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Football / Opinion
Commentary: Austin not so weird when it comes to supporting high school football
Monday, August 30, 2010
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Just ask any Austinite, and we’ll tell you: Austin isn’t like the rest of Texas.
But don’t tell that to the hordes of football fans who poured into Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium from all directions for Saturday’s season-opening showdown between Westlake and Lake Travis. On one glorious night of high school football, not even too-cool Austin could avoid the fall fever that annually sweeps across the state.
The official estimate at DKR placed the crowd at 30,000, and that approximation didn’t include the hundreds of fans packed into the suites that ringed the lower level at the home of the Longhorns. The fans came en masse from the west, with the Lake Travis support outnumbering the Westlake faithful by a smidgeon. However, the game drew plenty of neutral supporters eager for just good football. Plenty of families crossed the bridges of I-35 after the game, walking back home after witnessing two of the best teams in the state.
It wasn’t the largest high-school football crowd in Austin history; Odessa beat San Antonio Jefferson for the state championship in 1946 before 38,000 fans at Memorial Stadium. However, it dwarfed the attendance mark for recent games at DKR-Memorial such as Westlake versus Midland Lee in the 2000 Class 5A Division I state championship game (an estimated 18,000) or Westlake’s state semifinal win over Katy Cinco Ranch last season (16,000).
Finally, Austin showed the passion for the game that somehow skips over the Capital City.
Need a visual aid to track the fervor of the state’s high school football fans? Find a county-by-county map of Texas from the 2008 presidential election. Correlate prep football fandom with support for John McCain, and compare apathy for most things athletic to a base for Obama.
See that blue splash in the middle of the state? That’s Austin, where entertainment options abound and high school football carries the cultural weight of a guitar pick.
But the times are changing around these parts, if not politically then athletically. The Greater Austin area has enjoyed a renaissance in recent years, spearheaded by Lake Travis’ rise to dominance. A team from the Austin area has won a state championship in each of the past five seasons, including Class 4A Lake Travis (2009, 2008, 2007), Class 3A Liberty Hill (2007, 2006) and Class 3A Wimberley (2005). Prior to this recent stretch, an Austin area school had won just one state championship (Westlake, 1996) in the prior 35 years.
The region looks poised to add to its current streak. Lake Travis reaffirmed itself as Class 4A’s team to beat with its rousing 32-21 win over Westlake Saturday. The Chaps, which won’t face a better team than Lake Travis this season, remain a threat to win a Class 5A title, and Round Rock Stony Point hopes to finally break through the championship ceiling after two consecutive Class 5A state semifinal losses.
And keep an eye on Class 3A Wimberley, which beat 3A’s No. 4 Cuero 49-42 in its season opener Friday.
Austin’s passion for prep football may never run as deep as it does in the oil fields of West Texas or the piney hamlets toward the east. The city may never pour 50,000 people into a stadium like the Metroplex did when Southlake Carroll beat Trinity in Texas Stadium in 2006.
But ask the more than 30,000 fans that attended Saturday’s game. In Austin, we love Barton Springs, our blues and our barbecue.
But we love our football, too.
Highest attendances for a high school football game in Texas
Attendance, game, location, year
49,953, Plano vs. Port Neches-Groves, Texas Stadium, 1977
46,339, Southlake Carroll vs. Euless Trinity, Texas Stadium, 2006
45,790, Highland Park vs. Waco, Cotton Bowl, 1945
*45,000, Houston Washington vs. Galveston, Rice Stadium, 1968
*45,000, Dallas Adams vs. Richardson, Cotton Bowl, 1967
39,102, Garland vs. Katy, Astrodome, 1999
39,102, Stephenville vs. Port Neches-Groves, Astrodome, 1999
38,570, Port Neches-Groves vs. Houston Kashmere, Astrodome, 1977
38,374, Plano vs. Highland Park, Texas Stadium, 1980
*38,000, Odessa vs. San Antonio Jefferson, Memorial Stadium, 1946
*36,000, Fort Bend Willowridge vs. Houston Yates, Rice Stadium, 1988
* estimated attendance
Mr. Jones-
1) Please leave the political analysis to others. It has no place or relevance to High School Football.
2) The Westlake side was packed to the top of the lower level from the south end around into the north end zone. The Lake Travis section was not full into either goal line. Both teams had tremendous support, but the Westlake side, even though it was much hotter, was clearly more crowded.
Congratulations to both schools, teams, coaches and fans for a great show.
LT had many more people there when viewed from the end zone, and they also could make some noise! Sorry if your feelings were hurt about politics.
LOL. The self-delusions continue. Wait til you see video of both sides…WL didn’t come close on crowd. Even a few of the Westlake people with us were saying they couldn’t believe so many more people were for LT. Sorry, guys, but you lost in that category, too. Chess, anyone?
The Lake Travis fans blew the Westlake fans out of the water with noise. That stuff makes a huge difference on 3rd or 4th and short and 15,000 people are screaming for the defense. The Westlake faithful have never been like that. Probably never will. Heck, they can’t even show up to a game ontime!
I wonder where Westlake really does blow others schools out of the water? Maybe the 47 National Merit Semifinalists in one senior class (2011)? Maybe that is more important than a bunch of noise. I think our fans are pretty good too, so why all the comparisons about noise and fans in the first place? It was a great game!
Eanes ISD has the easiest demographics possible — made even easier by the hundreds of out-of-district transfer students who are screened before admission for their ease-in-educating stats. Is that really a source of pride?
Lake Travis ISD was just rated exemplary … even with their much more challenging demographics.
They did not check my kids I.Q. before we registered. We came from the boonies, bought our funky little Rollingwood house instead of a big suburban McMansion, and drove on down to the nearest school. I didn’t know we were so special. I don’t think these new people moving into the district were screened either.
Should have screened us for our ability to make noise at football games, though. Does that improve with different demographics?
YES!!
Be careful when talking demographics. Race should not matter. Funding is equalized and has been for some time. Parental involvement, excellent teachers, community involvement with schools, and kids who are raised to focus on their education and schoolwork, all have something to do with test scores and successful students. WHS students should be congratulated, and respected, for this remarkable achievement. Similarly, that is what makes and will continue to make LT excellent, with its exemplary rating and high achieving students. It is a choice and it takes hard work. No excuses.
EISD can’t stop a resident from sending her kids to EISD public schools, Gosh! There is no screening of resident children–unless, of course, thechild has special needs.
However, EISD can and does screen out-of-district-transfer-students to as a tool toward accomplishing its single focused mission to be rated exemplary (supporting your property values and their job positions). The point “Easy Demographics” is making is that EISD has admits cheerfully that it has an exclusionary transfer process: it simply does not accept children with special needs, for example–going so far as to accept some kids in a family and not others-nor does it accept students who have a record of tardiness, absenteeism, poor grades, etc.
Easy Demographics is merely highlighting the obvious: when given the choice to accept the first 760 who come (an open, blind process which is the exact same as the process of admitting all children who live in district) vs the choice of screening and selecting the best 760 to meet the district’s goals of being exemplary, EISD opts for the latter. It is a logical strategy, although morally, it some would correctly point out that it is, at its root, discriminatory.
The other point, Gosh!, that has been made numerous times on the Picayune message boards and to the Trustees, is that at least some number of the 760 (+/-) places available to out-of-district-transfers are the “seats” of children with special needs who have been forced out of the district.
On the surface, this accusation is quite easy to support: over the past 3 years EISD has cut its population of Special Needs (both learning challenged and gifted) students by 3+ percentage points, opening potentially more than 200 seats of children who,when denied Special Ed services at EISD, have left the district for Special Ed in other public districts or private schools. The district has information that could either prove or disprove this accusation: it withholds that data and fights all the way to the Attorney General to keep that data secret, claiming it violates FERPA to release such information. The mere fact that Dr. Wellman protects this information so zealously is used by the theorists who believe this to be true to illustrate that it MUST be true.
So it has become a Catch-22: people like “Easy Demographics” can continue to assert it as fact that the district is forcing out some children only to give their seats to hand selected replacements, because the district will not release or publish information that could prove it false. The district on the other hand can assert it to be false, knowing that it controls, and will never release, the information that would prove it be true.
Only the children know for sure.
So the max of 10% of transfer students is the whole reason we have exemplary schools and 47 national merit semifinalists?? I guess the top scorers do not live in the district and our kids are the ones who need propping up. Well. I hate to break it to you but that is crap. The above argument was also a rude response to “gosh” who made a pretty good point. The transfers don’t make the school. How insulting to the rest of the students. The schools and students are exemplary for a number of reasons, with transfer students perhaps being just a very small part of the whole picture. Perhaps “you miss the point” is bitter about something and is failing to see the whole picture in reasonable perspective.
I happen to think that the acceptance of transfer students SHOULD be selective. The kids get to come to our schools without paying the taxes that support our schools. They could go to the schools in their districts, but choose not to. Why can’t we be selective? Sounds fair to me.
The children know for sure — as do their parents.
Nola Wellman definitely knows. Cindy Martin and Bill Bechtol too. The private attorneys, retained by Eanes ISD and funded by our tax dollars, they know. And, last but not least, the Eanes ISD trustees know. They hope the Eanes public doesn’t know. Or better yet, they hope the Eanes public doesn’t care.
Yes, we can be selective–but as a governmental entity we can’t illegally discriminate based on race, religion, color, ethnicity, etc. or disability (a 1974 amendment to our nation’s civil rights laws).
To Eanes Mom: We don’t have to accept any transfers at all. Kids who are habitually tardy or absent, or have low grades do not have a “disability”. I say its perfectly fine to keep those transfers out of our schools.
Regarding the 1974 amendment on discrimination: try telling that to our state colleges and universities in the application process. Deliberate and unabashed discrimination is alive and well. They even boast about how hard they work at it. So much for fairness in government entities and the constitution.
Discrimination is always someone else’s problem. Until it’s not. Posts numbers 15 and 16 illustrate why EISD’s “selective” approach w/r/t out-of-district-transfers is in fact a moral issue.
Post 15 sees no reason why a public school system can’t be selective in who it accepts. She’s wrong, of course, but her viewpoint is honestly held and honestly stated.
Post 16 has obviously been adversely affected by a selective process, and yet simultaneously argues that “It’s perfectly fine to keep those transfers out of our schools.” In other words, she’s saying “please continue to discriminate against others, but please don’t discriminate against me by using a selective process.” Again, an honestly held and honestly stated viewpoint, but somewhat funny because she clearly doesn’t see the irony of her position.
Discrimination is useful, too. That’s illustrated by post number 12. The poster might find it useful to attend an EISD basic math class to brush up. There he could re-learn why it is critical to EISD to “control” the population of what has become 10% of the student population. Because they can’t control 90% of the population–if you live here, you get to go to school here–EISD minimizes the chances that it will fall short of the metrics needed to be exemplary if it can take all measures to control the admittance of the 10%. Post 12 is correct when he says many things go into the soup with respect to “exemplary.” But he is wrong when he indicates that the 10% isn’t significant. You dramatically increase your chances of hitting the target metrics for the entire district when you control for the 10%.
By the way, Eanes Mom is correct. EISD–a public institution–is well over the line when it selectively admits children to a public school–even out-of-district-transfers. Even so, while the process of skimming is discriminatory, the likelihood of a discrimination lawsuit is very, very, low. Simply put, EISD can be selective because it is too costly for the “un selected” to sue, not because it is legal to be selective, and the benefit of controlling the 10% is so huge in terms of return to the district, that it is a simple business decision. EISD gains far more by doing all it can to insure the “exemplary” rating than would be lost in any individual lawsuit.
Thank you to post number #17 for stating the obvious in a manner that is easy for all to understand, and shame on the administrators in Eanes who engage in the discriminatory practice of selectively admitting out of district transfers to replace the in district students who have left as the result of our leadership’s failure to provide for them, a free and appropriate public education.
There is nothing exemplary, excellent or world-class about a public school district that weighs the worth of individual children based solely on whether or not they stand to make the district “look good.” These are not numbers. They are not feathers in a cap. They are our young. This makes me sick.
To “You miss the point”: Irony of my position? Habitual tardiness, poor grades, and absenteeism are not disabilities as is stated above. I do not agree with discrimination, and believe the amendment to our constitution should be followed. Unfortunately it isn’t in the college application process. There is discrimination based on race, ethnicity, etc. That is wrong.
Did I make myself clearer? Maybe you missed the point.
Yes, you made your point. Discrimination is fine as long as it is not applied to you.
No one has said that tardiness, poor grades, and absenteeism are disabilities. My point is that they are used to select, as are true disabilities such as autism, dyslexia, Down syndrome, ADD, etc. EISD is selecting only kids that support its goal for exemplary. That is the moral issue I’m pointing out. The discrimination on the basis of disability is clearly illegal. The selection based on student attributes is morally questionable.
The irony of your position, which you clearly don’t see, is that you’re supporting the selection tactics that screen out “undesirable” students by EISD, but offended by the selection tactics that some mythical college is using to manage the make-up of its student body. To me, you should either be objecting to both, or supporting both. If you don’t want selectivity used to screen at colleges, you are being inconsistent to say EISD should apply it to transfer students.
That’s why the moral issues are the hardest ones: they cut both ways.
I remember school board member Kallison remarking when interviewed by our trustees to fill Gail King’s seat, that he is ‘data driven’. With that in mind, I’d like Mr. Kallison and Eanes ISD to share the data that reflects the total number of special needs students who applied to transfer to EISD, and the total number of special needs applicants accepted by EISD. An educated guess would be that number would be zero. Contrast that to data stating the number of special needs students who have withdrawn from EISD to include the reasons for leaving. A simple public review of that ‘data’ would likely reveal a trend that illustates forcing in district special needs students out, replacing with transfers who are not identified as special needs. Is that not the definition of discrimination?
One of the best school districts in nation and all I ever hear are gripes. You never know what you have until it’s gone Westlake.
“Mythical” college…. huh? Perhaps you mean colleges that you are unaware of, but certainly not mythical.
I don’t like discrimination at all. I don’t know what you mean about “moral” attributes; I think these are BEHAVIORAL attributes. I say selectivity based on behavioral attributes is perfectly reasonable. Why should Eanes accept lazy, late, absent, and non-hardworking students from out of district? It shouldn’t. That is not discrimination as defined by the constitution.
As far as true disabilities, it shouldn’t discriminate. There is no irony at all.
A disability is not something someone chooses. It is not being a poor student, or being absent, or being consistently late to school. Those are not disabilities.
A disability is something that a person cannot control.
The school district can be selective with transfer students regarding their choices, however it cannot discriminate based on race, ethnicity, or legitimate disabilities, etc.
I think “discrimination?’s” point is a good one, and not inconsistent.
I think I see where we are not communicating. We seem to agree that discrimination is a bad thing. We seem to agree that tardiness, etc. are not disabilities.
The underpinning of EISD’s process of admitting OODTs (out-of-district transfers) is that they selectively admit students. In this way they behave like a private institution. Private institutions often manage their student population to create the atmosphere and learning environment they wish to achieve–that’s why I sent my kids to private colleges, because I prefer schools that work hard to select the right mix of students. Once a private institution sets their criteria, of course, they can’t “discriminate” and are usually seen as over the line when they fail to admit students who meet the published academic criteria but may be disabled, or of another race etc. ( I think this may be the common ground we can reach with respect to “mythical” colleges.)
So I think we can agree that private schools get to set criteria, and so long as they fairly apply that criteria, that’s okay.
But EISD is a public school. It is funded in part by State and Federal tax dollars. It cannot apply selective criteria to children in its district, right? (I bet we all agree on that.) It is applying selective criteria to OODTs. The question we’re discussing is whether or not that is a good thing, a legal thing, and a moral thing.
It is alleged by OTHER posters to these Picayune message boards that EISD never, ever selects a child with a known disability as a OODT. It is alleged by OTHERS on these boards that the screening criteria selects only top performing children. It is alleged by OTHERS that EISD’s is forcing Special Ed students to leave EISD, and then filling those seats with highly selected students without disabilities.
What I’m trying to contribute to the “debate” here is simply this: is it ever acceptable for a public school to screen? Take AISD, for example. When AISD opens the doors for transfers, people line up the night before because they only take the first X transfers. The practice is well publicized: it has become an annual feature story on the local news programs. But AISD also “selects” students, and apply a mixture of academic criteria to applicants for their Magnet programs. The magnet programs are not only based upon first come, first serve (although that is a component of the selection process).
EISD is (a) a public school and (b) not admitting for an academic program. It is admitting only into the general population to fill seats and attract the federal dollars that come with these students to help fund its operations. It is therefore debatable as to whether or not EISD should be screening at all. I would argue that it is more in keeping with it’s public mission to admit the first 760 candidates who apply. But that is just my opinion.
However, if it is true that EISD is not admitting any disabled candidates, it would appear that the selection process is screening those students out. After all, in any given population disabled students make up approximately 9-11% of the student universe. If absolutely no disabled child is among the 760 EISD “selects” what is the chance of that occurring naturally? Pretty close to zero.
The other point being discussed here is that EISD benefits from selectively admitting students.
I think Post #12 and #13 believe that it is totally OK for a public school to admit only the best and brightest non-disabled OODTs. I think Post #16 says that it’s okay to screen for tardiness and behavior, but not based on ability.
And my opinion is that EISD should admit the first 760 who apply, which is exactly the same position they are in with respect to the resident population.
So, what are other opinions about the application of any selective process by a public school system?
“Come on” is right on. Don’t you people have something better to do? EISD does not have to take every Tom, Dick or Harry that wants to transfer into the school district.
I see that adult conversation has confused you. Perhaps you’d more enjoy this conversation. It’s about football. No moral issues there to hurt your head.
http://westlakepicayune.com/2010/08/26/commentary-cavs-still-new-kids-on-the-block/
To comment #26 – Austin ISD does not admit out-of-district transfers. That district educates only those children who reside in the AISD boundaries. Austin ISD also is responsible (under federal law) to “find” and evaluate children with disabilities who attend private school in the AISD boundaries even though those students may reside in Eanes ISD. When students with disabilities are forced out of Eanes ISD by “leaders” such as Nola Wellman and Cindy Martin (and they are) those students naturally look to the Austin area for private school options. Meanwhile Eanes ISD is screening and transferring in Austin ISD students who are easy-as-pie to educate. So the ratings are quite skewed by this approach. Right Nola?
#39: You just contradicted yourself: You said Austin ISD does not admit out of district transfers, then you say that AISD finds kids with disabilities who are attending private schools. What do they do with those kids when they find them? Do ratings take into consideration disabilities? Do those kids go to a place for special schooling because that is what they need? I bet the answer is yes for the last two questions.
Also, “Sorry Agre” is arrogant and presumptuous in the lecture about “morals”. This has nothing to do with morals. My morals are just fine, thank you.
By the way, I don’t think all kids are “easy as pie” to educate. It takes work from the teachers and from the students. There are many students in the middle that you are ignoring in this discussion. The middle ones need good teachers, good schools, and also need to work hard. Nothing is “easy as pie” for the MAJORITY of students. The ratings can’t be “quite skewed” when you are talking about such a small number, either. My kids do well and they are not special or gifted, they just work like crazy. I am insulted by the implication that the numbers from the school are because of transfer students. That is CRAP.
Hello Picayune? Did you not notice that the article on football turned into this crap?
Two of my children with significant disabilities attended a private school in Austin and no one from AISD ever contacted me. We felt that the private school provided a better alternative. We didn’t expect the public school to be all things to all people. Public schools aren’t necessarily the best route for disabled kids nor kids who are extremely intelligent. Each family needs to make that assessment. Of course, in this day and age everyone thinks the government or in this case public schools should take care of everything.
And just to be clear, “Sorry, Agre”, I have never attended a WHS football game. Sorry to burst your bubble.
Austin ISD has to pay to evaluate and provide related services to students enrolled in private schools within their jurisdiction. That doesn’t mean just schools like Rawson-Saunders for children with dyslexia, it would include children in schools like St. Andrew’s–if they have a disability under the special education law. It would be extremely unusual that any child enrolled in an academically challenging and competitive school like St. Andrew’s would want services from AISD at their school. The ones I know who need services like speech therapy get private services, and AISD may well not do what it’s supposed to do to advertise its services there.
However, the effect on ratings in AISD schools is to “cherry pick” students enrolled in their schools and admit them to ours tuition free. That potentially affects their attendance (important for funding) and academic ratings, although it should be statistically insignificant given that we’re talking potentially 760 students in an AISD student population of 80,000+.
I think the real bone of contention is from the Eanes parents, especially several with students with special needs, who feel like they’ve been forced into private schools because Eanes refused to provide appropriate services. When they then see us taking transfer students as their paying double digit thousands to educate their own children (whom Eanes has a legal obligation to serve) in addition to paying their school taxes, they are very frustrated.
This bond election won’t by itself address that issue. Hopefully if all three bonds are defeated, our leaders will begin to understand that even with excellent academic ratings, our schools may be in need of improvements that are based in instruction, not construction. Communication and collaboration with parents, which helped build Eanes and its excellent reputation, are traditions to which we sorely need to rededicate ourselves.
Common sense? I think not. Agre, who appears to also post as “Common Sense” should re-read post #29 (there is no post #39 at this time). Post 29 says that AISD works to find kids with disabilities who are in private schools but said NOTHING about whether or not AISD would admit an OODT who has special needs indentifed through that process. Because the posting was started with “AISD does not admit OODTs” it is pretty safe to assume the poster believes AISD would not admit a child so identified.
I have no idea whether post 29 is right or wrong about AISD’s policies, but I can read a paragraph. There is no contradiction there.
As “Common Sense’s” math proclivities, the reason why controlling for the 10% is critical has been asked and answered above. Any statisition would tell you that absolute control over 10% of a population is a huge, huge benefit in insuring the overall compliance of the entire population. It’s not “CRAP”, Common Sense: it’s math. My EISD grad showed me how controlling for the 10% would create a significant advantage to EISD. While Common sense is right that 10% cannot insure the rating, it does make reaching the goal easier. In simple terms, if you can bank on 10% passing at 90 or higher on a test, you only have to pass 88% of the remaining 90% at 90 or higher to insure the rating of exemplary. It’s a lot easier to get 85% of the population to pass with the “E” rating than 95%. I personally don’t agree that it is a reason for EISD’s OODT policy, but the previous posters who have called it out as a factor in getting the E label are correct.
By the way, Ed Allen, you have, in the past, refused to publish my comments when I used the word Crap, but you seem to have no problem publishing Agre….Double standard, perhaps? Or is this a change in Picayune policy?
I’m not Agre. This is ridiculous. It started with someone trying to acknowledge our 47 National Merit Semifinalists this year. I am embarrassed that we can’t acknowledge our kids for their personal hard work and amazing achievements without this unnecessary criticism. They see the insults, too.
Things are far from perfect, but they are pretty darn good. Eanes can work towards making things better. In the meantime, please don’t insult the students intelligence and capabilities, the parents who have different views, the intelligence of other parents, and the morals of others who are posting. We all have the right to say nice things about our kids. When someone criticizes positive comments about our kids, I say C**P. Is that better?
#30 – Common Sense – There is no contradiction in #29’s post. You are simply uninformed and therefore you don’t understand. Austin ISD does not accept out-of-district transfers. Check the district’s policy if you want to confirm.
Federal law, the IDEA, requires the school districts to identify children with disabilities and evaluate their needs if they attend private schools in the boundaries of the district … yes even those children who do not live in the district. This isn’t an out-of-district transfer and the children don’t attend Austin ISD when they attend private schools in the Austin ISD boundaries. Hope that clears up a bit of your confusion.
This fact remains: the transfer students (hundreds) are indeed screened for their ease-in-education factor and their scores definitely enhance the district’s rating.
Thanks for chiming in, “Common Sense”. Just because “No Contradiction at All” posts under a variety of monikers, doesn’t mean we all do. And just because we all don’t agree with “No Contradiction…”, he/she thinks we are posting under multiple names.
Not confused, nor am I uninformed. Good for ASID for not accepting transfers. Another question: do the transfers into Eanes replace all the in district kids who choose to go to other schools because they want a private education? I guess only perfect scoring transfers replace the less than desirable kids who choose private over Eanes too. Those dumb private school kids!! Let St. Andrews and St. Stephens and St. Michaels and private boarding schools have them all!!! Just kidding.
Again, I am proud of the achievements of our kids. I assert that out of district kids do not just replace kids who are lower scoring, but kids who are high scoring as well and who choose to go elsewhere. I know because I have done both.