The South Bend School Board is wrong and so is anyone who believes they need to lower academic standards.

I cannot tell you how much I am against it.

First of all, I am appalled that the Indiana High School Athletic Association’s standard is four Ds and an F.

In an era when colleges are expecting more from its student-athletes, lowering the standards at the high school level just does not make sense.

Their reasoning is flawed.

Before Monday night’s board meeting, South Bend schools expected their student-athletes to maintain a 2.0 GPA, which equates to five Cs and a C-minus.

The reason they wanted to lower the current standard to a graduating scale was to keep more students involved in academics. Under the new plan, freshmen would only need a 1.5, sophomores a 1.7 and juniors a 1.85 with seniors needing to maintain the current 2.0 GPA.

Are you serious?

A 1.5 GPA for freshmen barely equates to passing. Is that really the message educators want to send students?

One of the selling points is that if you keep those students involved with a team, somehow their grades are going to improve as they go through high school.

Give me a break.

Kids who are not motivated enough to want to get good grades are not magically going to start getting them because they are involved in athletics.

The kid who want to continue to play athletics at a higher level will set his or her goals high enough to qualify for the current collegiate standards, and those who do not have the same intentions will continue to do the bare minimum to remain eligible.

While they may finish with a diploma, when employers look at their academic track record, good paying jobs will be hard to find and those who let them “slide” in order to be on a team will have done these children a disservice.

The other selling point was that the South Bend Schools would make a commitment to providing study tables to aid those students. The same promise was made six years ago when the board enacted the current standard.

Most of those study tables have disappeared due to a lack of funding.

With the budget issues that school districts face today, I cannot believe they are even telling people they are committed to anything.

Academic standards vary from district to district.

When I was in school you had to have a C average (2.0) to be eligible to play. But that was when it was much easier to get into college and play sports.

Today’s standards are stricter for both the student and the athlete. And we should expect our school districts to have higher standards too.

Shame on the South Bend Schools for lowering those standards by a 5-2 vote.

Even the common sense voice of former Notre Dame men’s basketball coach Digger Phelps, who wanted them to raise the requirements, could not sway the board, which seems to be more concerned with filling out their team rosters than requiring students to strive for a better education.

Somewhere down the road, the board and those who supported this action will figure out that it was the wrong decision.

 

Scott Novak is sports editor for Leader Publications. He can be reached at scott.novak@leaderpub.com.