Another HSLDA article - for those who are interested in Math Teams

[Julie in MN]

For those who are interested in math teams, my son's coach told us about this situation today:

http://www.hslda.org/docs/news/201008230.asp

 

I see nothing official about why homeschoolers were banned (after 20 years) and then partially un-banned, but ds's coach suggested it had to do with homeschool teams having kids from all different school districts. He laughed about teachers having thousands of high school students to choose from, while he has 5 high schoolers on his team right now, and yet he "gets to choose" from all the districts. :)

 

I know some on these boards do the math team thing, and I just had to share a little vent

:rant:

Julie

[mcconnellboys]

There used to be a Young Authors program sponsered by a newspaper in Louisville that lots of homeschoolers participated in. Teachers complained so much about the homeschoolers winning that they finally created a separate category for homeschoolers, then did away with the programming for them altogether....

[Julie in MN]

I'm still scratching my head a bit. So do you think they feel it's unfair because we can sit around all day just doing the one subject, and they can't? Or was it a wider school district thing again?

 

It reminds me of when I started my oldest in public school K at age 6 and kept hearing that "parents like me" were trying to get their children ahead in sports :confused: (Those who know me well know how NOT into organized sports I am...)

 

Julie

[mcconnellboys]

I think it's pure jealousy and they will latch on to any excuse they can think of by way of defending it. Yes, what I've heard most is that it's not fair because homeschoolers entering these contests are working on nothing but that one thing for days, weeks, or months at a time. I've heard this with the spelling bees and geography bees, as well as other sorts of competitions.

 

I guess some *might* do such a thing, but really? Do they actually think that all homeschoolers do nothing all day and still miraculously manage to do well on ACT/SAT scores to get into college? Yeah, Bubba, we'll do just geography this year so you can win that bee, then we'll do nothing but math next year so you can win the Olympiad, then we'll follow that with a year of spelling.....geesh....

[KAR120C]

I'm still scratching my head a bit. So do you think they feel it's unfair because we can sit around all day just doing the one subject, and they can't? Or was it a wider school district thing again?

From what I heard (from our local coord.) there was a specific issue with tutoring centers pretending to be homeschoolers and assembling "super teams" from the local schools. It was never a problem with actual homeschoolers, just a problem with policing that loophole in their rules and a weakness in their system that people were using to cheat.

 

I personally would have disqualified them (even after the fact) and banned them from future competitions. But my guess is that this looked easier and they weren't really thinking of it in terms of what would be fair to homeschoolers... just what they could reasonably keep track of. It's still not fair, but I don't think it had anything to do with what they think of us. We're in a chapter full of GT magnet schools, so we're hardly a blip on the radar anyway! :tongue_smilie:

[Julie in MN]

Erica,

Was that the writing contest or the math contest that used a tutoring center? Just curious.

Julie

[johnandtinagilbert]

I think it's pure jealousy and they will latch on to any excuse they can think of by way of defending it. Yes, what I've heard most is that it's not fair because homeschoolers entering these contests are working on nothing but that one thing for days, weeks, or months at a time. I've heard this with the spelling bees and geography bees, as well as other sorts of competitions.

 

I guess some *might* do such a thing, but really? Do they actually think that all homeschoolers do nothing all day and still miraculously manage to do well on ACT/SAT scores to get into college? Yeah, Bubba, we'll do just geography this year so you can win that bee, then we'll do nothing but math next year so you can win the Olympiad, then we'll follow that with a year of spelling.....geesh....

exactly.

[johnandtinagilbert]

From what I heard (from our local coord.) there was a specific issue with tutoring centers pretending to be homeschoolers and assembling "super teams" from the local schools. It was never a problem with actual homeschoolers, just a problem with policing that loophole in their rules and a weakness in their system that people were using to cheat.

 

I personally would have disqualified them (even after the fact) and banned them from future competitions. But my guess is that this looked easier and they weren't really thinking of it in terms of what would be fair to homeschoolers... just what they could reasonably keep track of. It's still not fair, but I don't think it had anything to do with what they think of us. We're in a chapter full of GT magnet schools, so we're hardly a blip on the radar anyway! :tongue_smilie:

Funny....first folks hate us, now they want to BE us....heh heh

[Julie in MN]

Funny....first folks hate us, now they want to BE us....heh heh

 

:lol:

[KAR120C]

Erica,

Was that the writing contest or the math contest that used a tutoring center? Just curious.

Julie

MathCounts. I don't know anything about the writing contest.

[MBM]

From what I heard (from our local coord.) there was a specific issue with tutoring centers pretending to be homeschoolers and assembling "super teams" from the local schools. It was never a problem with actual homeschoolers, just a problem with policing that loophole in their rules and a weakness in their system that people were using to cheat.

 

I personally would have disqualified them (even after the fact) and banned them from future competitions. But my guess is that this looked easier and they weren't really thinking of it in terms of what would be fair to homeschoolers... just what they could reasonably keep track of. It's still not fair, but I don't think it had anything to do with what they think of us. We're in a chapter full of GT magnet schools, so we're hardly a blip on the radar anyway! :tongue_smilie:

 

:iagree:

 

I heard it stemmed from a specific incident, too. I agree that they should go after those particular individuals.

[Julie in MN]

MathCounts. I don't know anything about the writing contest.

 

Hmmm, interesting. So I suppose if it were a public school math coach abusing the system (like you hear some of the sports coaches do), they would cancel all public school teams?!

:banghead:

Julie

[MBM]

Maybe what they should do is not have teams and just compete individually. My son did most of the work for his team last year anyway. The rest just sat around and waited until they could eat more junk food during the breaks. LOL.

[cbollin]

Hmmm, interesting. So I suppose if it were a public school math coach abusing the system (like you hear some of the sports coaches do), they would cancel all public school teams?!

:banghead:

Julie

 

:grouphug:

 

yep. yep. yep.....

 

sigh

-crystal

[KAR120C]

Hmmm, interesting. So I suppose if it were a public school math coach abusing the system (like you hear some of the sports coaches do), they would cancel all public school teams?!

:banghead:

Julie

No.... I think they're addressing the weaknesses in their rules, not attacking a particular population (us). The homeschool team option really is a weak point in their procedures, and the easiest way to close that point of entry for cheaters is to close it altogether. I don't think it's the best way (to say the least) but it certainly will keep the cheaters out.

 

I'm hopeful that they'll find a better way by next year... I really don't think they are out to get homeschoolers or anything, more that they weren't really considering the end result of their solution. Now that they've seen the backlash, I'm hoping they can come up with something else... but for this year I'll reserve judgment.

[Julie in MN]

No.... I think they're addressing the weaknesses in their rules, not attacking a particular population (us). The homeschool team option really is a weak point in their procedures, and the easiest way to close that point of entry for cheaters is to close it altogether. I don't think it's the best way (to say the least) but it certainly will keep the cheaters out.

 

I'm hopeful that they'll find a better way by next year... I really don't think they are out to get homeschoolers or anything, more that they weren't really considering the end result of their solution. Now that they've seen the backlash, I'm hoping they can come up with something else... but for this year I'll reserve judgment.

 

Well, I give them credit for listening to HSLDA so quickly, it seems.

 

I personally don't see the weak point and even have a hard time seeing the cheating aspect. I've watched the shows about spelling bee winners who do spelling obsessively (not sure if they squeeze in other academics, but maybe), and I figure if someone dedicates their life to spelling and wins the award, well, they can have it :) But I'm not a big competitor type, obviously.

 

Julie

[RanchGirl]

Mathcount's decision, communications, and the resulting compromise of grandfathering in existing teams for this year, all really bother me. I want to give them the benefit of the doubt but it is hard to believe they thought that eliminating all homeschool teams was even passably acceptable as a solution to the supposed problem of public school students leaving their ps teams and banding together to form 'super' teams... it just doesn't make sense! There must be more to it. And did they really think homeschoolers wouldn't put up a fuss?? These are supposed to be intelligent people LOL!

 

It's hard to imagine how they could possibly think that public schools don't have a huge advantage over homeschoolers -- to start with, they have an exponentially larger pool of students to choose from, government funding for materials and transportation, and a paid, dedicated math teacher who doesn't also have to teach science, English and all the other subjects, not to mention laundry and cooking!

 

I would dearly love for my son to be able to participate on a mathcounts team. If individual is his only option, I don't see the point of mathcounts... AMC and other programs seem just as effective to me and not biased against homeschoolers. The team experience is what we are specifically looking for.

 

Here's a google group that was formed to keep tabs on the situations when the decision was originally publicized. Things have been very quiet on the group lately but there was quite a bit of discussion in the beginning, including several alternative solutions that were proposed and discussed.

http://groups.google.com/group/homeschool-mathcounts

[RanchGirl]

From what I heard (from our local coord.) there was a specific issue with tutoring centers pretending to be homeschoolers and assembling "super teams" from the local schools. It was never a problem with actual homeschoolers, just a problem with policing that loophole in their rules and a weakness in their system that people were using to cheat.

 

I personally would have disqualified them (even after the fact) and banned them from future competitions. But my guess is that this looked easier and they weren't really thinking of it in terms of what would be fair to homeschoolers... just what they could reasonably keep track of. It's still not fair, but I don't think it had anything to do with what they think of us. We're in a chapter full of GT magnet schools, so we're hardly a blip on the radar anyway! :tongue_smilie:

 

That was my understanding of the reason Mathcounts gave for the rule change as well. There are school districts with 1000s of kids forming one team, cherry picking their top kids to go on the mc team. There are private schools, GT magnets, science/math magnets, etc. They all still get to compete. Homeschoolers are the only ones being targeted, supposedly to make it more fair for the public schoolers? That doesn't fly to me!

 

I could understand them having a rule that each child must compete with the school they actually attend if public schools are upset that their students are leaving to join other teams. But I don't see how they can justify punishing homeschoolers over this.

 

And if a public school'ed child goes to a large, competitive school and he doesn't make his team, I really don't see the problem in him joining a tutoring center team, even if it ends up that tutoring centers will form super teams.... who cares? Are they really complaining about more teams joining and paying fees to compete?

[Julie in MN]

Thanks RanchGirl for that link. I'm going to read it. I think there are some interesting issues in all of this. My son's old team is still grandfathered in, but he's in a little, newly-formed high school team now. I don't think MathCounts is a high school competition, but there are several other competitions that could be listening to the whole thing.

 

I think my son really benefits from this type of activity, where he sees lots of students working hard, and he pushes himself to do his best. Neither he nor I are really competitive but he really likes math puzzles better than textbook math, and I think he likes the whole being a part of the big math group thing. Well, there are lots of reasons we are invested in this issue.

 

Julie

[mcconnellboys]

That's what happened with Stanford Achievement Testing, too. Parents of school kids in California were pretending to be homeschoolers and obtaining the tests ahead of their child's test date so they could "practice" it first..... Now there are all sorts of restrictions in place for homeschoolers regarding giving those tests. And it wasn't even homeschoolers who were misusing it..... Go figure....

[Julie in MN]

That's what happened with Stanford Achievement Testing, too. Parents of school kids in California were pretending to be homeschoolers and obtaining the tests ahead of their child's test date so they could "practice" it first..... Now there are all sorts of restrictions in place for homeschoolers regarding giving those tests. And it wasn't even homeschoolers who were misusing it..... Go figure....

 

Interesting. I'm seeing a pattern here. You know, Ebay stopped allowing teacher guides to be sold, not specifically dealing with homeschoolers but there was a great effect on homeschoolers which they did not choose to respond to.

 

Julie