Editorial: NMAA must provide level playing field

In 2014, teams of Albuquerqueo-area home-school students won the middle- and high-school divisions of the state Science Olympiad, complete with trips to nationals.

In 2015, the New Mexico Activities Association has decided it wants to keep those students from competing unless the public school they would normally attend has 1.) a Science Olympiad team that 2.) has an open spot for them.

Making NMAA the answer to the question: What is the chemical composition of sour grapes?

This week, lawyers for the association, as well as the home school contingent, discussed home-schooled students and NMAA events; NMAA officials want to preclude home-schoolers not only from the Science Olympiad, but also from any NMAA-sanctioned academic or athletic event.

NMAA seems to have forgotten, or doesn’t care, that the families of home-school students pay the same general, gross receipts, income and property taxes into the K-12 system as families of public and private school students, yet they have taken on the full fiscal and academic responsibility of educating their kids — at great savings to the state.

Is allowing home-school students to compete with their peers really so much to ask, considering districts get around $7,800 a year for each of their students from those taxes and state royalties and investments, and home-school kids get nothing for their families’ investment in others futures?

The timing of the NMAA decision is questionable considering there is no new law that prompted this and home-school students have competed in the Science Olympiad for more than a decade without issue. Linda Walkup, head coach for the Albuquerque Area Home Schoolers Science Olympiad Team, says it “just came out of the blue.”

Actually, it came up right after her kids started winning at the high-school level. (The middle-school team has taken the state title four years running.)

The NMAA needs to redeem itself, stop fermenting in the vinegar of traditional school losses, and champion a level academic and athletic playing field for all New Mexico students.

— Albuquerque Journal