Monday, July 27, 2015: Is it time to blow up how we classify private schools?

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   On the other hand, let's not lose sight of the fact that few folks ever -- and I do mean ever -- complain about the non-public schools when they're going 2-6 in football or 5-13 in basketball. Also, despite Section 5's Class D basketball problem, the NYSPHSAA playoffs really don't seem to be overrun by non-public schools. Once you come to understand that Friends Academy and the tiny Smithtown Christian tend to have little competition in the smaller classes for Long Island sports, the ratio of private to public schools playing in state tourneys looks less worrisome.

   So is adopting a new system an over-reaction? Hardly. There's enough wonkiness in the current system to justify exploring for a better way.

   Home sweet home school? I take it you're familiar with the wildcard system in place for New York's state high school wrestling tournament, which allows for full 16-competitor brackets in each weight class of the tournament. Though many people think that was the purpose of the rule, it's not true.

   Though that's a nice offshoot of the rule, the reason it was proposed and implemented around a decade ago was to give sections of the state with large numbers of teams more representation in the meet. All things considered, I've come to admit that it's not a bad thing.

   Why is it, though, that wrestling has wildcards to balance out the representation but track and field continues to operate with a system that gives sparsely populated Sections 7 and 10 the same number of slots as Sections 5, 8 or 11?

   Legend has it that a chance meeting on an airplane between a wrestling coach and a state assemblyman got the ball rolling. The NYSPHSAA ended up green-lighting the new system under pressure from elected officials in Albany, who were closing in on passing a law that would have forced the change.

   That and the conviction of three more New York State senators this month are a mere two reasons why I detest most politicians.

   Fast-forward now to this spring in Wisconsin, where home-schooled students were given the OK to compete for teams at their local high schools thanks to a provision that was slipped into the state budget. The change was not supported by the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association, which was blindsided by the law's passage.

   Interestingly, even some of Wisconsin's most vocal home-school advocates opposed the law. Some fear the measure could be a back-door way of state government gaining a greater foothold in regulating home schooling under the guise of keeping tabs on students who would now have a formal tie to the public-school system.

   Maybe, though, the motive was a little less conspiratorial and a little more self-serving. The Journal-Sentinel in Milwaukee reports that state lawmaker Bob Kulp, who home-schools some of his children, inserted the provision into the budget bill.

   (Editor's note: OK, now I'm up to at least three reasons I detest most politicians.)

   I didn't realize it until recently, but the home-school issue happens to be alive and well in New York in the form of bills sponsored in the state assembly and senate during the most recent legislative session. Bills S.2175 and A.3678-A never made it onto the floor for a vote in the frantic finish in June, but new pushes to allow home-schoolers to play high school sports in New York are inevitable.

   The NYSPHSAA and an organization representing

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school superintendents oppose the measure. The Central Committee will hear a status update from NYSPHSAA Executive Director Robert Zayas on Tuesday.

   The basis for the NYSPHSAA includes concerns that home-school students will not face the same eligibility standards that traditional student-athletes face, despite provisions in the assembly and senate bills moving in that direction.

   That's no trivial matter. The justices in State Supreme Court have a funny way of noticing when exceptions get made for one subset but not for another. It doesn't take a great leap of faith to imagine a family challenging the transfer rule on the grounds that exceptions are already being made to the student eligibility standard, arguably the most fundamental of rules.

   Included in the NYSPHSAA's memorandum in opposition is my No. 1 reason for opposing allowing home-schoolers to play high school sports:

   "Families who make the decision not to enroll their child in the district bear full responsibility of knowing that the privilege of participating on a team sport is at-stake. If this bill were to pass, not only would the safeguard to ensure academic performance be eliminated, but students meeting these eligibility requirements would be in jeopardy of being displaced by students not held to the same academic standard."

   The bottom line is that home-schooling does not preclude kids from participating in sports or other activities considered extra-curriculars by school districts. Indeed, the high-school brands of tennis, gymnastics and swimming to name but a few are considered inferior to club versions of those sports. There's nothing keeping home-schoolers from pursuing that avenue or the plentiful community recreation programs.