What Do You Need to Qualify for Athletic Scholarships?

Qualifying for college athletics is an extremely serious issue in the DC area. We are a hotbed of basketball, football, and boutique (lacrosse, tennis, golf) NCAA athletic talent. Yet in some sports, the most talented athletes do not fully address qualifying until the beginning of their senior year. This is particularly tragic given the true nature of college admissions. You have to have both a GPA and a test score to be eligible to play sports. The GPA creates all kinds of confusion. Athletes can play in high school with a 2.0 across all of their subjects, no matter whether they are college prep or college core classes. Unfortunately, these students who qualify to play high school sports for four years may not qualify to play Division I or Division II college sports for even one year. After the jump I'll describe and interpret eligiblity requirements in greater detail as I refer to the NCAA Clearinghouse Chart.

Where'd all the posts go?

The tone of this blog is changing from mildly militant to informative and conciliatory. This reflects two changes in my values. First, I feel that I will build better relationships across a wider spectrum if I dial down the militancy of this blog. I still feel passionate about issues; I'd just like to be a bit friendlier along the way. Second, I am actively seeking clients and contracts now, and I do not want this "woodshed" to give people false impressions about my agenda. On previous posts, I've been venting in a cathartic manner. It's been overall healthy, but I feel that the season for that has passed. If you miss the former posts, they're still around. Ask me and I might email one to you.

Going forward, I'll be describing more of my adventures in friendly fashion and seeking to be a bit more parent driven. Many of the posts will be directly driven by issues that have been raised in conversations with families, teachers, and school administrators. As always, I hope that you'll comment, and I hope that you'll stick around.

A Challenge to Michelle Rhee; In praise of Kaya Henderson

I saw a video on Anderson Cooper on Michelle Rhee and an article praising the consensus that Kaya Henderson has managed to organize around her candidacy to move from Acting Chancellor to permanent Chancellor. I recently had the opportunity to ask a question of the Acting Chancellor at the Ward 6 State of the Schools Meeting. Essentially, my question was "How would she navigate the politics that killed her predecessor?" My sense of her answer and some thoughts on these two articles after the jump: