Pay to participate as a way of funding school sports

[Nikia]

Many public schools are strapped for money and may have to make tough decisions on what to keep and what to cut. Some schools have adopted participation fees for athletics and other extracurricular activites so that money is not taken away from academic programs. Some people think this makes sense since ademics are more important than sports and that other people (taxpayers) should not have to fund someone else's participation in a leisure activity. On the otherhand, extracurrilar participation often does help keep students out of trouble, encourages them to try harder in academics, and enriches their lives. This is especially true for those who may be less likely to afford be able to afford the fees.
I graduated from a relatively poor school district in Ohio in 1996. The year after, they adopted a pay to participate plan. The cost to participate was $30 for the first sport and the fee was lower for participation in other sports. There was also a maximum fee limit for families that was I think around $100. The athletic boosters solicited need based athletic fee scholarships and were able to get enough donors to enable poor students to participate. I don't know what the fees are now, but participation in sports does not seem to be down. I tend to think that the school district was not unfair. After I read about some of these other schools though, I do think that there are probably large number of students unfairly being excluded who could benefit from sports. Should only the rich be able to participate in high school athletics? Could there be a racist element here also? Over a thousand dollars to participate in football. Several hundred dollars to participate in other sports.
http://www.jjhuddle.com/discus/messages/36102/303787.php

[ladjf]

1. School band members also required to pay substantial

fees to participate in the band. This is not good nor is it in the spirit of a well balanced curriculum. Why pay for music but not for English?

[bryant69]

2. Well because you need English and you don't need Music

At least that would be the response. You probably don't need Football either.

I do think it might be a good idea for schools to have funds to help out those deserving players who legimately can't pay the fees though.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[ladjf]

4. According to Plato in the "Republic", music and athletics

were as important to a well rounded education as anything else. That model, more recently referred to as the "Jeffersonian" model has accepted as true by those in charge of school curriculum for many years. Your statement that "we need English, but we don't need music"
clearly indicates that you aren't one of those. But, you are in the majority now days.


This gets back to the old argument about whether or not the student should receive what you might call vocational training, i.e. all aimed at getting and succeeding in work, or should the student also have a well rounded eduction including history, philosophy,science
and arts. I'm an ardent advocate of the latter. But, I'm sure that my position isn't likely to sway many people.

[bryant69]

6. I don't know

I don't want to make it sound like I'm opposed to teaching kids music or letting them play sports. But, yeah, the priority has to be helping them to get jobs later on.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[MountainLaurel]

11. Studies have shown

That students who participate in the arts do better in verbal and math standardized tests -- probably due to the ways in which playing an instrument or creating art exercise the brain.

[vpigrad]

3. Sigh

> Could there be a racist element here also?

Of course there is! After putting this "polling tax" into place, one basketball team at one local middle school went from having six blacks on the team to only one. The one was allowed because he was adopted by white parents who had enough money to pay the school for permission to play.

The other problem is graft. I know of a couple of local schools where all of the money from athletic fees, just like every penny from the soft drink and junk food machines, goes straight into the principal's pocket. Of course, at those schools the school lunches are horrible and the fees are huge to make as much money as possible for the principal.

[KharmaTrain]

5. We Pay A Lot For Extra Ciricular Activities...

My kids are in theater and the parents in the district have had to take over a majority of the funding to keep the program rolling since the district (thanks to this regime's tax giveaway to the rich) destroyed a lot of the local tax base...and forced a fiscal crisis that didn't exist here 5 years ago.

In fairness, the Athletic Dept. tried to get their funding and had theirs cut as well (despite a team that finished in the state finals a year ago), and those parents have been fundraising as well...money for gas for the bus for away games, keeping fringe sports going and giving kids things to do after school.

In a few weeks, our voters will vote on a referendum to raise the local taxing rate to replace some of the money this district has lost over the past 5 years, and the local Repugnicans are fighting it very hard...using the usual "taxes are bad" crap...attempting to cover-up the mess they created.

A lot of us are working hard to educate voters to what's really happening. We were successful last fall in replacing our Repugnican Congressvermin with a Progressive Democrat and are getting lots of positive response to our latest work. When people learn how this regime has really hurt them, they start to open their eyes.

The Repugnicans want to destroy the Public school system, and with it it's powerful union...the NEA. They want a parallel system that only teaches it's right wing, myopic view of the world and to allow religious schools to tap into our tax money. By destroying the local schools through forcing more mandates (No School Left Behind) and then cutting the means for Public schools to be adequately funded, more and more of the rich's yard apes are heading for the private schools...owned and controlled by the Right Wing.

Honestly, this isn't racist as much as it's class warefare.

[sybylla]

7. Pay to participate doesn't even come close to funding extracurriculars

My school recently decided to do this. They recognized at the time that a $25 fee per sport/$100 per family per year would make up less than a fifth of the athletics budget. The school board knew there was no way sports and other extracurriculars could be paid for on the backs of participants. But the fee was implemented to prevent cuts and a program put in place to make sure a student wasn't left out solely because they couldn't afford it.

In my district, it can hardly be called racist. Of course that is because we have an almost entirely white district. But there were concerns about preventing poor students who could really benefit from participation in sports from doing just that. I think if you have a good school board with an active and concerned admistrative staff, there shouldn't be too much trouble with implementing a fee. But how many schools have that?

[Nikia]

9. Your district and my district seem conerned about students

Those fees are affordable to most students. At my school, others in the community funded a number of students who would have difficulty paying the fee.
It seems that some of the schools mentioned on the thread that I linked are trying to fund their extracurricluars that way though. Once the fees start getting in the hundreds of dollar range, you have much fewer students who can afford the fees. It starts to be seen as a luxury. People would rather donate $1000 to help someone go to college rather than play football in high school so probably fewer people step forward to help these students.
One would assume that if the school was truly poor that they would not have enough students to field their teams. Some school districts are somewhat split though in that both poor and richer neighborhoods are in their district. Some substantial towns have only one high school. Requiring high fees to participate in extracurriculars could change the demographics of the teams greatly, whether intential or not.

[sybylla]

10. I agree

Not all schools have their hearts in the right place. I would hope that before a school considered adopting excessive fees to keep athletic and other extracurricular programs, they would turn to the community for help.

Many of the school districts in my area paint their athletic buildings and put up signs with advertising for local businesses in exchange for money that goes directly into the athletics budget. We all despise the idea of letting corporations into our schools but somehow we have to balance the checkbook and make things work on less revenue.

My school is in a small community and definitely educates the entire range from poor to wealthy. I definitely agree that fees can change the demographics of teams. The only thing that will prevent that is the active participation by parents and community members in their schools and at their school board meetings. The problems is, unless a school is considering something controversial, no one shows up at the board meetings or even bothers to contact the administrator with their concerns.

Unfortunately for kids, a community gets schools its adults deserve.

[Walt Starr]

8. Looks like the Republican plan is right on schedule

First take the less popular extracurricular activities and make them pay for play (band, chorus, etc.), then take the popular sports extracurricular activities and make them pay for play.

Next step, classes that are not required for graduation will become pay for play. Once they take that big step into making curricular activities pay for play, the rest is a cakewalk.

An uninformed electorate is the simplest way to a theocratic dictatorship. Keep the masses ignorant of fact and fed on superstition so that an Uberclass resolves all issues for them.