Anyone
who has ever watched “Friday Night Lights” has seen a glimpse of just
how big high school football is in the state of
Texas. The backdrop for the show is a high school football team
from a fictional town called Dillon, a small, close-knit community
in rural Texas. The critically acclaimed series was loosely based
on the non-fiction book “Friday Night Lights: A Town, a
Team, and a Dream,” and the 2004 film was based on it. The book
details the 1988 season of the Permian Panthers, a high school
football team in Odessa, Texas.
High school football in the Lone
Star State is legendary. Of the 25 teams in the Aug. 27 USA TODAY Sports
Super 25 high school
football rankings, three hailed from Texas. In 2008, the Allen
High School Eagles earned their first-ever state title, making
the Eagles the Texas Class 5A Division I State champions,
finishing the season ranked second in the nation by both ESPN Rise
and Yahoo! Rivals High School rankings, and fifth in the MaxPreps
poll.
But the Allen Independent School
District takes Texas football to even more dizzying heights. The very
next year, 2009, in
the face of shrinking school funding and an education budget
shortfall, a $60 million referendum passed to build an 18,000-seat
stadium for Allen High School, the only high school in the
district. The bond, which included funding for a performing arts
center, passed with 63 percent. Yet in 2010, Texas ranked last in
the nation in the percentage of adults with high school
diplomas, according to the Texas Tribune, a nonprofit news
organization devoted to state government and public policy.
The Allen Independent School District decided to build the stadium in tough economic times, knowing full well it will never
recoup the costs. It’s a decision that local officials defend by saying the stadium will serve as a community centerpiece
and a source of pride that will more than pay the costs of operating it.
“It’s lamentable that people want
to do this with their own money and the money of their community,” Tom
Palaima, a professor
at the University of Texas in Austin, and a former representative
of the Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics, told ABC
News. “Young men and women are now understanding at the age of 8,
9, and 10 that their way to get into a good college or university
is by participating in sports and not putting a focus on
academics.”
On Friday Allen Eagle Stadium, the
third-largest high school stadium in the state, debuted with great
fanfare. Local officials
quickly showed off the stadium’s amenities, including its $1
million, 3,400-square-foot HD video scoreboard, two luxury suites,
a pro-quality press box and indoor golfing facility. The previous
stadium, opened in 1976, had 7,000 permanent seats and 7,000
added bleachers that cost $250,000 a year to lease, according to
the school district.
Meanwhile, roughly one-third of the residents in another town – McAllen, Texas – live below the poverty line. Only 62 percent
are graduating from high school in McAllen, a Mexican border town.
Granted, Allen Texas is in the midst of a population boom and boasts a median household income of $95,000 a year. It has a
strong tax base to work with. The tax bite will be small enough to swallow comfortably, and its citizens want their school
facilities to be seen as first-class. I get that. I also don’t know how the State of Texas allocates education funds among
districts. But to the folks in McAllen, this smacks of elitism.
What would $60 million buy here in Caldwell County, NC for its schools, staring down the barrel of deep education budget cuts by the
state? Just ask Superintendent, Dr. Steve Stone.
“This is a tremendous waste,” Stone
said. “With $60 million, Caldwell County Schools could open a new
comprehensive high school
to help overcrowding at South (Caldwell High) and build a new
middle school to replace William Lenoir (Middle), make major
renovations to Granite Falls Middle School, and have funds left
over to remove all mobile units, and fund a one to one laptop
initiative for all middle and high schoolers in the district.”
Education first. What a concept.
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