The NCAA's Misguided Role in School Reform.

Why is the governing body for college sports interfering in high school curricula across America?

David Flannery, superintendent in Elk River, Minn., minces no words when asked about the National Collegiate Athletic Administration, known more commonly as the NCAA.

Flannery calls the NCAA "the most arrogant, frustrating, obstinate organization I've ever dealt with." Similar sentiments come from Ken Gunn, principal of Walnut High School in Walnut, Calif., and president of the California Interscholastic Federation, who says, "The NCAA has created a monster."

A growing number of educational leaders on the pre-collegiate level--who until recently have had little reason to be concerned with the governing body for intercollegiate sports--agree with their harsh assessment. Through its recent attempts to establish national curriculum standards, the NCAA is creating enormous problems for high school students, parents and educators throughout the nation.

Object of Scorn

So why is the National Association of State Boards of Education asking the NCAA to stop "micro-managing academic courses" in high schools and warning school districts to be aware of potential legal problems caused by the NCAA? Why are some of the leading school reformers, such as Jonathan Kozol, Asa Hilliard, Deborah Meier and Ted Sizer, challenging the NCAA? Why are school administrators asking, "Who gave the NCAA the right to dictate course standards to secondary school educators?"

Answering these questions requires understanding the NCAA. Formed in 1906 because universities wanted to create a level playing field for sports, the NCAA now is big business, reporting more than $247 million in revenue last year. Naturally, NCAA officials are eager to protect that revenue.

Over the past decade, the NCAA has been vigorously criticized whenever professional athletes disclosed they could barely read, even though they had been students at well-known universities. In response, the NCAA developed high school grade point averages and college entrance test score minimums, which prospective college athletes had to meet to be eligible to compete in their first year.

Unilateral Standards

Without consulting superintendents, school board representatives or others in the K-i 2 community, the NCAA decided that good high school grades and strong test scores were no longer enough to qualify students for participation in collegiate sports. The NCAA opted to specify the content of acceptable high school courses in order to make college-entrance requirements uniform for athletes nationwide.

The NCAA raised the bar for freshmen eligibility by insisting that students earn a certain grade point average and score on college-entrance exams and successfully complete 13 core courses in English, social studies, mathematics and science. Then the NCAA decided to specify which courses it would accept.

The NCAA created an Initial-Eligibility Clearinghouse, operated by American College Testing in Iowa City, to standardize the decisions over which courses qualified for the core requirements. (This responsibility for accrediting high school courses traditionally has been handled by each state education agency.) The clearinghouse asked all public and private high schools nationwide to submit a description of each course offered in these disciplines.

What followed were arbitrary and capricious determinations. As a high school principal in Illinois wrote me: "We found that one word in a course description, like 'applied,' was enough to get the course rejected." The Milwaukee Journal found identical courses approved at one school and rejected at another.

Ample Evidence

The clearinghouse, which was set up to review transcripts of college-bound athletes, declared thousands of students with acceptable academic records--including a National Merit Scholar and a school valedictorian--ineligible for athletic scholarships and ineligible to compete in sports as freshmen.

Among the many examples from across the nation:

* Ericka Twedt, who had earned a 3.7 grade point average at her high school in Prairie Farm, Wis., where she excelled in many college preparation courses and earned high SAT scores, watched the NCAA reject two of her high school English courses. After months of appeals, she was granted a waiver, but by then she had missed the fall rowing season at University of Iowa.

* Yale accepted Alison Rosholt, an excellent tennis player, on "early decision" last fall, but it took nine months of phone calls and letters from her highly regarded suburban Minneapolis high school and her parents before the NCAA would let her try our for the team.

* The Air Force Academy accepted Chris Rohe, who compiled a 3.97 high school grade point average, high test scores and membership in the National Honor Society, but the NCAA blocked him from playing football during his freshman year because it rejected 1/3 of a required 10th grade English class.

* Dan Zien, a suburban Milwaukee student who won honors in track at the Junior Olympics, compiled a B high school average and scored above 1300 on his SAT, but was barred from competing in track as a freshman at Indiana University because the NCAA rejected an English course, "Preparation for the 21" Century." His high school noted that the same course had been accepted when submitted by other high schools.

* National Merit Scholar Amber Hoftstad missed most of the fall cross country season at Michigan Tech University during her freshman year after the NCAA questioned two of her courses.

* A "tech-prep" chemistry class at Winona High School in Winona, Minn., prevented Rebecca Burt from accepting a track and field scholarship at Kansas State University. Her mother was forced to drive hundreds of miles to bring her home when the NCAA's rejection of the course disqualified her for the scholarship.

* Misty Hollingshead, an outstanding volleyball player who graduated with a 3.56 average from North Thurston High School in Olympia, Wash., and was her class president all four years of high school, endured months of anguish when the NCAA targeted the 43 quarter hours of college credit she completed during her senior year in high school under her state's "Running Start" program.

Hollinghead's mother Sandy, an educator, said of her experience: "We were stunned by the rigidity and lack of common sense on the part of the clearinghouse and at their arrogance and unwillingness to give us answers concerning the process they had used in making decisions about our daughter ... It's crazy for an organization to have the power that they do to override and overrule educational statutes set forth by a state legislature and to not really have to answer to anyone for their actions and decisions."

Frustrating Reformers

Educators are troubled not only about the deserving students whose lives have been disrupted, but also by the NCAA's disturbing impact on efforts to improve schools.

David Flannery, the Elk River, Minn., superintendent, says he was angered by the NCAA's rejection of an interdisciplinary English/social studies course offered at his high school, an action that placed outstanding student athletes in limbo for months. The NCAA's three-sentence memo to Flannery rejecting the course contains three grammatical mistakes: "Thank you for you (sic) fax regarding 'Essential Communications.' Do (sic) to the vocational aspect of this, we are unable to approve this course as a core course. Therefore, the decision remains unchange (sic) for student named above."

Bob Rodrigues, a suburban Pittsburgh teacher whom the National Council of Social Studies named as its national Outstanding secondary teacher of the year in 1997, spent several frustrating months trying to gain NCAA approval of carefully developed interdisciplinary courses. But time after time, his interdisciplinary courses have been turned down for failing to fit the common-core curriculum.

Mike Bonacci, principal of Chartiers Valley High School where Rodrigues teaches, detailed his ordeal in a letter to the NCAA: "After having had too many experiences calling, submitting curricula, resubmitting curricula and receiving different answers to the same questions because one can never talk with the same clearinghouse representative, it makes my guidance counselors and me wonder whether the NCAA Academic Requirements Committee knows anything at all about curricula and those components of a planned course which qualify it as a core course," Guidance counselors in some schools now can attest to the difficulty of offering quality interdisciplinary courses,

The NCAA decided an acceptable high school social studies course could spend no more than 25 percent of its time on current or contemporary issues and no more than 25 percent could be devoted to humanities or criminal justice issues.

Parents in at least three states (Iowa, Minnesota and Michigan) have sued school districts, insisting that the schools should have warned students the NCAA would not accept a particular course. But districts have countered that it can take months to get a response from the NCAA about which courses are deemed acceptable. And who is the NCAA to overrule courses that otherwise satisfy undergraduate admissions requirements to Yale, Harvard and the Air Force Academy? Should the NCAA be the arbiter of which high school courses are appropriate for college preparation?

The National Association of State Boards of Education says absolutely not. NASBE Executive Director Brenda Welburn calls the NCAA "far behind the curve" in understanding research-based high school innovations.

Some high school courses are not as rigorous as others. That's why the NCAA should concentrate on what students know and can do. The NCAA should focus on whether students have the skills and knowledge needed for college, rather than trying to tell high schools how to teach those skills.

NASBE further criticizes the NCAA for increasing the legal liability of school districts, contending that public education is not represented in NCAA's governance structure. Yet the NCAA has turned high school principals and counselors into agents of the NCAA.

A Modest Response

Under mounting pressure from educators and elected officials, the NCAA in January modified its approach for certifying core courses by allowing high school principals to recommend which courses meet NCAA standards. But the NCAA reserves the right to overrule principals' decisions.

The NCAA's modest response followed meetings with national education groups, including AASA. The Minnesota Association of School Administrators has submitted to AASA for consideration a resolution that states it is not the NCAA's role to dictate course content to high schools.

The U.S. Department of Justice also has challenged the NCAA for automatically rejecting courses involving special education services. Some students who had attained acceptable college entrance test scores despite their disability were not allowed to participate as freshman because they had taken high school courses involving special education assistance. The NCAA argued in several court cases that it does not have to follow the Americans with Disabilities Act.

After months of negotiation, the Department of Justice and NCAA signed an agreement in which the NCAA agrees to consider courses with special education designation. However, three cases over the summer raised new questions about whether the NCAA truly has changed its review process.

Recently several state attorneys general established a committee to examine NCAA practices, prompted by complaints from educators in more than two dozen states.

A Better Option

Ironically, the NCAA already has a model that would sharply reduce problems it has created for schools and students. When it determines eligibility among current collegians, the NCAA accepts any university course as appropriate for athletes if a department says it leads toward a degree. Why not allow high schools to follow the same approach?

In dealing with families and high schools, the NCAA seems to be confused about the difference between being rigorous and rigid. The NCAA has frustrated high school educators around the country who are attempting to improve their academic programs and forced school districts to devote enormous time and energy supplying information to demanding, unresponsive NCAA officials. And as described earlier, the NCAA has frustrated many deserving student athletes.

No one questions the legitimacy of increasing standards, but high school course content should not be dictated by the NCAA. This is a good time for school administrators to help the NCAA understand that its intentions may be worthy, but its approach is wretched. As a New York Times editorial concluded, "The NCAA should be promoting educational innovation, not obstructing it."

Joe Nathan, a former public school teacher and administrator, directs the Center for School Change at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, 301 19th Ave. S., Minneapolis, Minn. 55455.