It’s not something we like to talk about. 

Still, painful truth is something of a specialty of mine, so let’s just put it on the table and let the full light of public scrutiny shine.

Our community basketball teams aren’t getting any better. Many of them are actually getting worse.

You know the ones – tournaments in community center gyms, shoddy uniforms and poorly paid coaches. While some teams seem to have actual game plans and even some scattered talent, others are just taking up court space and simply do not prepare players for a real college team – let alone playing professionally.

The fact that these so-called “leagues” are receiving public support is shameful – at least with results like these. So I have – as I always do – a plan.

First, we’re going to make these teams better by raising standards on these coaches and other organizers. I realize they barely make minimum wage trying to hold these leagues together, but then again they’re not really putting in the hours a real job would require, so I don’t know why they’re complaining. More rules, more verbal and bureaucratic abuse, and diminished status will definitely lead to a larger and more highly qualified pool of potential coaches and referees. 

Second, we’re going to raise standards and expectations on players as well. There’s no reason a child of 8-years old or more can’t make a free throw 4 times out of 5. In Finland, 6-year-olds are making 4.7 out of 5 easily. And seriously – you’re going to let a kid move up to the adult league at 16 without demonstrating he can consistently score on a simulated breakaway? Back in my day, we had standards! 

Honestly, I think teams these days are spending too much time on socialization, conditioning, and character-building. That win-loss record doesn’t have a column for ‘character’. Are we raising players or growing pansies here?

The biggest problem, of course, is a lack of player choice. Players are currently limited to the team in their neighborhood, at the nearest YMCA or other community center. Coaches no doubt love having a captive roster like this, so they don’t have to work at recruitment or become better coaches. Referees don’t have to become better referees. The players are trapped on failing teams in failing leagues. 

But there’s a better way. 

Players should be allowed to try out for any team they like. They can take the taxpayer dollars – THEIR dollars that THEY deserve because that’s why we pay taxes is so that individuals can spend it on whatever they like – to any team in the state and demand to be considered. 

It is, of course, up to the individual teams whether to take them or not. Obviously players looking for a better team are going to seek out, well…. better teams – and those teams don’t get better by taking just anyone who wanders in, the way those community teams do. They have standards – the kind community teams are prohibited by both law and personal ethics from having. So players can try out, and will be considered – if they’re good enough. Some will even be accepted!

Winning a spot doesn’t mean they’re guaranteed that position for the season, of course. Most of these teams have limited locker-room space and if your performance falters, you’re gone – back to that local team that also has limited locker-room space but really just needs to suck it up and deal with it and stop being so wasteful with what they DO have. 

If the player does make a team, they’ll naturally need to buy their own uniforms. Those old t-shirts accepted by the YMCA team won’t cut it in a real league. They’ll need better shoes. A gym membership. A dietary specialist. And of course if it’s discovered along the way that they have a slight vision issue making it difficult for them to do a proper layup, or that asthma resurfaces, or they can’t make it to practice one day because of a crisis at home, they’re out.

Out as in “kicked off of the newer, better team,” I mean. They’ll naturally go back to their local community league where we’ll immediately begin blaming those coaches and organizers for not doing a better job with the player we’ve just dumped back on them because we’re not really set up to deal with that kind of thing.  

Will this work? Of course it will. I know plenty of kids on elite basketball teams already, and they’re doing very well. Besides, sports are all about competition – just like ‘Merica! If more kids are encouraged to try out for a wider variety of teams, and those teams are partially compensated with community funds for skimming off the elite, that will make the community teams which are left with the rest – only now with less taxpayer resources – BETTER. That’s called healthy competition.

Basketball is important, so everyone must still be required to play. Those community leagues will still be expected to make quality players not only of all the kids who weren’t accepted elsewhere, but of those who hate sports to begin with and basketball in particular. They’ll be expected to make them taller, and thinner, and faster, and require them to “think like pros.” That’s the whole point of playing sports anyway, right? I don’t know why those people are so afraid of a little accountability. 

The community leagues, I mean – not the private teams. They can do whatever they like, because… freedom and small government.

From time to time it will be discovered that a player is far more interested in football, or hockey, or cheerleading, or joining the band, or even making the nachos at the concession stand. All of those things are fine – albeit it complete wastes of time if we’re going to compete with basketball teams from Finland – but will only be allowed if the student first proves themselves willing and capable on the court. Those are the standards we’ve decided should apply to absolutely everyone regardless of other issues, abilities, or circumstances. Unlike you, we beieve that every child is capable of dribbling. 

Already the community leagues are whining – especially the coaches, and even many of the refs. They don’t want their teams to be stacked up next to the private teams because they’re lazy liberals who hate America. 

But I just can’t see the problem. I know it will work because I played basketball and I made it onto a very elite team. I am, of course, wildly successful today doing things that have nothing to do with basketball – thus making me an expert on coaching and organizing a team, or even a league.

Besides, what could be more American than choice?

I think it’s a shame the way so many voucher proponents are so staunchly against parent choice. 

Oh, I know they fling these two words about a great deal, but they contradict themselves repeatedly in their proposals. And I, for one, think it’s time we call them out on it. 

For those of you who haven’t kept up with the conflict, vouchers are a means by which parents would be given a percentage of the per-pupil funding otherwise going to their local public school in order to use that money at a comparable educational institution of their choosing. The schools would thus lose a percentage of the money they’re allotted per student, the argument goes, but they’d also have one less student to serve – thus reducing the cost of bussing, heating and air, teacher salaries, food service, nursing, administration, grounds care, building maintenance, technology, and classroom supplies by a comparable percentage each time a student leaves. 

Parent choice. 

Opponents of vouchers are repeatedly called out as being against “parent choice,” when nothing could be further from the truth. I wholeheartedly support the right of every parent to homeschool their child, or send their child to a private school – religious or otherwise – or to seek out strictly online options, or whatever else they see fit to do. And in Oklahoma, they already have and always will have those options, completely and fully protected by both popular opinion and explicit legislation.

The only point of dispute is whether or not public tax dollars will be used to assist these parents in their endeavors. That’s a perfectly reasonable debate to have. 

Voucher supporters argue that the money belongs to the student or the parents, to be used for whatever they think best for their child. Opponents counter that public money belongs, once collected, to the public, to be used for whatever is determined to be best for the community. 

Voucher supporters argue that schools need competition and tougher oversight to improve, while opponents counter that schools are not businesses, their goals are not profits, and their kids are not products – they need support if they are to improve. 

But the most flyer-friendly, talking-point-ready argument from voucher supporters keeps coming back to that term – “parent choice.” So if we must have this discussion yet again, let’s at least make sure the parents are, in fact, being offered a choice.

I’m ready to support vouchers. Seriously. In the name of parent choice. But…

If we institute vouchers, they should be for the full amount of per-pupil spending designated by the state. If the money belongs to the kid, as proponents insist, then it all belongs to the kid. Tying it to family income level or district ‘grades’ on that horrible A-F report card makes no sense if the issue is parent choice. If it is, in fact, their money, then all parents should be granted the same choice to take it and go. 

If we institute vouchers, all participating institutions should be required to accept every student who applies. If they accept any vouchers, they should be required to accept all vouchers. Otherwise, that’s not parent choice. If we’re going to rattle on incessantly about the holy status of parental control, let’s make it a fact as well as a talking point. Whatever their child’s special needs, academic ability, personality traits, behavior issues, background, race, religion, or sexuality, parents should have the widest possible range of choices what’s best for their child.  

If we institute vouchers, no participating institution should be allowed to charge parents even a dollar above and beyond the value of the voucher. Otherwise, that’s not parent choice. I realize this may prove a hardship for some schools, who already run on a rather tight budget. But surely this is easily addressed by first identifying waste and abuse. I mean, it’s not like parents aren’t already pouring godawful amounts of money into these places. They’re obviously just not using it efficiently. 

I’m sure the various sectarian and other private schools in the state could cut back on administrative costs. And have you seen the numbers spent on non-classroom positions? It’s shameful. 

They don’t really need a five-day school week when they could get in just as many hours going Monday through Wednesday if they’d just tweak the schedule a bit. Sorry, teachers – you’ll have to put in full work days like the rest of us; you might not get home in time for Ellen and bon-bons every afternoon. 

If we institute vouchers, all participating institutions should be expected to provide supplies and equipment for any child participating in any extra-curricular activity offered by the school. Of course they can sell candles or whatever to raise money if they prefer – but it must be consistent with what every other child participating is doing or able to do. Otherwise, it’s not really parent choice. We also need to talk about providing breakfast, lunch, and of course transportation to and from school. Art supplies. Uniforms. Additional reading or math tutoring as required. If a school is only able or willing to serve some students and not others, then that’s not really parent choice. 

While we have any number of top quality private options across Oklahoma currently, there are also those less… reputable, and there’s no telling what sorts of fly-by-night, exploitative institutions might appear once all that state money is flowing so freely. So if we institute vouchers, all participating institutions should be subject to some sort of quality control by the state. We’re already considering legislation to protect adult students from for-profit colleges; refusing to do the same thing for minors would be blatant negligence.  

Surely it can’t be that burdensome to comply with a few basic requirements and submit a few reports to make sure things are above-board. Much like with public schools, we must of course proceed under the assumption that all private school administrators are scam artists and their teachers both incompetent and wanna-be child-rapists. 

Besides, you don’t expect us to just keep throwing money at your little “school” without asking what we’re getting in return, do you? It shouldn’t really bother your staff how many man-hours are involved in red tape and compliance if you have nothing to hide. This isn’t your money, you know – didn’t we cover that part already?

And of course, if we institute vouchers, we absolutely must have an annual ‘report card’ of some sort so parents can know how various schools are doing. Surely the whole premise of vouchers and their ability to magically solve problems, increase productivity, and reduce costs, assumes that parents are making informed choices, yes? If they’re not capable of figuring out if their child’s existing public school is doing a good job or not without something published in the local press to great fanfare every year, I don’t know how you’d expect them to choose from dozens of other options they’ve never even seen.

As a public school teacher, I’ll take my chances with that kind of parent choice. I even genuinely hope that some good comes of it – some innovation, some mutation of which we’ve not yet conceived… anything that ends up being good for kids.

But if voucher supporters aren’t willing to get serious about parent choice, then I’m not sure I can take their rhetoric seriously. If they’re not really in this for the reasons they claim, what in subsidized elitism’s name could they be fighting for instead?

I, for one, can’t imagine.