[detokaal]

Visibility and Value. Athletics are far more visible, and thus on the community's mind to a greater degree; plus athletics has a higher value than education for most of our parents here.

In our community, the football team is number one. The team (and coach) receive far more media coverage for their wins and losses than classroom students get for test scores. Parents of football players value the victory more than academics as well. Parents will purchase hundreds of dollars in gear, shoes, summer camps, etc. but those same kids have no internet access, no notebooks, no highlighters, no basic computers or software.

Losing 10% of football games in a season gets the coach fired because everyone hears about it every day and because it is important to the school board and parents. 50% of our students drop out before graduation and it gets a paragraph on page 6 of the local paper, and no one cares because we have a great school: the football team won the conference again.