(01-07-2014 11:34 PM)Wedge Wrote: (01-07-2014 10:32 PM)ValleyBoy Wrote: (01-07-2014 10:06 PM)Wedge Wrote: (01-07-2014 09:34 PM)bullet Wrote: These athletes really should be in a JC, not barely kept eligible in a Division I school.
JC? The problem starts long before that. It goes all the way down the ladder. A student who can't read should never be given a high school diploma, for that matter should never be promoted to high school at all until they've learned to read well.
You want more disclosure? Let's start that further down the line, too. If they're going to disclose college athletes who can't read above 8th-grade level, let's also disclose the names of the high schools and principals who gave these kids high school diplomas.
While you are making your list of names to include start with everyone one in Washington that set the rules for our public education system.
Pffft. A lot of mistakes are made in Washington, but no one in Washington is making local schools give decent grades to high school athletes who can't or won't do their schoolwork. That's on principals, teachers, coaches, and parents, who are all part of the reasons why star athletes are given the grades needed to stay eligible for sports even if those passing grades aren't deserved. Those are the reasons athletes who can't read well end up with high school diplomas and then tell their college academic advisors they can't read.
Wedge it's called a social pass. There are students (particularly two groups: athletes and problem children) who are given passes to get them out of the system as fast as is practical for the problem children and as fast as is profitable for the athletes. Junior high and Senior high programs like their sports too and their coaches can't wait to get a stud kid that can get them a promotion. That's why they are so compliant to look the other way when a college recruiter brings in a ringer to take that SAT or ACT. I've turned several of them in over the years. It's common as dirt and as old as the system. The athletes want the easy track, the coaches at the grade level and the college level want the easy track, and since it profits both systems there is little incentive within the system to police it.
When they get to college these kids are already years behind on the learning curve. The real tragedy is that some of them are quite bright and have never been given serious attention when it comes to academics. The problem is that colleges and universities are not set up for that level of remedial instruction and no amount of tutoring can do it legitimately either. So ringers take tests for the stars to keep them eligible, or they make up bogus academics like they allegedly did at U.N.C. to keep the G.P.A. up when they are out of sports courses to take which are taught by assistant coaches who hand out A's like they are Halloween candy.
My brother in law was a tutor to a very very famous NBA star who is bright, very bright, but by the time he got to his school he was too far behind to catch up. He did what he could honestly to stay eligible and when he ran out of courses he could pass he turned pro. To his credit he refused to play the ringer game, and refused to be dishonest about his abilities in academics. It has been a pleasure to see him continue to learn past his time at the school. But a disadvantaged kid with principles is hard to come by because most of them have been schooled by hard knocks and by one shyster after another wanting to make a living off of them.
They were doing it over 30 years ago when I turned a few schools in for finding ringers to take tests. I'm sure it is in high gear these days. Certainly, U.N.C. is not the only school guilty of these practices. It is only their claim to be an institution of academic repute, beyond the tag of diploma mill, that makes this seem more reprehensible. But, U.N.C. is no more, or less guilty, than all of the other schools at any level that promote kids because it is easy and profitable instead of teaching them.
It is time for reform. But it needs to be completely thorough. Every coach that practices it needs to be banned from the profession. Every school teacher that is complicitous with it needs to be fired. Every administrator that has looked the other way, or falsified grade reports, or recommended ringers, needs to be fired and prosecuted for fraud. ACT and SAT officials who do not render adequate identity checks need to be held accountable. And education needs to be seen as the completion of a human being and an attribute that makes athletes more valuable both as persons and as performers.
But in reality it is like the rest of the corruption that exists in business, government of all levels, and in virtually every facet of our lives. People want the cheap, easy, and optimally profitable means to an end and don't care how destructive the consequences are. It is a social cancer that is killing our civilization, and we like the corrupt societies before us will kill ourselves long before our enemies are capable of it if we continue to tolerate or encourage it. Our only hope is to truly be willing to start with honesty in the social contract with the most vulnerable of our citizens, poor children. If we don't do it for them, then we have lost our right to complain when our own children are marginalized, or when anyone or anything with more power and influence butchers our rights to get what they want. Truly freedom exists for all or it exists for none and the failure to educate is just as surely slavery as shackles.
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North Carolina and others and illiterates
