Compromise is winning move in chess
Tribune Editorial
Life often isn’t easy for children who go to school at home. While they get to develop special bonds with their parents and study at their own pace, they often miss out on the social activities and characterbuilding competition that comes from learning in a classroom setting.
Many home-school parents try to compensate for this by finding venues and activities their children can enter with other home-school children or with kids at traditional schools. State law encourages this by requiring publicly funded schools to allow home-school students to compete for a position on interscholastic teams. So we frequently see home-school students playing on traditional sport teams from football to tennis.
But an ongoing dispute about the proper role of a competitive chess team made up of East Valley homeschool students raises a question about how much accommodation should be provided by regular schools.
The Tribune reported April 8 that members of the Mesa-based Chevalier Noir team had entered the statewide championships sponsored by the Arizona Chess Federation under an exception to a rule that encourages all teams to be sponsored by a school — whether it be district, charter or private. A committee of parents, including those with students in traditional school and those who teach their kids at home, recommended a permanent exception to make the federation more inclusive.
Here is the full article.
I vote against the exception. makes no sense for a county wide club team to compete against school teams.
If the compromise is to allow these club teams by school district it would be better. I think the best idea would be to create a club team championship or division.
It seems to me that there are already a variety of compromises in place, and it is hard to see why any further compromises are needed.
(1) Home-schooled kids can already join the team of the school in their area, assuming there is one. The problem is that the school in their area might not have a team.
(2) The home-schooled kids within a school district can form their own team. However, like everybody else, they can’t cross school district boundaries to create a team. This means that there might not be enough home-schooled chess-playing kids in an area to form a good team.
Problem #1 is the same as for any chess-playing kids who go to schools that don’t have an organized chess team.
Problem #2 is the same as any small school that doesn’t have a lot of kids.
There are probably many kids who would happily participate in chess teams and in team events if their school had a chess team. What about them?
There are a probably many schools that would have enough strong players for a competitive team if they were bigger and drew kids from larger regions.
So why make special rules to accomodate home-schooled kids that cut against the basic character of these tournaments as “school-based” tournaments.
The “problem” here is probably some pushy parents who don’t want to take “no” for an answer.
Someone’s pushiness is not generally something requiring a “compromise”.
After reading “Kings of NY” and realizing that some of these schools recruit for chess talent, I think this is a moot point. If schools recruit, so should home schools.
I think the best compromise is that after you declare yourself as part of a team, you should not be able to change for 2 years, unless you move out of the area.
In North Carolina, home school teams must have their players come from the same school district – usually the same county. I don’t know all the particulars here, but that system has worked well for us.
Don’t forget the scenario where charter and private schools are allowed to compete in the same leagues as “district-bound” public schools. I believe that is why homeschoolers sometime feel unfairly singled out for the possibility that they can create “all star” teams. Some states do not allow charters & privates to compete in the same leagues as publics, others do allow it. This issue isn’t unique to chess .. there are more than a few Catholic high schools who have built basketball dynastys through their ability to recruit across an entire metro area. I know, I attended one!
The number of homeschooled kids in any school district is trivial compared to the number enrolled in public and private schools. It seems to me the restrictive rules, which are basically designed to put homeschool teams out of business, is not really about fairness. But it could very possibly be about a vindictiveness toward those who reject public schools and go on to prove they are right to do so by actually educating their children.
Yes, home-schooling is unfair to students who go to public school and don’t learn anything. How can public school students compete with people who learn stuff most of the day?
You can complain about the problem in Arizona, but it is MUCH WORSE in Indiana. In Indiana, there is NO COMPROMISE! The Indiana State Chess Association has an agreement with a state affiliate to run the Indiana State Scholastic Team Championships. That affiliate, Scholatic Chess of Indiana, doesn’t allow homeschooler’s to play unless the team is schooled in the same building. Now how is that going to happen?!? They don’t even come close to following the 2005, 2006, or 2007 USCF National Scholastic Chess Tournament guidelines for homeschoolers!
Someone with some clout needs to get a hold of the ISCA leaders and demand fairness.
Editorial in East Valley Tribune. Editor seems to think Arizona State Scholastic tournament is a government school program, much like high school athletics. However, the comparison is more like youth soccer or little league baseball.
http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/87744
April 13, 2007
Compromise is winning move in chess
Tribune Editorial
Life often isn’t easy for children who go to school at home. While they get to develop special bonds with their parents and study at their own pace, they often miss out on the social activities and characterbuilding competition that comes from learning in a classroom setting.
Many home-school parents try to compensate for this by finding venues and activities their children can enter with other home-school children or with kids at traditional schools. State law encourages this by requiring publicly funded schools to allow home-school students to compete for a position on interscholastic teams. So we frequently see home-school students playing on traditional sport teams from football to tennis.
But an ongoing dispute about the proper role of a competitive chess team made up of East Valley homeschool students raises a question about how much accommodation should be provided by regular schools.
The Tribune reported April 8 that members of the Mesa-based Chevalier Noir team had entered the statewide championships sponsored by the Arizona Chess Federation under an exception to a rule that encourages all teams to be sponsored by a school — whether it be district, charter or private. A committee of parents, including those with students in traditional school and those who teach their kids at home, recommended a permanent exception to make the federation more inclusive.
But after the home-school team won the state title last year, the federation decided to keep the current rule, which requires home-school students to join the chess team of the public school they normally would attend or at least to form a team of home-school students only from within that school’s attendance boundaries.
As a result, the Chevalier Noir players didn’t attend the state championship this year although they could have competed as individuals. (The event is designed to encourage team entries).
Home-school parents complain the school-sponsored chess teams are using this rule to stifle competition. But school coaches and parents are worried about a homeschool team of “all stars” from around the Valley or around the state that would have an unfair advantage.
Both sides have a point, but we also believe both sides could be more flexible. When parents decide to educate at home, they should realize they won’t be able to replicate many classroom experiences. They shouldn’t expect others to transform the world to accommodate their personal choice, at least when it could place additional, unreasonable burdens on families who prefer the traditional school setting.
Still, home-school parents are correct when they are argue the chess federation rule lacks balance when private and charter schools can enroll students from just about anywhere.
One compromise could be for home-school chess players to join the team of any school they wish, but their affiliation must last at least a year to be in a similar category as charter and private schools. Another option would be to accept home-school teams from within the same school district (instead of the more limited individual school boundaries) as a recognition that the pool of interested home-school students likely will remain much smaller.
Either way, home-school students would get a chance to test their chess skills against the best in the state while keeping the competition fair for their classroom peers.
Here is an informed comment to the EVT editorial
http://epaper.aztrib.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=RVZULzIwMDcvMDQvMjIjQXIwOTMwMQ==&Mode=HTML&Locale=english-skin-custom
Chess flap centers on fairness
EAST VALLEY VOICE
April 22, 2007
— Leslie Johnson of Gilbert is a home educator and served on the ad hoc homeschool study committee for the ACFI in 2006.
Following a fire storm of readers’ comments from the East Valley Tribune article (“Homeschooled chess team banned from Ariz. tournament,” April 8) the editorial board of the East Valley Tribune published an editorial (“Compromise is winning move in chess,” April 13) in an effort to build a firewall around the controversy. Unfortunately, the opinion piece is but a gust that may well fan the flames even further if the foundational premise on which the piece was based is not corrected.
Fundamentally, the controversy does not emanate from homeschoolers seeking an accommodation provided by “regular schools,” as the editors report. Rather, the entity under which the controversy is surrounded is private — not public. It has no ties to the public schools.
The Arizona Chess Federation, Inc. functions to carry out the goals of the United States Chess Federation, which in this case includes providing an accommodation for scholastic (K-12) homeschool chess teams. Although the USCF recognizes the ACFI as an authority for state and local competition, it is a private organization, free to make whatever rules it wishes with no obligation to accommodate anyone.
Chevalier Noir homeschool representatives, who served on the 2006 ACFI ad hoc committee to modify the rule, authored three proposals for the ACFI board to consider — all of which were rejected. Even so, the goal of the representatives has always been to find a solution that allows for homeschool scholastic chess players — in accordance with homeschool law A.R.S. 15-802 — to be able to form teams and compete with other scholastic chess teams in the state. Their position was supported in a letter to the ACFI by Arizona Families for Home Education, a state organization which has supported homeschooling parents in Arizona since 1983.
The current rule does not work as the USCF intended under Arizona statutory homeschool requirements. About one-third of other states also have homeschool statutes that conflict with the USCF provision. Unlike Arizona, many of those states (Kansas, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas) have created rules to accommodate homeschool teams while also complying with their state homeschool laws.
Further, there is neither an effort nor the desire to replicate the classroom experience by homeschool chess parents as the editorial declares. In fact, that is why the Chevalier Noir representatives are only asking for a workable accommodation for the eligibility of homeschool teams. While under the current rule homeschoolers may join a public school team in the few places where they exist, most homeschoolers do not desire to play as part of a traditional school team. Like other students, they would prefer to be team members with others whose school choice is the same as their own.
Also, there is no unreasonable burden, as the editorial purports, to any family who prefers a traditional school setting by the inclusion of homeschool teams. To the contrary: other privately-sponsored scholastic competitions have been enriched by a scholastic field inclusive of all school choice entities — public, private, charter, parochial and homeschool.
National Geographic Bee, Scripps Howard Spelling Bee, Mathcounts and Readers’ Digest Wordpower Challenge, to name a few, all benefit from the inclusion of the entire scholastic field of students. Recently, for example, homeschool students won first place in both the National Geographic Bee and the Scripps Spelling Bee for the state of Arizona. Although the students advanced as individuals like all other finalists, they competed in local homeschool-sponsored qualifiers. Notably, Veritas homeschool team won first place in the Mathcounts team competition this year. No burdens on anyone — traditional school or otherwise — in these contests, just robust competition.
“Compromise” solutions put forth by the Tribune cannot be supported by the demographics of scholastic students in Arizona. According to state and county records, public school students outnumber homeschoolers by a ratio of approximately 60:1. The proposals put forward by Chevalier Noir took into account these facts; the Tribune did not, even though copies of ACFI ad hoc committee proposals and supporting demographic statistics were sent to their editors and writers weeks ago.
At no time have homeschoolers involved in this issue sought to build a team of “all stars” from around the Valley and state, “recommended a permanent exception to the rule” or expected others to “transform the world in order to accommodate their personal choice,” as the editorial states. When the flames of controversy are blazing such hyperbole only serves to fuel the fire.
Chevalier Noir’s goal is to represent all homeschoolers at the table with those in positions to decide the rules and those who report on the controversy. To date, although they have asked many times for such a meeting with the ACFI, their requests have been denied. Homeschoolers stand ready to meet with those touting “compromise.” Let’s put this fire out.