On 2010-05-20 09:52:29 -0400, Swingman said:

It is exactly as I said ... just remove the huge football/sports
program mindset, which directly benefits less than 10% of the student
body, and see how much "funding" you have to spend on educational
basics and the teaching of life skills.

Wouldn't that be nice -- ain't gonna happen. Local school system has
floated the idea of "pay for play"; you want your kid to go out for
sports, you cough up some bucks. That was met with a resounded "thud."
Kind of odd, because the same parents fork out some fairly substantial
dough for youth soccer leagues and such. But apparently, the feeling is
that you aren't getting full value for school taxes unless there is a
sports program.

So I stand by my equivocal answer: yes... and no. To some, there will
always be a lack of funding, specifically funding applied to what some
of us find more important than sports.

Now, there is a payback at the college level. Any school with a winning
team will find alumni contributions increase. And not just a little
bit. That's why a college coach for a state school may be the
highest-paid employee IN the state. Some of those salaries are truly
obscene.

As a last sidenote, year-round school will never happen at the high
school level because, my wife the teacher says, it would interfere with
sports schedules.