Let them play
I got to watch the Moscow Girls basketball team compete down here in the state tournament this last Friday night. There were lots of parents down here for the event and a couple even came by my basement office. I remembered the energy we parents felt at our kid’s extra-curricular activities. I only got to one of Emma’s four state soccer tournaments. It was fun. I never got to see Soona compete at the state swim meet but I caught Mattie’s last one where she won the fly. Sometimes we parents can forget what it’s all about.
A Senator came up to me on the floor to tell me about a bill he had that affected a school “up in your area”.
“What’s it about?”
“It has to do with letting kids participate in district or state competition if they come from different schools.”
I wasn’t sure about this description. The bill seemed simple enough. But I decided to check with the IHSAA and see what they said about it. In the meantime I checked with the House sponsor, a representative from my district. He said this was a compromise that nobody opposed. “We’ve been working with the agency all summer and they wouldn’t budge. So we offered this solution and they aren’t fighting it.”
The IHSAA told a different story. It seems the senator sponsoring this bill has a son who plays sports at a certain school that isn’t accreditied. IHSAA bylaws allow unaccredited schools to participate as associates. Only schools that have a nationally recognized accreditation are allowed to be members and fully participate (meaning districts and state competition). We have another school in our district with similar accreditation.
The Director of IHSAA said,”These schools will never get accredited because they proudly hire uncredentialed teachers. ” I could remember the letters to the editor in our town newspaper about this.
The “compromise” for IHSAA came when a staff member at the Department of Education called IHSAA and said he would be responsible for the accreditation of these two schools. Still, IHSAA will need to change their bylaws so these two non- nationally accredited Christian schools can compete in sports at the state and district level. And somebody in the State Department of Education is giving his blessing.
It seems to me they want it both ways. They are not held to the same standards as the “guvmint” schools but want to play ball on the same court. Amazing what parents will do for their kid’s sports.
You say, “It seems to me they want it both ways.” I cannot imagine that you wrote this after taking into account what “they” truly think about this matter. After considering their opinion you may still part ways with them; that is your prerogative. Had you considered their position, weighed it, and ultimately rejected it, you would surely have articulated a different refutation than the shot you take here, a shot that only hits a silly caricature.
Suppose I took what you wrote here and, based upon that, publicized this about your views: Sen. Schmidt is (a) against taxpaying parents who go the extra mile to create opportunities for their kids; (b) opposes taxpaying parents who reject wholly separatist education and thus want their kids to engage the wider Idaho community, to compete alongside high schoolers around the state who come from a variety of backgrounds, and to do so in events that their own tax dollars are already funding; (c) supports depriving most of Idaho’s high schoolers of a great opportunity to interact with a small minority of Idahoans through competition, thereby further marginalizing that minority group in the eyes of the wider community and engendering still greater misunderstandings about who they are and what they are really like.
Have I captured what you truly stand for? Of course not! You see, I think more of you than to suggest that what I wrote above is a true reflection of what you believe. I give you more credit than what your blog post suggests. I take you to be an intelligent person with a capacity for empathy and logical reasoning. Now I could caricature you, but will not. You, on the other hand, have embraced a bad caricature of people you represent, your constituents, and publicized it on your blog.
Vote as you will. But sheesh, it would have been so very easy for you to disabuse yourself of a lame caricature of those who take a contrary view. People will believe whatever they want to about other folks who make different choices than they do. But you need to rise above that. You are not under any obligation to agree with your constituents, but at least take half an effort to try and understand them.
Happy to meet with you sometime to discuss this.
Chris Schlect