Yaaaay Meta Monday!
The title is an issue that pops up, at least occasionally, throughout the US and has recently reared its head in my region of the country. Two home-schooling parents (meaning two different families) are suing local school districts to allow their children to participate in middle- and high-school athletics.
I started a diary on a subject that I don't have a firm opinion on. I lay out some pro's/con's for each ARGUMENT (not pros/cons for letting them/disallowing them access) below. What do you think?
Arguments for allowing home-schooled kids to participate in public school athletics:
PROS
1. Family of home-schooled kids pay federal, state and local taxes that fund these public school athletic programs.
2. Without being able to participate in public school sports, home-schooled kids would not be able to participate in any school-sanctioned sports and compete with other schools, as playing sports for private schools would require more $$.
3. It is almost impossible to gain a collegiate athletic scholarship in American football without having played high school football.
CONS
1. Home-schooled children could have a competitive advantage, especially on tryout and game days, with the flexibility of home-schools schedule (re: homeschoolers can be given a light workload, day off, etc while public schoolers have to carry the same schedule every day, and have rules governing attendance at school related to practice/tryouts/gamedays.
2. Coaches could not adequately track academic performance of homeschoolers during the seasons, nor accurately report achievement averages of team members
3. Home schoolers often study at a different levels in different subjects than their public school counterparts...while occasional public school children are advanced or held back a year, a home-schoolers educational agenda would be difficult to place and justify in a particular athletic rank (middle-school, JV, high school). Keep in mind when evaluating this that all home schoolers aren't brilliant; some are there for learning disability reasons.
4. All major collegiate sports have non-school affiliated leagues for youths that are recruited from as much, if not more so, than high school sports teams.
There are many more pros/cons I'm sure, but I'll leave it to the floor (as Something the Dog Said would say) to comment/add. What do you think?
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