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Taking on the NCAA: We Can Change the World By Joe Nathan After four years of debate, the National Collegiate Athletic Association agreed in January 2000 to accept what high school principals said about their courses, rather than to continue judging courses through the clearinghouse. Mr. Nathan presents several lessons we can learn from this experience. Illustration by Joel Pett |
For many years, college sports has been a quagmire. Accompanying news stories about dramatic victories in football or basketball have been stories about college athletes who have "modest" academic skills. At one point, newspapers focused on a star college athlete who, when asked what he would do with a large professional contract, said he intended to hire someone to help him learn to read.
Members of Congress warned university presidents that they needed to clean up their sports programs or Congress would intervene. College sports is a huge business. The 1997 budget of the NCAA included more than $247 million in revenue, much of that money coming from television contracts.1 Neither universities nor the NCAA wanted Congress stepping in.
So the NCAA adopted new regulations, requiring that prospective college athletes attain certain grade-point averages and scores on standardized tests. The organization decided that it would determine which high school courses met its new standards. The NCAA awarded a multimillion-dollar contract to the American College Testing (ACT) Program to establish a clearinghouse to deal with high school students and to review courses in English, social studies, math, and science at every American high school.
The NCAA/ACT collaboration did not do a stellar job. It told some National Merit Scholars and class valedictorians that they were not eligible for participation in college sports because they hadn't taken enough high school courses deemed acceptable by the NCAA.2 Superintendents and principals across the nation found that the ACT staff treated them with disdain and disrespect. One superintendent wrote:
As disagreements surfaced and became more severe and as clearinghouse representatives became more arrogant in their dealings with school leaders, we began to question their practices. . . . The NCAA cost us money, frustrated deserving students, and confused the community.3
Dozens of articles have described the problems created by the NCAA and its ACT-operated clearinghouse. And many educators asked, "Who are the NCAA and the ACT to judge our courses?" Indeed, that became a central question for those challenging the NCAA.
After four years of debate, the NCAA agreed in January 2000 to accept what high school principals said about their courses, rather than to continue judging courses through the clearinghouse. Here are several lessons we can learn from this experience.
1. Journalists can be marvelous allies for school reformers. Based on documented problems throughout the nation, the New York Times and USA Today featured editorials challenging the NCAA. The Times editorial concluded, "The NCAA should be promoting educational innovation, not obstructing it."4 USA Today insisted, "Until the NCAA gets out of the business of deciding course content, all high school students will continue to lose out."5 Other newspapers from New York to California carried stories about local students with stellar academic records who were encountering problems with the NCAA. These articles bothered the NCAA in a way that almost nothing else did. NCAA officials are sensitive about bad publicity, and journalists are eager to write stories about deserving young people being mistreated by a giant bureaucracy.
Members of an informal national alliance that developed to combat the NCAA rules found that journalists were quite open to discussing the issue. One newspaper editor decided to run a story on the problem of the NCAA's rulings in part because she had read -- and laughed at -- an NCAA memo to a superintendent rejecting an advanced, interdisciplinary English/social studies course. The three-sentence memo contained several mistakes. The newspaper concluded its article by printing the memo as written:
Thank you for you [sic] fax regarding Essential Communications. Do [sic] to the vocational aspect of this course, we are unable to approve this course as a core course. Therefore, the decision remains unchange [sic] for student named above.6
2. A sense of humor is extremely useful in challenging large, powerful organizations. The memo quoted above was not the only example of spelling or grammatical errors in NCAA memos. One memo to a school that showed up in news stories and in a legislative hearing contained a mistake in subject/verb agreement: "The self-paced, performance based approach are [sic] not acceptable methods for the purposes of NCAA Initial Eligibility."7 Some readers may think this is getting a bit picky, and, to some extent, that's true. But remember, these organizations -- the NCAA and ACT -- set themselves up to judge every American high school's courses in English, social studies, math, and science. When faced with absurdity, a sense of humor helps.
3. Alliances can produce constant and sometimes unanticipated benefits. What began as a handful of frustrated educators and families evolved into a loose alliance of hundreds of folks and a number of organizations. Just as the 1997 NCAA convention began, USA Today printed a prominent article questioning the NCAA's procedures, in part because the alliance had issued a statement signed by people ranging from liberals such as Jonathan Kozol, Ted Sizer, and Deborah Meier to conservatives such as Jeanne Allen.
The National Association of State Boards of Education was one of the few national organizations to join the alliance. But NASBE helped give the alliance credibility and tried constantly to interest other national groups in this problem. The National School Boards Association passed a resolution challenging the NCAA. In addition, Phi Delta Kappa, the American Association of School Administrators, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, and the American Association of School Administrators ran articles in their national magazines publicizing the problem.
The Center for School Change at the University of Minnesota became involved when the NCAA rejected several research-based interdisciplinary courses developed by teachers with whom we had worked, as well as the overall project-based approach of a fine high school that had created a competency-based graduation system.
Battling the NCAA was one of the first national issues that brought together educators from charter schools and district-run public schools. Innovative educators -- whether they were in urban, rural, or suburban schools -- encountered similar frustrations with the NCAA. This became clear when veteran reformer Herbert Kohl, then at the Soros Foundation's Open Society Institute, and Gara LaMarche, the director of the institute's U.S. programs, held a daylong conference for which they arranged to fly in parents, teachers, students, and attorneys who were challenging the NCAA. The meeting developed several strategies that helped produce major changes in NCAA procedure.
4. Quantifying problems can be extremely useful. Esther Walling, a counselor from an inner-city Los Angeles high school, made an important suggestion at the Open Society Institute conference: "Let's document how much time counselors must spend responding to NCAA demands." She surveyed other Los Angeles counselors and found that NCAA paperwork was consuming hundreds of hours.
Meanwhile, Marsha Gronseth, the administrator of the Minnesota State Board of Education, surveyed all high school counselors in Minnesota. The counselors reported that they spent more than 16,000 hours trying to meet NCAA demands during just one school year -- 16,000 hours that they could have devoted to helping students with more pressing issues. These figures had an impact on journalists and political leaders. After reading these numbers, Dean Johnson and Larry Pogemiller, both Minnesota state senators, decided to hold a legislative hearing.
The Washington Post described the hearing in a front-page story. And the hearing was priceless. For more than an hour, legislators questioned key NCAA officials. At one point Pogemiller asked an NCAA official to justify the NCAA's standard specifying that a high school social studies course was unacceptable if it devoted more than 25% of its time to current issues. The NCAA official explained that it had been produced by a committee of university officials. "Absurd," replied Pogemiller. Another state senator pointed out that a high school social studies class devoted exclusively to current issues had been one of the most valuable classes he had ever taken.
5. Not everything you try will work. Despite eloquent letters from several Vermont school counselors and parents, that state's U.S. senator who chairs the Senate Education Committee took no apparent interest in the issue. His staff rejected repeated requests for a hearing or for some public statement of concern.
Some members of the alliance have worked on legal challenges to the NCAA. This approach is extremely slow, and so far, with one exception, it has not succeeded. That exception has to do with the NCAA's contention that it does not have to follow such federal laws as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Imagine a school district making such an argument! Parents asked the U.S. Department of Justice to challenge the NCAA's position. Although the NCAA insists it did nothing wrong and does not have to follow the law, an agreement was ultimately reached with the Department of Justice that the NCAA will voluntarily make special accommodations for students with disabilities if outside observers believe they can succeed in college.
Members of the alliance hoped that letters from teachers and administrators around the nation would convince other major national education groups to challenge the NCAA. But most organizations ignored the problem. Some Washington-based staff members of these organizations even let the NCAA use their organizational logos, while practicing principals, teachers, and counselors were pleading with their organizations to challenge, rather than partner with, the NCAA.
6. Persistence pays. Challenging the NCAA took more than four years. Parents like Susan and Warren Ganden remained involved even after their two-year battle with the NCAA produced accommodations for their son. Moreover, Walter Roberts, public affairs chair for the Minnesota School Counselors Association; David Griffith of the National Association of State Boards of Education; Mike Bonacci, principal of a suburban Pennsylvania high school; and others too numerous to mention remained active and continued writing to legislators and journalists.
7. Struggles can produce progress, but work almost always remains to be done. High schools no longer must argue with the ACT and the NCAA about which courses are appropriate preparation for college. Consequently, counselors can now devote more time to their students. Schools no longer have to deal with newspaper stories suggesting that there may be something wrong with their courses since the NCAA rejects them. And this certainly represents progress.
But what about those students who were rejected for questionable reasons? What about the thousands of hours that high school counselors devoted to NCAA procedures over the years? What compensation has the NCAA offered? Except for a very small number of students involved in the initial discussion with the U.S. Department of Justice, the NCAA has offered nothing.
The informal alliance intends to continue monitoring NCAA activities. We welcome the reactions, suggestions, and concerns of Kappan readers. And we hope that this four-year struggle helps demonstrate, once again, the truth of Margaret Mead's admirable advice: "Never doubt that a small group of people can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
2. See, for example, Fred Girard, "Tougher NCAA Standards Under Scrutiny," Detroit News, 15 December 1996, p. E-1; and Richard Whitmire, "NCAA Rules for College-Bound Athletes Mess Up High School Education Reforms," Gannett News Service, 28 April 1997.
3. Lloyd Styroll, "My Friends at the NCAA," School Administrator, May 2000, p. 50.
4. "The NCAA's Eligibility Standards," New York Times, 23 December 1997, p. A-12.
5. "NCAA Steps Out of Bounds," USA Today, 27 October 1998, p. 14-A.
6. Peter Applebome, "NCAA Effort to Raise Academic Standards Leaves Many Top Students on Sidelines," New York Times, 23 October 1996, p. B-12. I have a copy of the memo and would be glad to share it with any interested reader. Please send a self-addressed stamped envelope to me at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute, University of Minnesota, 301 19th Ave. S., Minneapolis, MN 55455.
7. Calvin R. Symons to Dee Grover Thomas, co-director, Minnesota New Country School, 27 February 1997.
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