From ESPN:
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan pushed a proposal Wednesday to bar men’s college basketball teams from postseason play if they fail to graduate 40 percent of their players, an idea that didn’t go over well with the NCAA and coaches preparing for March Madness.
If put into practice this year, a dozen teams in the NCAA tournament would be ineligible, based on an annual study from the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida.
That includes a No. 1 seed, Kentucky, which graduated 31 percent of its players, according to the institute’s latest report.
I am not trying to defend universities with low graduation rates for athletes. But, I understand the game being played. Universities make a shit ton of money off of their football and basketball programs. Some even make money off of baseball. But, the rest of the sports all depend on the big two to deliver their budgets.
The bottom line is that college basketball, and football players for that matter, are more like employees of the universities. It is, however, unfair that if a player gets a better offer from another employer (i.e. the NBA or the NFL) and chooses to leave college early, the university is penalized because they didn’t graduate that player. Also, when a university tires of giving extra chances to a student-athlete who refuses to work hard in the classroom, they get penalized for not “rehabilitating” the student-athlete.
Most importantly, though, why does Secretary Duncan give a shit about what happens at our universities? They are either state run institutions, or are privately funded. And, most importantly, why do we even have a Federal Department of Education? Where is that required by the Constitution? Isn’t it a clear violation of the 10th Amendment? I know the answer already…”We have to look after the children.” Thanks a lot, Jimmy Carter!
Currently, the budget of the Department of Education is $68.6 billion. That is a very small part of the overall Federal budget. But, the power of the DOE is much larger! Just ask any teacher how No Child Left Behind affected them. As much as I admire G.W.’s concerns, the Federal Government has no business and no right to hold teachers accountable. That is “reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Enough of my ranting. Now, get back to filling out your brackets! And, GO DAWGS!!!
I just heard something similar on la radio yesterday – the “issue” was that some percentage of schools “graduate over 70% of their white players” while “failing to graduate over 40% of their black players”.
This is one of the most retarded concept I have ever heard in my entire life.
Schools don’t “graduate” people. The STUDENTS graduate. The relationship here is completely screwed up. To graduate from college, one must achieve certain ends. As you note, student athletes are often more like employees of the school. It’s up to the student athlete to set their own goals and get their own studies squared away. God knows they have staggering resources made available to them – usually forced upon them – to ensure that their engagement in academics is sufficient to stay in play. How the HELL is it the school’s problem if the student can’t, or won’t, meet those requirements?
If we weren’t comfortably into Heinlein’s Crazy Years, the question would be “Who the frak is Arne Duncan that he thinks he has a say in the matter?”
This is the same Arne Duncan that brought the Chicago school system from the bottom to the top of all school systems?
If I were king, I’d cut this department the first day in office. The Department of Energy, too; it was created after the ’70s oil crisis supposedly to make us energy-independent. How’s that working for ya?
O-H!
I-O! 🙂
DoE does fund some useful projects.
I used to work at one of their research labs and I’ve visited another.
Unfortunately, the majority of the public is still caught up in knee-jerk terror whenever the word “nuclear” is used (even when it’s pronounced properly).
I guess I should specify that I was referring to the Department of Energy in my last post, and not the Department of Education.