Academics, like athletics, requires quality raw materials in order to produce a superior finished product. Of course, the condition of the equipment on the "assembly line" and the quality of the "work force" producing the product are equally important. Finally, the attitude of management and the shareholders (parents) counts for a lot. All of these factors vary from district to district.

 

Still, the bottom line is what counts and, regardless of the reason, if it is weak, it is weak. There are explanable reasons as to why some schools are weak in academics and/or athletics. Nonetheless, the result is still there. The factors making up the education system are complex. However, you still end up with a measure of success or a measure of failure.

If all the "crummy" kids go to the better school - do the students better themselves or does the better school get "crummier"?

 

There is no doubt that crummy kids can benefit greatly from being around non-crummy kids. Put a kid that was surrounded by other kids with no interest in attending college in a school where almost all of the kids want to go to college and that kid will probably change his perspective on wanting to go to college. Call it positive peer pressure.

 

I'm not the only one that believes in positive peer influence. Even those folks running housing projects have now come to realize that concentrating a bunch of poor people together is a mistake. Which is why HUD now tries to disperse the poor into middle class neighborhoods in the belief that by placing the poor amongst middle class people with middle class values, the poor will be positively influenced.

This is one of those feel good points as if all will work out well if so much choice is allowed. So I will ask this. We are a KY High School site, name the high schools in Kentucky that are bad and students are forced to attend. I hear these comments about how and such, so taking it up a notch where would this apply in our state? Which schools do you consider to be failing and/or doing poorly?

 

I think the parents and kids answer your question every year when they decide to transfer from one school district to another school district because of their dissatisfaction with the former school.

According to Diane E. Powell, assistant superintendent for the department, 4,827 students applied for out-of-boundary transfers last year, and 1,234 were granted changes.

 

It would be real interesting to see how many of the 3,500 that were denied involved someone that would be playing athletics.

I think the parents and kids answer your question every year when they decide to transfer from one school district to another school district because of their dissatisfaction with the former school.

 

While some are true dissatisfaction with their former school, I think there is a good number that are transferring because the coach wouldn't cave into the wishes of how the parent's little superstar was being treated or played. I would not call that true dissatisfaction in the sense of that word.

While some are true dissatisfaction with their former school, I think there is a good number that are transferring because the coach wouldn't cave into the wishes of how the parent's little superstar was being treated or played. I would not call that true dissatisfaction in the sense of that word.

 

No doubt that such happens. But you are kidding yourself if you think that is the major reason for transfers in this state. I can name about 5 coaches off the top of my head, that if Highlands hired them next year to replace Mueller (don't get your hopes up CovCath fans, he's not retiring), would cause me to have serious thoughts about transferring my son (as loyal as I am to Highlands) because I would not want him to play sports for that coach. And it would not be a playing time issue my friend. Sports is a very important part of a child's education and development; thus the head coach, the role model, is a critical part of that process.

Comments from the article that I think resonates with public schools here in KY.

 

"Open enrollment is designed to keep the upper schools up and the lower schools down," Adon said. "What would motivate a kid to come to Spingarn over Dunbar?"

 

Dunbar, as well as Ballou, Coolidge, McKinley, Roosevelt and Wilson, have another edge on the city's other schools. Over the summer, each received a $4 million facilities facelift, including a new FieldTurf playing surface.

 

"How are we going to recruit against that?" said Cardozo Athletic Director Bobby Richards, who coached the football team to a Turkey Bowl title in 1996 and returned to the sidelines this season, after his program won just one game between October 2004 and the end of last season. "We're struggling to rebuild. It's going to be that much tougher trying to get kids when we don't have that. When are we going to get what the other schools got?"

 

Some schools facilities or lack of them create unequal recruiting levels.

 

The trend toward perennial powers doesn't exist only in football. Over the past decade, DCPS high school athletic programs have accelerated active recruitment from the city's middle and junior high schools -- and occasionally, other high schools -- to build dynastic programs that are among the best in the Washington area. Whether schools seek chemists or quarterbacks, recruiting among public schools is widely accepted by the school system's central office, school administrators and students targeting the best chance for college scholarships or a championship.

 

Where is the focus for those students who are equaling important but not going to college?

 

"I have so few kids, I'm teaching them how to put on equipment," said the coach, who played at Theodore Roosevelt High in the late 1970s. "Things went in cycles [30 years ago]. Someone would have a good team for two or three years, and after the senior class graduates, they'd have to regroup. It doesn't go in cycles anymore."

 

I think this is a real strong sentiment with many coaches.

I think the parents and kids answer your question every year when they decide to transfer from one school district to another school district because of their dissatisfaction with the former school.

 

Not really. I am not aware of many, if any transfers based on academic concerns. The most recent options of NCLB and with "failing" schools that are forced to allow transfers have an extraordinary low transfer request - nationwide. The schools in NorKY that had to offer that option had virtually no one act on it. The actual numbers of transfers of record are in large part due to employment of a parent in a different district. The ones I do know about are strictly athletic reasons.

 

I find it most interesting we have a comfort to talk about who is better than others in athletic programs but not so much in the academic measurement. Yet, confirmed by a few posts there are so many measurements and considerations that make up a school success, outside of singular test score results.

 

I think it would be virtually impossible to label any high school as failing academically. None in NorKY.

I think it would be virtually impossible to label any high school as failing academically. None in NorKY.

 

Is the goal to simply not fail or to be great?

Is the goal to simply not fail or to be great?

 

Define great.

 

Is great to take a kid that has zero support at home, comes into school without the ability to recognize the alphabet, whose parents don't care whether they go to school let alone learn anything and are dealing drugs out of their home and help that kid simply get a HS diploma with a good solid B average and enrolled in college?

 

Because that happens a lot but doesn't lead the news story as a great HS or something that would attract a parent to send their child to that school.