More Participation Fees = Less Participation

Today it is hard to find an area of society that has not been adversely affected by the current economic turbulence we are experiencing.

Many schools districts are charging students "pay to play" fees for participation in high school athletics and extra-curricular activities. This is not necessarily a new phenomena but it appears to be on the increase. Some schools are going further and reducing the number of contests or eliminating programs entirely.

This news report is typical of what is going on throughout the nation.

http://www.leadertelegram.com/story-news.asp?id=BL0CF5CT0M8&userid=d1a38dbaf3c5c3b7d2fad43e9b99a392&messageid=558

Fewer Eau Claire public high school students will participate in athletics this fall after the school board raised fees for nearly all sports.

District officials can't say for certain that the $100 hike in all but one fall sport is the only reason student participation at Memorial and North high schools is down this year.

One can assume that the participation fees are the smoking gun that is leading to less participation. It's simple economics. The problem is many of these school boards and districts use the athletics program and sometimes the entire extra-curricular activities as hostages to extract higher property taxes to fund school district overall.

Now we know intuitively the positive benefits that these programs bring to our kids. To say nothing of the way it can bring communities together in pursuit of a common goal or shared experience.

Numerous studies have shown the positive life lessons passed on to our youth via these programs including: teamwork, leadership and perseverance. Other studies show that these intrinsic values lead to more positive results in areas such as improved grade-point average, improved chance of college acceptance and greater economic success later in life.

To say nothing of its affect in combating childhood and adolescence obesity and involvement in gang activity or recreational drug use.

Why does school board after school board take the short-term budgetary fix to the problem instead of tackling the root causes of their budget mess, which generally has little or nothing to do with athletics and extra-curricular activities?

Isn't taking short cuts something we encourage our kids not to do as an overriding life lesson? So why do we tell them one thing and then demonstrate with our actions something entirely different?

We need to more to defend our children from this creeping incompetence that is attacking this high school sports and all extra-curricular activities.

Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others.
– Fydor Dostoyevsky, Russian novelist (1821-1881)

As this story from USA Today from 2004 shows, this is hardly a new issue:

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/preps/2004-07-29-pay-to-play_x.htm

Pay-to-play programs began in the 1970s and grew in the '80s and '90s, according to Scott Smith, assistant professor for sports management at Central Michigan University. "Now, as education budgets shrink, more and more schools are trying them," he says. "It's a national phenomenon."

Smith says user fees can be found in city, suburban and rural districts but are most common in suburbs, where parents are accustomed to paying fees for travel soccer and basketball teams.

Smith studied the issue of how much participation rates fall at schools charging user fees."When the fees are small, $50 or $100, participation rates don't go down much," he says. "When fees are high, more than $300, they drop noticeably," sometimes by a third or more. Fairfield officials are anticipating a drop of about 35%.

And there has been some push back, but apparently not enough over the last five years or so. I'm not sure I understand the logic of paying it so your taxed don't rise, when in most cases they appear to rise anyway, but what do I know?

In Fairfield, city of warring acronyms, Arnold Engel is founder of CARE — Citizens for Accountability and Results in Education. The group has succeeded in helping to vote down three levies since 2001.

Engel says he opposes a rise in taxes because he believes the school district does not spend its money responsibly. Superintendent Robert Farrell disputes Engel's charge. "We're fiscally responsible," he says. "We spend 14% less than the state average" per-pupil.

Engel says he does not oppose the pay-to-participate plan. "The only reason to cut sports and extracurriculars is to blackmail the public to pass the levy," he says. Engel's son Josh, a rising sophomore, was in the band last school year. Engel has not paid $350 for his son to return to the band, but he says that has to do with scheduling issues rather than cost.

Lee Maloney, another CARE member, says he plans to pay $630 for his son Jeff, a rising senior, to run track in the spring: "I'd much rather pay it than raise taxes and force senior citizens to move out."