Should homeschool kids be allowed to play school sports?

If states (or districts/counties, whatever) simply decided how much they're going to spend per-pupil, then yes, if a given school's enrollment decreased because of homeschooling than that school's budget would necessarily decrease. But if the budget is set based on anticipated enrollment (which is what happens), and then some portion of the anticipated enrollment fails to materialize due to homeschooling, then a larger per-pupil total is available for those kids who do enroll in public schools.

Of course it is way the hell complicated, because it's not just local/state funds, there are federal funds mixed in there as well. Further, it's not a one-size formula ... a given's school's budget is arrived at through myriad factors and formulas. Nevertheless, it is not axiomatic that a decrease in average daily attendance (because of homeschooling) will result in a school's budget being smaller than it otherwise would have been.

 

Funding issues aside, to me it goes back to this -- homeschoolers are in a private-school situation. Generally, private school students are not given access to public school extracurricular activities, nor do states require them to do so. (I put in extracurricular because private school students are often granted access to special-needs resources in a public school.) Yes, sometimes private schools are granted access, depending on whether the private and/or public school offers a certain resource and could use the numbers to fill it up.

To me, if you're going to declare that homeschooled students get required access to public school extracurricular activities, then how come other private school students aren't included in that mandate? Actually, I can tell you why -- because private school attendance is cratering, and state legislators sympathetic to private schools are not going to do anything, such as allow them to flee their own school activities (or lack thereof), to hurt them. If you look at it that way, the fight for vouchers and tax breaks for private education aren't just about parental choice -- they're about making sure the local Catholic school doesn't shut down for lack of enrollment. I live in one of the most Catholic areas of a Catholic metro area, and there are schools around me struggling to stay open in the face of rising costs, a struggling economy and demographic change.

 

Is the question about being "allowed" or being "required to be allowed"?

 

The question is whether schools are required to take them.

 

Then playing opportunity is. And you're taking something away from a student to benefit a non-student.

 

Even that is heavily situational.

But they aren't really non-students.

 

They are non-students. I guess this whole idea of "students = taxpayers" is the loophole that the home-school side has chosen to frame the debate. But if they are not at the school, they are not students of the school.

 

Private school students, charter school students, and homeschool students are all intended to undermine and dismantle the public school system, by draining it of students and attendant resources (per-pupil aid, parental involvement and support, etc etc.) and eroding taxpayer committment to maintaining public education.

If I ran a public school district none of them would ever set foot in our facilities: they wouldn't play on our teams, I wouldn't rent out facilities to their teams (except at exorbitant-to-prohibitive rates), I wouldn't let the public school teams even play against them. You want to participate in public school athletics, go to the public school.

 

Bullying and school shootings have been going on for decades. I'm unaware of any jump in homeschooling.

Also, the homeschoolers that I met were generally homeschooled because the parents felt they could give their kids a better education (while spending more time with their kids), not because they were paranoid.

 

Also, I'm not sure it is fair to call it parachuting in if the kid lives in the district.

In these cases, at least the kid who loses the roster spot or the starting job had a chance to compete. He lost. If you keep the home school kids out, they don't even get the opportunity to compete for a roster spot.

 

They have the opportunity. They could attend the school. Their choice.

 

Again, not the same thing. I know you get it even if you want to play dumb.