It's a pretty stagnant forum, dude. It's about IA HS sports. That's why "this board sucks" (if it does, I think it's fine for what it is). You can't really blame the operator for trying to drum up some conversation (even if it's and old conversation).
Potential for a message board meltdown
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When does a student become recruited? 7th grade? Freshman? Privates may not have special Ed, ESL but some have a large number of foreign exchange students.
Red87...I would like to know how you figure HWC draws from an area of 60K. You are seriously using some very fuzzy math. Explain your logic please. Perhaps you need to find where ALL the students live that attend HWC either K-12 or 9-12....then draw the box that includes the farthest points N, S, E, W and then somehow come up with estimation of how many KIDS live in that area...you cannot count adults. and don't forget there are 2 other Christian High Schools in Sioux County...Trinity Christian in Hull also and don't forget about Unity Christian in Orange City. Now do you still want to say they draw from a population base of 60K?
As for people who who say private schools should use a multiplier because they recruit or whatever....my response is a resounding NO. With open enrollment an option in Iowa,all schools are essentially on an even playing field when it comes to who decides to attend your school be it public or private. (For clarification purposes..I live in Cherokee County not Sioux County. Myself and my two boys attended public school and no they did not open enroll..and when I was in school no one had ever heard of such a thing)
As for people who who say private schools should use a multiplier because they recruit or whatever....my response is a resounding NO. With open enrollment an option in Iowa,all schools are essentially on an even playing field when it comes to who decides to attend your school be it public or private. (For clarification purposes..I live in Cherokee County not Sioux County. Myself and my two boys attended public school and no they did not open enroll..and when I was in school no one had ever heard of such a thing)
Private and Public schools both recruit and there is no denying it.
From the "bounty" St Albert's offered for each new student recruited by an existing student (or his family) to the billboards placed in Fort Dodge (inside FDSH school district) by Manson Northwest Webster public school offering open enrollment as an alternative if you don't want your kid attending FDSH but you can't afford to sent them to private St Eds.
It's going on all over and typically money is the driving factor and sports are secondary. I do believe it will be public administrators putting 2+2 together and seeing the financial benefit in separating the private schools into their own athletics which will ultimately cause the change BUT change will come.
From the "bounty" St Albert's offered for each new student recruited by an existing student (or his family) to the billboards placed in Fort Dodge (inside FDSH school district) by Manson Northwest Webster public school offering open enrollment as an alternative if you don't want your kid attending FDSH but you can't afford to sent them to private St Eds.
It's going on all over and typically money is the driving factor and sports are secondary. I do believe it will be public administrators putting 2+2 together and seeing the financial benefit in separating the private schools into their own athletics which will ultimately cause the change BUT change will come.
It's not really even, open enrolling generally doesn't take much of an expense for the family. Private school, contrary to some opinions usually takes a significant amount of money to make happen. Advantage public schools.
This has got to be one of the WORST ideas I've ever hear.
1) Geography - you seriously going to make a 1A team drive past a bunch of 2A opponents near them to play a game. My district only has one other 1A school within 45 minutes...our schedule is predominantly made up of 2A and 3A neighboring schools.
2) Scheduling....good luck getting a full schedule. No way a 2A team is going to agree to play a 3A team if they know they're being forced up a class for playoffs. 4A has no problems, as you can't push them down. 3A would be tough, as they wouldn't want to go up to 4A. 2A and 1A would be impossible.
3) Competition...do you really want 1A teams only playing 1A teams? Look at some of the scores for some of these 1A teams. Boyden-Hull played 1A #28 (according to BCmoore) and beat them by 30. Do you really want them playing a whole schedule against a bunch of crappy teams? Why not let them go up to 2A & 3A to challenge themselves?
"Why not let them go up to 2A & 3A to challenge themselves?" I know your rebuttable is to challenge themselves in the playoffs. The difference is the playoffs are THE ENTIRE STATE....they will be challenged at the end of the playoff bracket during the state tournament.
Cid loves to stir things up. The kids and their parents "recruit themslves" or shop for the best fit, in the great majority of cases. That's what really happens. A lot go where their friends or AAU buddies go, or where Dad and Mom feel is the best fit. I've kept track of transfers, etc. over the years, and it is usually always family-initiated. There is more transfering from public to public and private to public than the reverse, especially at the lower-mid grade levels. A lot of times, Mom or Dad, or the parents' friends feel that a student would do better in a certain school, academically or socially. These high achieving basketball schools also happen, to a high degree, to be really good academic schools with a large number of high achieving students. Right now, in this tournament, in 4A, 3A and 2A (I don't know about 1A), WDM Valley, IC West, Dub. Wahlert, CR Xavier, and Western Christian are ALL in the top tier of Iowa high schools academically, and many are in the top 10%, based on average ACT scores, SATs, honors classes, etc. In actuality, many of the private schools have 50% of their students at or above the 27- 28 ACT range, and the top quarter of the class is 29- 30 and above. This because the private schools, and the top public schools like West, Valley, Pella, Ames, etc. have a huge percentage of their students who are high achievers and are college (or equivalent)- bound. Iowa has one of the best school systems in the country and a high percentage of public and private schools are above the national average. And, of course, thousands of the best and finest students in the state don't go on to college. College is not for everyone. My point is that there is some correlation between success in multiple facets of a school. Multipliers in many states are based on this fact, plus participation percentages are higher in these above-mentioned schools and their ilk. What is participation? Good participation, speaking of basketball, is when there are 110 boys in seventh grade at a school, and 49 of them are on their four basketball seventh-grade teams. This is actually the case in Dubuque this year. More than twice as many boys play basketball than play football at that middle school. Common sense would favor the opposite prediction, but basketball is king of sports in some communities. There are many reasons students transfer, and with open enrollment evening the public-private landscape, it seems that transferring is on the rise, and I don't know what can be done about it. In the communities with which I am most familiar, transferring occurs prior to or immediately following middle school in the majority of the cases. These players rarely get publicity like the star high school player who transfers.
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Then you start getting people complaining about schools who are in one class despite having a gross enrollment that puts them in another lower class. Happened this year with our 1A state champions. Minneapolis North won the 1A title despite having a fair good sized gross enrollment. But due to having a large population of free and reduced price lunch students they go down to 1A and win the title. And people start complaint there. So there is no one EASY answer. If there were it would have been put in place.
It is weird that the 3A final has two parochial schools who were 4A when I was younger. Nothing to get worked-up about, but private schools from larger Iowa downs do have an advantage with the talent pool. Unless the student-athletes are going to school for free, I'm fine with it. I don't have a problem with someone else paying for them to attend, and if that's happening LOL. In Iowa, we have mostly good public schools and mostly good parochial schools. Good problem to have if the worry is how athletics are affected.
I am trying to figure out how I fit into your post. Please point out any factually inaccurate part of my post.
'or The top two MOC kids transferred to Spirit Lake' that fraud for a coach at SL would still find a way to lose LOL
I should have said that Cid was the OP (opening poster). Whoever opened the topic would have a resultant fuss. Sorry, Cid, didn't mean to pick on you. Your posts are well thought- out.
Scheduling could be an issue. But you said it yourself. The 1A schools who are in conferences with 2A & 3A get to challenge themselves with better competition. That's an advantage. Especially over the 1A teams who are in conferences with all other 1A schools (or almost all) and only have 1 or 2 non conference games.
You're basically saying these teams want to play up during the regular season to challenge themselves, but come tourney time they want as little challenge as possible. That wouldn't be as big of a deal if all smaller schools had the opportunity to do the same. But as you said, geography and existing conference alignments won't allow that.
I tend to think the recruiting argument is less valid now than it used to be because of the open enrollment that's been mentioned. I believe the biggest advantage for the private schools is that they have less "wasted" enrollment. With no SPED programs or Free and Reduced Lunch students, private schools are dealing with kids who are more likely to contribute in extra curriculars. Also in NW IA (Sioux Co) the Hispanic population is accounting for a huge percentage of public school enrollment now. Most of these kids, whether they are good kids or not, won't be playing any "American" sports.
I think the multiplier is probably the best answer, but layer it from bottom to top.
Less than 100 beds count- 100%
100-150 - 125%
150-200 - 150%
200-250 - 175%
Etc
Food for thought
I think the multiplier is probably the best answer, but layer it from bottom to top.
Less than 100 beds count- 100%
100-150 - 125%
150-200 - 150%
200-250 - 175%
Etc
Food for thought
Over the years the, if you read minutes from IAHSAA meetings, the following have been discussed:
Multipliers - very few schools would change classes using common multiplier from other states, less than 5 last time it was discussed I believe.
Free and reduced negative multiplier - at one time Hoover and DM North would have dropped 2 classes if I remember correctly. Also it was discussed that telling kids/parents they are only worth .75/.5 of of what other kids are worth because they live in poverty is probably not a great idea.
Moving all private schools up a class - never happen, have to look at big picture here as most private schools are not dominating their class in a number of sports.
Public school recruiting - it happens and it happens a LOT. Spirit Lake is only the most recent example. Think back to some wrestling powers and how many kids have moved in to their districts. Bettendorf Football, Sioux City East basketball. Public schools have many more issues with recruiting especially in urban areas.
Discrepancy in public school funding - how is it fair for Des Moines North to compete against Valley? Anyone read the Registers report on difference in athletic $$$ in CIML? How is it fair for any Southern Tier county, or bottom two tiers with their poverty levels to compete against much more affluent competition in the top 2/3 of state? When was the last dynasty from Van Buren, Appanoose, Ringgold, Mills, Page, Decataur, Wayne or Lee counties?
Dominance - what do we do with schools like Harlan, they win a lot in everything we better move them up too.
There is just so much more to this argument than public v private. I'm a public school guy but I don't believe we have a solution that doesn't have as many or more faults than keeping the status quo.
Multipliers - very few schools would change classes using common multiplier from other states, less than 5 last time it was discussed I believe.
Free and reduced negative multiplier - at one time Hoover and DM North would have dropped 2 classes if I remember correctly. Also it was discussed that telling kids/parents they are only worth .75/.5 of of what other kids are worth because they live in poverty is probably not a great idea.
Moving all private schools up a class - never happen, have to look at big picture here as most private schools are not dominating their class in a number of sports.
Public school recruiting - it happens and it happens a LOT. Spirit Lake is only the most recent example. Think back to some wrestling powers and how many kids have moved in to their districts. Bettendorf Football, Sioux City East basketball. Public schools have many more issues with recruiting especially in urban areas.
Discrepancy in public school funding - how is it fair for Des Moines North to compete against Valley? Anyone read the Registers report on difference in athletic $$$ in CIML? How is it fair for any Southern Tier county, or bottom two tiers with their poverty levels to compete against much more affluent competition in the top 2/3 of state? When was the last dynasty from Van Buren, Appanoose, Ringgold, Mills, Page, Decataur, Wayne or Lee counties?
Dominance - what do we do with schools like Harlan, they win a lot in everything we better move them up too.
There is just so much more to this argument than public v private. I'm a public school guy but I don't believe we have a solution that doesn't have as many or more faults than keeping the status quo.
Was working in TN and got in on a conversation (around football) but it was the same for BBall. A local public school near Knoxville (5A) has been literally undefeated for almost 10 yrs. Got beat finally in this year's title game. Open enrollment is huge, have kids driving 2 hrs to attend and play football. That state is talking about moving the open enrollment schools into their private class divisions. (they have 2 private divisions). Thought it was ironic and funny. I think for a state Iowa's size, our system will remain the same. There is no perfect fix. High School sports are fun to watch and see kids grow up and learn, compete and have fun. Hopefully that remains goal.
Every school controls their conference affiliation, so they do have a choice. There is also a system in place within each conference to try to change how many conference games you play, etc. Nobody has said that you have to have a 10 team conference or that you have to play all conference teams in a home and away each season. Schools aren't forced into these arrangements. If they want it to change, then they need to be proactive and change their own circumstances.
As far as dropping down for the tournament, again we're talking about the entire state. Teams like Danville know they're going to roll through a 1A schedule in their area, but the state wide field will challenge them at the end of the year. If they challenged themselves a little more during the year, then maybe their success at the state tournament might be better.
Last 15 years Danville has gone to the state tournament 7 times. They have 2 championships, 2 runner-ups, a third , a fourth and a quarterfinal loss.. They have been successful.. As far as conference affiliation goes the conference schedules 19 of their games and that is a mix of 2a and 1a. They also schedule a road game to Fairfield every year and a road game at the Quincy Illinois shootout. The conference is so large they have to drive an hour to get out of the conference. I talked with their athletic director a couple years ago and many 3a teams refuse to schedule them.. So explain again what is a small school like Danville suppose to do to upgrade the schedule..
When a set of scools make up a small % of the schools in the state but equal 50%+ in the state tournament, it raises eyebrows. Like it or not. Add in that 2 of them played in a higher classed conference all season and then played in a lower class for state...
Success recruits on its own for the most part.
I posted a link in another post about the trouble with parents and players and teansferring, sportsmanship...
You know the foreign student exchange doesn't aide your private school argument...
Some schools with low % free reduced lunch candidates still have low numbers out for athletics. That isn't the tell all to participation.
There isn't a true tell all to the situation. One of the top private programs was in danger of dropping football due to getting beat by 50 consistently and dwindling participation. Same location, same demographics and vastly different results.
You know the foreign student exchange doesn't aide your private school argument...
Farmernels had mentioned that public schools may have a diverse population that may not play 'American' sports. Private schools may have that as well, might not move them up a class but it could make a difference.
It's a combination of many factors. Even very successful programs can struggle with numbers and sometimes it depends on the coach, parents, and mostly the kids.
This was posted because it happens every season a private school team does well at state (football, basketball). It would have started regardless if I posted it or not.
Should boys go to 5 classes in hoops?
Should we get the boys in Boone to pay for shot clock for all schools?
The actual "issue" isn't private schools having success at state (despite 50% of the 2A field being private schools). It's the fact that 6 of the 8 2A privates, or 3 of the 4 3A privates for example, were in Sub-state games. A private school's built-in advantages don't guarantee state success obviously, but they go a long way towards ensuring relative success over like-sized public schools. I've written this many times, but it blows my mind how many people simply cannot understand this, or will not understand this: before we ever get to quality of athletes or coaches, private schools are inherently advantaged and different from public schools; they are designed to serve different kids. The public school system is designed to educate everyone; the private school system is designed to educate kids that meet certain criteria and are a specific subset of the general public. And that's ok; I believe in private schools' missions. However, it's abject foolishness or willful ignorance to pretend that we compare publics and privates equally or classify them based on a rudimentary number such as raw enrollment.
There are several overriding issues. One major "issue" is the fact that private schools exist in population areas up to 150x larger than the schools they compete against. We have 1A-3A private schools (4A isn't really relevant because 4A schools by definition exist in larger areas and contain enough kids to pass the tipping point) from metropolitan areas of populations in the 100's of thousands competing against rural towns of 900-3000 people. It's doesn't take a math Ph.D. to understand those student body demographics will be askew. And, some of you will cry the fool's yell of "But, open enrollment!!!" The fact is (and yes, fact, researched-based) very little open enrollment exists between rural public schools. It's not that it doesn't happen, but 3 kids from one 1A town open-enrolling to a school 15 miles away is not an equivalency to having no geographic boundaries and pulling enrollments from 12 towns and multiple states or metro areas. And, for that matter, if you've every studied open enrollment statistics, the majority of kids who open enroll are kids from sub-groups least likely to participate or excel in extra-curricular activities.
The other issue in this "debate" is simple (and it's not explicit "recruiting," so please don't use that trope; the recruiting argument IS NOT the argument): private schools and public schools are inherently, systemically, organizationally different, and they should be treated as such. Private schools serve a different purpose, mission, a different population of kids and have inherently, by definition of their existence, different demographics. Thus, an enrollment figure of 200 or 300 or 400, etc. in a private school will be, logically, by default and statistically, a different enrollment composition from a like-sized public school. Anyone with even ounce of knowledge on education, statistics, history, and educational outcomes understands this.
In essence, the kids most likely to attend a private school are kids most likely to come from backgrounds that, based on all research available in the history of educational research, are conducive to being successful in school and extra-curricular endeavors (two-parent, college-educated/professional parent, middle class or above, homogeneous, stable residence, non-learning disabled, English speaking, non-behavioral disorder or diagnosed disabilities, non level 1, 2, or 3 Special Ed., et al.) . These student populations are also inherently unlikely to have significant students from backgrounds and "sub-categories" (thanks NCLB for giving us this vocab.) that are, statistically and based on all research in the history of educational research, least likely to have success in academics or extra-curriculars (poverty/free and reduced, special education, transient, divorce, behavioral disorders, English Language Learners, non-college educated parents, illiterate parents, unemployed parents, 504 plans, IEP, et al.).
Thus, a 300-student private school may have less than 5% of it's student body (15 kids let's say) fall into a sub-group, whereas as a 300 student public school will have, on average, about 33% (100 students) who fall into a sub-group. Consequently, by virtue of how their essence as an entity, their existence, private schools will have enrollments more naturally suited to success relative to like-sized public schools, with no concern for talent,coaching, and no other action on their own. From the onset, private schools are set up to be more successful. Thus, in conclusion, they are different, have a built-in, systemic, hence UNFAIR advantage, and we should treat them as such. Using raw enrollment data to classify public and private schools equally is inherently unequal, foolish, shows a total lack of understanding of education and life, and it's really not a debate at this point in our country.
And to head you off, I am aware that no absolutes exist: IEP kids can/are successful, low-income/poverty kids are successful, no guarantees that stable families succeed, etc. I understand how statistics work and understand probabilities and research very, very well. The point/truth is: private schools and public schools serve a different purpose in our country ( for the record, I'm a big believer in our right to establish and the importance of private schools), educate different kids, and we should be honest in how we classify/compare the two. Very simple stuff here.
The best, and probably only honest, logical, and fair and justifiable solution, is for private schools to have their own association and compete 100% separately. They are, by definition, separate.
I dont think people fully understand how generational private schools are. It is generation after generation that go to private schools. I'm hoping someone like Vanderhoops can help out with this. In looking at Western's roster, do you know how many of there parents went to Western (or a different private school) and even grandparents? I have nieces and nephews in the Western system and they are 4th generation in our family that will attend Western,
Glancing at this year's roster:
- ALL had a parent that went to Western (except 2 that went to one of their sister Christian schools)
- 90% are at least 3rd generation Western legacies.
- Only 1 bench payer did not attend one of Western's feeder elementary schools since Kindergarten (most are younger siblings, so they'd have been "recruited" 6-8 years before being born)
-Unlike some urban areas, Western's student body isn't made up of those looking to get out of the public school system for education/safety issues.
-Western actively encourages students with special needs to attend & has many enrolled
-We have a much larger % of 2-parent homes and parents that are active in school activities/volunteering K-12
-It has LOTS of students that qualify for reduced lunch and paying tuition is a struggle for many parents (I think the sacrifice is part of what makes our kids disciplined and driven)
-Western has, and will, deny admittance to students whose sole motivation is athletics. Seeking a faith-based education is primary.
-We don't have ESL students-that population doesn't have a history of paying for education & doesn't pursue it (even with tuition assistance available)
-Western's facilities are probably inferior to every public school in the county.
-Our teachers make significantly less that their public school counterparts (yet turnover is remarkably low!)
For every advantage Red87 lists (and we DO have some advantages), there can be a disadvantage to private education.
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Vander, I understand what you're "trying" to say, but you don't actually list or reveal any disadvantages. I'd be willing to wager WC has basically zero level-2 or 3 or BD students. I'd be willing to wager WC has no homeless or transient population. I'd be willing to wager WC has very few to zero students involved in the juvenile justice system. Again, when comparing raw enrollment to classify schools, those kids count as much as the middle-class 2-parent, stable home. Private schools simply don't have those kids, and effectively every 2A school in Iowa does educate those kids. You actually do explain the demographic advantages quite well (2-parent, educated, sacrificing, involved households). Public schools have those same families as well. The difference is, public schools have fewer (as a percentage) of those families, and as many, or more, of the exact opposite of those families because public schools educate everyone. Again, by definition, if using raw enrollment as the classifier, private schools will have a skewed, inherent (meaning this beyond the control of whatever level of teacher or coach is present in the building) advantage. Give me nothing but a spreadsheet of student demographic data of a mix of private and like-sized public schools, and I could tell you which was which and which schools had a history of extra-curricular success.
Not many years ago I had a conversation with a private school AD in central Iowa prior to a game. He complained about having 1 kid in a class that had a 504 plan. He said it was just a lot of work to accomodate the kid and it was the first time he had to do anything like that. He also said he had never had a special Ed student.
For those that don't know, 504's are plans to help kids who wouldn't typically qualify for Special Ed.
For those that don't know, 504's are plans to help kids who wouldn't typically qualify for Special Ed.
Is there a site where we can view the demographics of the smaller rural schools? It would be interesting to see how many bd, homeless, in the juvenile justice system, transient kids, foreign exchange students there are in their systems. Red does a great job of explaining some of the demographic information that supports the private school advantage. I don't think his premise that a separate class for privates is a great idea, I think you would see more migration to the private schools as they would appear to be more advantageous to attend, a higher level of competition if what we read on these boards is gospel. Do you think there would be an increase in private school enrollments?
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