Do you think very well funded schools should compete in a different division?

[Raven]

My team has been successful on all levels of competition: all of our funding comes from fundraisers that the students and coaches organize and execute (bake sales, crowd-funding, etc.)

Although we are a well-funded public school (affluent neighborhood), the only thing our school provides us is perhaps a few bus rides, and certainly not the flight to Nationals. I think maybe the most beneficial thing our school has provided us in terms of resources are the science rooms. We have wonderful chemistry facilities and a small room (more of a closet) where we can store our things. Printers are also a huge bonus, but the color printer is only accessible by the teachers and breaks on even mild jobs. However, the black and white printer is absolutely phenomenal and can scan, copy, print large jobs, etc.

[cool hand luke]

From my observations on Olympiad and other academic competitions in Texas:

Success takes a huge number of things. Mainly insane dedication by the coaches and kids. After that things that matter are
1. school size - At least in Texas there are not many large private schools. especially in sci oly where you need a relatively large (compared to other academic competitions) team, having more potential kids to put on your a team is huge.
2. competition funding - This is different than school funding. For example the school I coach is in a middle to upper middle class section of town. Because of this we are not economically disadvantaged and we get no title 1 funding. That means that the parents are shouldering all the costs, with probably a quarter being covered by fundraisers that the kids do. This is very different than the only other school in our city that competes. They have multiple grants to fund them.

The difference is they get an easy amount of money, say $5000 ( I don't know what it really is) but that is there absolute cap.

Our team depends on the parents. I added it up last year and I put in half that, and other parents did the same. It's not spread equally across all the families, some are able and willing to do more. So while the other school gets an easy head start, we can outspend them if the parents are willing.

This has actually led us to make decisions on who does what events. Wright stuff for one is reserved for someone who's parents are willing to buy 10-20 freedom flight kits at $80 or so apiece.

[Fanglin]

My old school (Hamilton MS in WI) has had a sponsor two years out of the 9 or so years in existence. Everything else is student funded. Every single year, this team has won states, and proceeded to nationals.

Now, I'm not saying this school is cheap. We certainly spend on resources (more individually) which helps us do well, but we never had an unlimited amount of money, which was reflected through the occasional school bus to state instances.

[EastStroudsburg13]

Now, I'm not saying this school is cheap. We certainly spend on resources (more individually) which helps us do well, but we never had an unlimited amount of money, which was reflected through the occasional school bus to state instances.

School buses themselves are not cheap, you know. One of the main financial burdens for some teams is being able to pay for buses on weekends, regardless of if they're through the school or not.

[Fanglin]

Now, I'm not saying this school is cheap. We certainly spend on resources (more individually) which helps us do well, but we never had an unlimited amount of money, which was reflected through the occasional school bus to state instances.

School buses themselves are not cheap, you know. One of the main financial burdens for some teams is being able to pay for buses on weekends, regardless of if they're through the school or not.

My point is, is that it's inconsistent. I certainly recognize my old school as very fortunate to have funding and resources that other teams may not have (we pay like 100$ at the beginning of the year), but my point about the busses is the inconsistency. Sometimes we may take a coach bus to an Invitational or regional, but then a school bus to state.

I'm sure funding has a huge effect on the strength of a team, but trying to even out the ground wouldn't work as well. The whole point is to have decent completion, not to make everyone winners in their own categories.

[daydreamer0023]

Just to throw this out there, but my school give us very little funding and we only were able to get to our first out of state invite by fighting for it. Nevertheless, our school has been going to Nats for the past couple of years (though that is never a guarantee for a given year).

[Skink]

Looking at nationals, historically most of the top 10 teams have been public schools. So perhaps certain states may consider splitting up state bids by public vs. private if they so choose, but it is not necessarily an issue nationally.

I agree it is more problematic in some states vs others but being in ISO Stevenson and New Trier are VERY well funded public schools and I have seen this problem for many low funded schools as they face VERY well funded public/private schools.

This is kind of a central question in education, not SO exclusively. Is it fair that New Trier has all of that, and we don't?
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Most of us have agreed that it's not fair but that it's equitable (and that equitable is, in turn, fair enough). More resources coupled with a large, "quality" student population can go a long way. Note I said "can". Plenty of well-funded, quality North Shore schools are absolutely terrible at this. Lake Forest is okay on a good day. Highland Park is laughably bad. There are more terms in the success equation than dollar signs. As something else to consider, there are some quality north side Chicago schools that should perform better at this but don't following similar reasoning.

[cool hand luke]

Money is needed, but not nearly as badly as other resources (large, high intelligent population, very dedicated coaches, parents, kids, etc) that I don't see it as a reason to split.

I would be interested in talking about splitting on school size. I know that many of the small towns around where I live don't try because they rightfully deduce that there 75-100 person middle school (that's all 3 grades, so around 30 per class) will never compete with some of the big city middle schools with 2000 kids.

[EastStroudsburg13]

Money is needed, but not nearly as badly as other resources (large, high intelligent population, very dedicated coaches, parents, kids, etc) that I don't see it as a reason to split.

I would be interested in talking about splitting on school size. I know that many of the small towns around where I live don't try because they rightfully deduce that there 75-100 person middle school (that's all 3 grades, so around 30 per class) will never compete with some of the big city middle schools with 2000 kids.

I know New York gives a small school award at states for schools below a certain population, so perhaps that's something other states can do.

I think where this debate starts is the fact that money sometimes correlates with those other resources you mentioned, so sometimes money gets pointed to as the cause. A whole correlation/causation issue.

[cool hand luke]

I think where this debate starts is the fact that money sometimes correlates with those other resources you mentioned, so sometimes money gets pointed to as the cause. A whole correlation/causation issue.

that's a great point.
It's not like you can buy a win. If you are a middle pack team at whatever level, if I multiply your budget by 10, I doubt you'd move more than a place or two.