Do We Really Need To Pass A Tim Tebow Law

Virginia is considering passing legislation based on Florida’s Tim Tebow Law. What is the Tim Tebow Law?

Basically it is answering the following question with a YES.

 

• Should home school students be allowed to join public high school sport teams?

 

Back in 1996, Florida passed such a law allowing home school student athletes to join public teams.  One such athlete to take advantage of this law that year was Tim Tebow. And the rest is history.

Obviously Tim’s success is a strong argument for the law.  Another argument is that home school families pay taxes just like everyone else, and therefore should be granted the same opportunity to such activities.

Not everyone is in favor of the law.

Ken Tilley, executive director of the Virginia High School League states: The fact that a family pays taxes that support public education does not automatically mean they are entitled to try out for a place on a high school sports team. Plus, “There are 13 individual eligibility requirements for participation for our programs, and under Delegate [Rob] Bell’s bill, the homeschoolers would meet only six and part of a seventh.”

The Virginia Association of School Superintendents is opposed, as is the Virginia Education Association, which represents more than 60,000 public school teachers. Another foe is the chairman of the House Education Committee, a Republican from Virginia Beach named Robert Tata, who was a successful high school coach and a University of Virginia athlete who played briefly for the NFL’s Detroit Lions, the Associated Press reported.

Tata opposes allowing homeschooled students to play on local sports teams in part because he worries that coaches will game the system by recruiting top players. Other opponents say that allowing homeschoolers to play for local teams would devastate eligibility and participation requirements and would be unfair to full-time students and teachers.

My initial take on this is no.  But I am old school. Every experience I have had with high school sports, both public and private has involved full time students attending the school.  If one wanted to play for the other, regardless of taxes, you transferred.

And just to throw another wrinkle into this whole mess, what about online education?  With technology being what it is today, one could conceivably take online classes from home for a fee of course, still pay taxes and then demand entitlement to try out for the local high school football team.

So, What do you think?