship since like the 70s (at least for boys).
Remember, Catholic schools (depending on the state and federal policies), get little to no government funding, so although the parents have SES, the school itself often doesn't have anything near the resources of a typical public school (and the teachers are paid less). So, when discussing resources in particular, Ankeny, Waukee, Johnston, Cedar Falls, Bettendorf, Iowa City and other wealthy districts actually have MUCH more money (from property taxes) to support programs and can pay their coaches more (in general), so although you have a point with Valley's very slight advantage in population pool in particular, which I will not disagree with, there is no reason that Waukee, Johnston, and Ankeny can't be on par with Dowling or Valley, especially as they grow, and again, there is open enrollment. I imagine if Waukee starts dominating in football or some other sport (again, see how some students have moved from public to public for basketball in the metro), kids would transfer there or parents would choose to move to the district, but as I have mentioned earlier, once they split up and have more than one high school, that splits up the talent.
Overall, if students/families want to choose a private school for any reason and it will be good for their futures, whether it be sports, academics, extracurriculars, whatever-who are we to stop that personal decision? Who are we to stop the open enrollment policies of the public schools? Perhaps being private gives Dowling an advantage, but it already has a huge advantage just like all the other high SES school districts especially comparing to the poverty stricken districts and communities not just in 4a, but in rural communities as well, so we must look at the larger picture.
This makes me think that perhaps it is the tradition of Dowling football, the coaching (I think this is at least a partial factor), and the very strong community (despite being non-religious myself, religion can be a powerful way for groups to cooperate efficiently, or as some psychologists and anthropologists argue, biological and cultural evolution work at the same time and perhaps religion is an adaptation to get groups to cooperate and cohere, but who knows?) that increases Dowling's already high SES advantage (which they share with Waukee/CF/Bettendorf) and gives them a slight edge, but who knows? Wouldn't one argue that Cedar Falls and Iowa City have an advantage being exposed to and integrated with the resources, coaching, etc. of Division 1 football programs? I imagine that might be a factor but I don't see many talking about it.
Anyways, sorry for the long rant, but I think it is inappropriate to go after a high school kid and his personal decision on which school to attend, and although you have a point to an extent, there are a lot of factors (mentioned above) that I think would have helped you come to a more " reasoned" analysis. Perhaps the best way forward, as many have said, is a 5a program and also a rethinking of how we design cities and communities as well as funding for schools.
