To be honest, even though I played high school football and baseball, I saw it as a giant waste of resources when I became a teacher myself. The fact that voucher schools will often not be able to field a team does not really bother me. When I was nine years old and my dad wanted me to play baseball, he found a league for me. That's the system a full voucher system will force us to form for all sports, and it's probably the right way to do things.

Honestly, when did education become so much about high school athletics, anyhow? In some towns, it starts in middle school or before. The stat I liked to use with my students is this: about 1% of varsity football players make it to a D1 college. About 1% of D1 college players make it to the pros. Clearly, most of the kids are out there to have fun, and most of them have only a small chance of even getting a scholarship for their efforts, so why are SCHOOLS and communities focusing so much attention on high school sports while academic programs suffer? If schools can't afford to have tech ed, gym, art, music, creative writing, home ec, and other ACADEMIC classes that help to make students whole people, then those schools certainly should not be funding sports. The towns themselves will probably refuse to make the decision to cut sports, however, so tiny, underfunded schools will continue to field teams and put together referendums to build new facilities or hire coaches.

I guess if a community votes to keep playing sports amid loss of actual classroom programs, they should be allowed to do so. The graduates will be ill-prepared for college or careers, but they will have memories of going up state. Don't get me wrong, I love the high school sports memories I have, and I see the guys I participated with as friends to this day, but was high school football really more important than the French, CAD, and woodshop classes I took? No.

Therefore, I say sports for the few IS a positive result of the new voucher school system. Parents who want sports will put their vouchers into schools that focus on sports. I had an idea about a dozen years ago to start a sports-only voucher school, and we'll probably see it soon. Vouchers also give the rest of the parents, those not looking to raise meat heads. the option to choose a wider liberal arts education over a sports curriculum. Sure, I'd RATHER have a fully-funded school that offers sports and electives, but if it's not possible, I'm fine with signing my kids up for sports on my own.

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