Sunday, Nov. 22, 2015: Superintendents missed badly in making their case

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   (4) If identifying the "exact manner or means" isn't the superintendents' strong point, then neither is statistical analysis. They say private schools have won 85 sectional and six state titles in basketball, football or soccer without supplying a time frame or calculating the number of trophies captured by public schools in the same span. Aquinas owns half a dozen state titles in football and four in girls soccer all by itself since 1998.

   (Aside No. 1: did you know the Buffalo Bills scored more combined points [73] in Super Bowls XXV through XVIII than any NFL franchise except the Dallas Cowboys [82]? Try finding someone in Erie County overly impressed by that statistic. The superintendents' casual approach to crunching numbers suggests they're using statistics like a drunk uses a light pole -- more for support than illumination.)

   (Aside No. 2: I compiled some data on Section 5 championships and came to a noteworthy preliminary conclusion: I think the private schools may have won a disproportionate number of titles in some sports since 2000. Trouble is, I'm no more capable than the superintendents when it comes to identifying the number of schools competing, the number of classes contested, etc. I found numerous instances in which private schools won both Class D titles in the same year because some sports have as many as 9 or 10 sectional classes. That couldn't have happened in the days when there were only five or six classes, so I don't know how many of the aforementioned 85 championships should be attributed to nothing more than watered down playoffs.)

   Stats without thoughtful analysis are dangerous tools to be using. And cherry-picking the sports you choose to cite without acknowledging that the private schools collectively suck at cross country (I'm not talking about you, McQuaid), lacrosse, swimming, wrestling and a few other sports is borderline dishonest.

   (5) Finally, there's the entitlement mentality:

   "(O)nly a few of our public schools athletes have had the opportunity to experience, (sic) an experience of a lifetime that will be a highlight of their public school education."

   You're kidding me, right? The parents of those private-school students pay school taxes, making them invested in all senses of the word in partaking in the educational experience. The private schools are dues-paying members of the section and the state association. There are a hundred public high schools (give or take a half a dozen) in the section and I couldn't help but notice a whole bunch of them have competed in state playoffs the past two weekends by virtue of having won at the sectional level. To claim "only a few" public-school athletes are being allowed this "highlight" is outlandish.

Boy, I'm sure being a jerk today

   OK, I'm pretty far into this manifesto -- and I recognize I've been very disrespectful of the superintendents. Believe me, my first draft was even more abusive.

   I've spent a couple of days writing, rewriting and tightening this analysis. Along the way, I've wondered what percentage of the people reading it will automatically dismiss my words because of what they regard as an obvious conflict of interest. As I've noted in previous blogs when appropriate, I am a long-ago graduate of Aquinas. I write the school a (small) check each year and I serve on its hall of fame committee.

   But I'm also the guy who disassociated himself from Aquinas in disgust last November over the completely clumsy way the school handled the aftermath of the now-famous football forfeit resulting from botched paperwork. As much as I enjoy watching Jake Zembiec, Earnest Edwards, Jamir Jones el al, I'm hardly a cheerleader. I didn't even tune into the Aquinas-Liverpool game on cable TV last night, though I may run through a chunk of it on the DVR after work Monday.

   I returned to the hall of fame committee this fall after I was satisfied the administration had recognized its mistakes, shored up its processes and remained fully committed to the principles espoused by the Congregation of St. Basil, the school's founders.

   What I did not do, though, was turn a blind eye to common sense.

   Supporters of private schools are not going to be happy to hear me say this, but only an idiot can believe that schools not constrained by geographic boundaries have no advantage.

   That doesn't mean, though, that the public schools are entitled to steamroll the private schools via legislation or coup. Speaking at Tuesday's meeting, Stores said Section 5 is heading for a thoughtful, thorough process of examining what might be done, what should be done and what can be done both in terms of fairness and logistics. That's the proper process.

   To that end, I do have an idea of what Section 5 should be thinking about. The list is going to make people on both sides of the public/private debate angry, which means I'm probably on the right track.

My suggested to-do list

   (1) No matter what else gets done, it's past time for all but the most tiny private schools to be moved out of smallest class in sports in which there are four or five state classifications, like basketball and soccer. Six private schools have combined for 16 boys Class D basketball championships and 14 in baseball in 16 years.

   Keeping in mind that the section breaks that class into two tourneys per year, a small number of teams winning that frequently is indicative of an issue that needs fixing.

   I'll go further and suggest that private schools in larger metro areas (such as Monroe County) probably have to be given strong consideration for assignment to Class B in sports with five state classes.

   However, safety should always be an overriding concern. As such, it would be prudent to err on the side of caution in collision sports. Though I'd move Aquinas boys lacrosse from Class C to Class B, I wouldn't move hockey up to the larger of the two state classes; at some point differences in actual enrollment offset the advantage of not having district boundaries. I'd move Bishop Kearney football up to Class C, but I also have safety concerns and shudder at the thought of that team as currently constituted being pushed up to Class B.

2015 NYSPHSAA football brackets 2015 Long Island football brackets Football weekly schedules 2015 NYSPHSAA boys soccer brackets 2015 NYSPHSAA girls soccer brackets 2015 NYSPHSAA field hockey brackets

   What I admittedly don't have an answer for right now is what to do with schools already playing in the highest classification, which is unfortunate because it's likely Aquinas rankles the superintendents and other marginally knowledgeable observers more than any other school right now. Aquinas is in Class AA in football and heading back to the state final in the Carrier Dome next weekend. Yeah, the Little Irish could eventually get moved up to the proposed Class AAA in a couple of years. But what do you do with them if they keep winning, tell them to go play in the Empire 8 with Hartwick and Morrisville?

   (2) We need to get some good current data on transfer students. The NYSPHSAA tightened its rules last summer and took away the most frequently used loophole allowing athletes to transfer into private schools without sacrificing a year of eligibility.

   We need time to assess how effective the new rule is, but it seems to be having the desired effect. A breakdown of 25 transfer approvals granted thus far by Section 5 for the 2015-16 school year shows only two athletes moving from public to private schools. Seven went in the opposite direction, and a dozen more went from one public school to another public school.

   So let's look at how the data's trending locally and statewide for a year or two -- especially with the stricter rules kicking in for junior-high students in the near future.

   (3) On the subject of state rules, let's be sure we know what else might be brewing. The NYSPHSAA Central Committee began talking informally last summer about new ways enrollments for private schools might be calculated. If that concept picks up momentum, a lot of hard work at the local level could be rendered obsolete almost instantly.

   And with far more private schools than the state's other regions, Section 5 needs to be deeply involved in any proposal making the rounds at the state level.

   (4) Let's get our arms around the issue of charter schools. As with their private counterparts, charters are subject to being bumped up by the classification committee above what their enrollment would otherwise suggest. There are sectional officials that will tell you (two of them told me precisely that last week) they're not entirely sure how or why that was instituted, but it apparently has to do with the potential of charters to also draw students from a wider geographic area.

   As it stands now, though, the traditional Rochester city schools all get to draw from a pool of students pretty much as wide as UPrep does. A student living up the street from Edison Tech can attend Wilson to take advantage of the IB program there. A student living in the Charlotte neighborhood but interested in the performing arts can just as easily seek to attend School of the Arts.

   So let's be sure that all the schools that should come under the authority of the classification committee are in fact being given the proper scrutiny.

   (5) Discussing what to do about private schools without acknowledging that the public schools have certain loopholes at their disposal is not exactly conducive to the "level playing field" so frequently talked about. Off the top of my head, multiple suburban districts enroll Rochester residents via the Urban/Suburban program, at least some allow students to "tuition-in" (albeit for more money than private schools charge for tuition) and still more allow the children of district teachers living in another community to attend.

   Greece and Pittsford also have a penchant for lumping athletes from two districts schools into one team in sports such as hockey and swimming. Sure, they play in the highest sectional class, but they're doing so with twice as many students as would otherwise be available.

Summary

   No one likes seeing their sacred cow turned into hamburger. But failing to put everything on the table at the same time as Section 5 explores solutions creates suspicion and resentment. There's way too much of that out there at the present time, so let's please not add to it while trying to do the right thing.

   For many years and in most aspects, Section 5 has been best of breed in performing its duties and handling its responsibilities. I think its Executive Committee and the broader Athletic Council are more than capable of formulating a plan for discussing public vs. private schools, developing recommendations, educating the membership and ultimately fixing some problems.

   Let's please give them breathing room -- superintendents inciting figurative rioting in the streets by releasing inflammatory letters in the midst of the state playoffs ain't good standard operating procedure -- as they settle in to do their work.

   And whatever we do, let's try to keep the superintendents out of the discussion. It became painfully clear last week they're in over their heads when the subject is Section 5.