Posted by SJSdude on 5/13/2008, 7:31 am
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This article speaks to the points that Spartygus made last week, regarding the unfairness of the NCAA's current APR policy:
NCAA fails in academic crackdown
By Timothy Scott
Vallejo Times-Herald
When the NCAA gets into enforcement mode, beware.
Longtime-yet-perenially-troubled hoops coach Jerry Tarkanian, who knows a thing or two about the topic, once wisecracked that the NCAA was so mad at Kentucky it gave Cleveland State two more years' probation.
Folks, meet the NCAA's newest scheme: Academic Progress Rate (APR).
Basically, it's a value system where the NCAA can track individual schools' graduation rates, team by team. The target number is 925, or a roughly 60 percent graduation rate. When teams consistently fall below this standard, scholarships will be lost and postseason eligibility could be compromised.
Now, there may be altruistic intentions in all of this. And, it could be argued, anything that forces schools to focus on sports teams' academics can't be so bad. Can it?
The first cracks in the dam come simply by perusing the list of schools punished this year when the NCAA released its set of APR results on Tuesday.
Looking for the Michigan footballs? The Duke basketballs? Keep looking.
Yes, some successful programs like Tennessee swimming and recently-resurgent Kansas football were fingered. Tarkanian, you can stop laughing now.
It's pretty simple. When coaches from powerhouse programs go looking for student-athletes, they're actually looking for student-athletes. The kids with the good GPAs from solid backgrounds that average 28 points per game get snapped up fairly quickly. The powerhouse schools also have the capability - money, tutors, huge academic centers - to move all types of kids toward a degree.
But what about those schools that aren't in the business of educating American's elite? If you'd like to see a cross-section of those universities, check out the APR punishment list.
To suggest the NCAA would set up a system that rewards only rich and successful schools isn't entirely ridiculous (the BCS isn't sanctioned as an NCAA championship, but most people don't know that, suggesting the NCAA doesn't exactly oppose it).
And again, the NCAA is stressing academic achievement, or at least graduating players. That's not so bad, right?
Well, why wouldn't an organization that sponsors collegiate athletics come up with a better statistic to measure the players' academic progress?
Much like batting average, graduation rate is a flawed measure. Put into terms of a degree mill, and you begin to get the picture. Alternatively, on some campuses, for a variety of reasons, graduation rates vary drastically between majors.
The only variable APR takes into account is for player transfers (after coaches and ADs complained). Which is to say, the NCAA believes that the best way to measure academic achievement is the percentage of players that graduated. But what classes were they taking? Was it a student who progressed or regressed?
Consider the degree of difficulty for those universities to graduate the so-called at-risk kid - which is probably much more worthwhile to the greater good (because many wouldn't have graduated) - and you have important work being done at these institutions. By the way, state schools are all over the APR punishment list.
Alternatively, the U.S. News and World Report's list of the top graduation rates in 2008 includes just five public schools out of 112 (and three of those are military academies). USNWR lists Duke, for instance, as No. 3 at 90 percent.
In that atmosphere the Blue Devils athletic department, meanwhile, merely has to hit 60 percent achievement.
Really, what the NCAA has instituted is something akin to standardized testing. Expect schools to begin losing sight of the larger picture - of course, many already had long ago - in favor of meeting APR criteria.
If that means schools will stop bringing along the at-riskers, it's a shame. But what incentive is in place for schools to do so?
What the NCAA needs to do is bring more data into the equation, then come up with a number for each individual school, or team, to hit. To measure Stanford and San Jose State with the same criteria just isn't fair - you have Division I through Division III athletics, don't you? - because these schools' way of doing business is completely different.
Decide for yourselves, readers, how nefarious a scheme APR is (just what is your level of cynicism?) The range of this NCAA motion goes from best-intentions-with-predictable-results to backroom-powerplay-money-grab.
Really, this is an education issue, and this is where the accountability aspect enters. The top people in the NCAA understand education (or should).
And while APR is in its early stages, don't accept the notion that the NCAA doesn't see the ramifications of its measure right now. Just look at the schools punished.
The NCAA has again decided to streamline its product - you can't have intercollegiate athletics without the college - and has again left the little guys behind.
Look out Cleveland State.
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