COLUMN: Work on schools, not rules

Dina Bass', "No Loss for Words," Fall '99 Dina Bass', "No Loss for Words," Fall '99Talk about missing the point. Last week, a federal judge in Philadelphia closed a chapter in the continuing debate over academic standards for athletes by invalidating the NCAA's academic eligibility standard for incoming Division I and II athletes. The decision, which resulted from a suit brought by two track stars from North Philly's Simon Gratz High School, will be appealed by the NCAA. What nobody seems to want to discuss is why the nation's -- and particularly Philly's -- elementary, middle and high schools are failing to meet their obligations to minority and poor athletes. The Proposition 16 rules -- commonly known by their former designation, Proposition 48 -- called for a minimum of an 820 on the SAT for students with a GPA exceeding 2.5 in 13 core high school courses on one end of a sliding scale, and a GPA as low as 2.0 for those with SAT scores in excess of 1010 on the other end of the scale. But even the NCAA acknowledges that the standard disproportionately impacted African-American and low-income student athletes, as demonstrated by an internal memo presented at the trial. Now, in the absence of NCAA standards, each school can define its own admissions standards for student athletes. Will this benefit the athletes? There are a lot of different opinions on the subject. If the ruling is upheld, several local athletes, including Temple's Marc Karcher and Drexel's Patrick Sanders, could see a lost year of eligibility restored. The ruling also takes the pressure off many high school athletes. You see, it's not just that Prop 48 athletes can't play their freshman year. Some top schools won't even accept Prop 48 athletes, while others won't extend athletic scholarships to them, a real problem for students whose ticket to a college education is their ability to run fast or dunk. The ruling also allows colleges to consider students as individuals. Take Leatrice Shaw, one of the plaintiffs, for example. Shaw, a National Honor Society member with a B+ GPA, was ranked fifth in her graduating class at Gratz. But after four attempts at the SAT, she still fell short by 10 points. Prop 48 has been called racist by Temple basketball coach John Chaney and defended by others, like Penn State football coach Joe Paterno. In truth, it isn't really racist, although as Federal Judge Ronald Buckwalter ruled, it does disproportionately effect athletes who are black or poor. But there are massive drawbacks to the throwing out Prop 48, which was established in the first place because of the massive failure of individual schools to maintain any academic standards without NCAA guidelines. One hopes that D-I and II schools will uphold their academic standards rather than prostituting themselves in the name of championships and increased alumni giving, especially since no one is doing the athletes any favors when they accept them to schools where they are incapable of keeping up. But that is unlikely. Many schools have traditionally been pretty unscrupulous in prioritizing the improvement of their starting five over something as fuzzy as educational standards. The issue goes way beyond Prop 48 -- something in this system smacks of racism, because black and poor children are not genetically less intelligent than white children or those from an affluent background. What is racist is our school system, especially Philadelphia's, which is why it is fitting that the plaintiffs attended Gratz. How can the Philadelphia public school system produce a school where the No. 5 student in her class can't get an 820 on her SAT? Gratz, like many other mostly minority Philly schools in lower-class neighborhoods, is an educational failure that more closely resembles a bomb shelter or submarine with classrooms than a school. White middle- and upper- class neighborhoods in the suburbs meanwhile, for example Lower Merion and Bala Cynwyd, have some of the best public schools in the state. You can blame the public school system's problems on many factors too complex to discuss here. You can call it the state's fault for shortchanging Philadelphia in terms of funding, you can talk about the belief that a smaller tax base and less active parents contribute to the poor conditions in inner-city schools or you can blame corrupt administrators and ineffective teachers and the union rules that make them difficult to remove. But one thing is for sure: this doesn't happen in white middle class schools. Honors students don't have trouble making minimum academic standards. Would Philadelphia allow its white students to be educated in a school like Gratz, with its two-foot-wide, dim hallways and poor SAT scores? No way. White middle-class high schools proudly measure and advertise their average SAT score and where their students got into college and they don't have honor students who can't break 1000. But no one cares about a school like Gratz because North Philly doesn't have the tax or voter power that the Main Line does, the people there don't have a voice to raise in complaint, at least not one that gets listened to. But for many students in North Philadelphia and the country's inner-city public schools a college education is a ticket out of poverty and their athletic ability is a ticket into the college education they can't otherwise afford. To take that opportunity away from a bright athlete because he falls into a racial or economic group whose education we are happy to push to the margins is the worst kind of prejudice.