Americans love sports, but what happens to athletic programs when democratic public schools close? Privatizing public education, so-called school choice, means drastic changes, as school officials grapple with the effects of school choice legislation.
Communities rally behind high school football in the fall, basketball during the winter, and track and field in the spring. Public schools might offer swimming, soccer, and other sports, critical for helping young people obtain college scholarships. Even though they aren’t easy to obtain, about 180,000 NCAA D1 and D2 student-athletes earn athletic scholarships each year.
School choice, including charter schools, vouchers, homeschooling, and open enrollment, alters who plays sports and undermines community pride in public schools. Defunding public schools ruins sports programs. Which students get access? Will only the wealthiest private schools get sports?
In 2023, West Virginia headlined How lawmakers helped ruin high school football in West Virginia reflecting on game “blowouts” in that state. When private schools corral all the best players, it changes the competition. It also makes for boring games. Brooke High Coach Mac McLean, whose team always struggled in the AAA class, said it’s only going to get worse: The rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer.
School choice crusaders seem not to have thought through what happens with sports. Olivia Nutter recently wrote in Athletics Directors 411:
Proponents of school choice argue that parents should be free to choose what’s best for their children, including athletic opportunities. But that freedom raises difficult questions about fairness and competitive balance. If top talent continually migrates to a handful of programs, the very structure of high school sports could change, creating a system where access to success depends less on effort and more on ZIP code flexibility.
Consider that between 2010–11 and 2021–22, 4,000+ public secondary schools closed due to declining enrollment, unaffordable housing, lower birth rates, and an overall defunding of public education by school privatizers seeking to create schools for profit.
Parental school choice is also deceptive. Private schools, not parents, ultimately choose students. Gifted athletes will likely be welcome at a private school that prioritizes sports. Wealthy private school teams will compete with other private schools, but what about students who never got swept up in the choice program, never got identified in their poor charter schools, or in their homeschools?
Undiscovered students who haven’t yet shown their prowess in sports may not have the opportunity to do so, relegated to a fledgling public school that has lost its resources, a charter school, or homeschool, where they remain unrecognized. What if they never get the opportunity to practice sports under the eyes of a good coach?
Charter schools often lack the budget or incentive to offer quality sports programs. Sports facilities, football fields, tracks, or access to swimming pools is costly. Some may rent facilities or partner with community organizations for practice, but this can be expensive.
States like Florida allow charter school and homeschool students (7.d) to participate in traditional public school sports, but this is controversial. It dismisses the community school pride factor, a significant all-American feature of school sports. If parents don’t want their child at that public school, take tax dollars elsewhere; why get the advantage of a public school sports program? What happens when the school ultimately closes?
Missouri is another state that permits homeschool students to participate in public education sports.
Students might also leave public school sports programs for sports clubs, which have become synonymous with college recruitment across areas, though in football, they appear less so.
Athletic organizations see the problems with school choice. Both the Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association (OSSAA) and the Alabama High School Athletic Association (AHSAA) ran into difficulties with their states choice programs.
As one parent puts it:
Private schools often have access to resources that public schools do not – such as better facilities, more experienced coaches or even the ability to attract top talent through scholarships. This creates an uneven playing field during playoff competitions. According to a study by The Atlantic (2013), private high school students are over twice as likely as public school students to reach Division I college sports.
Some private schools are small and also lack resources, but will be expected to compete against wealthier private schools.
School board members in Hamilton, Tennessee, voiced concern that the state’s Education Freedom Scholarship, allowing students to attend private schools, siphons desirable athletes from public schools. They worry about a drop in public school attendance, likely related to the school choice program. Sports success skews toward wealthier super schools, leaving fewer high school teams for competition.
Texas exemplifies the problems school choice creates for sports, especially when parents nostalgically remember when they attended those public schools. At 2.22 on the video below they discuss how football, basketball, and track, public school sports programs beloved in that state, could be affected. It might mean laying off school coaching staff.
Cultural overemphasis and concerns about sports injuries leave critics to advocate for the end of school sports altogether. But athletics are an ingrained American tradition, and it’s hard to see public schools successfully survive without vibrant sports and extracurricular programs.
Sports aren’t only about making future successful athletes, of course. Students benefit physically and mentally, and team sports promote positive socialization and all around good health. Students learn how to win gracefully, build confidence, but also how to lose and accept defeat without always quitting.
But if public education is fully privatized, once unimaginable, public school sports could end. Most Americans are not on board for school choice and want to see better and more support of public schooling. The loss of sports might be added in as a reason to reject school choice. It may be time for pushback and Americans rallying around their democratic public schools. Could it be?
Consider Mississippi where football in small towns is called “the fabric of the community.” Parents worried about their public schools, and the Mississippi legislature recently killed the school choice bill which would have sent public school funding to private schools.
Maybe there’s hope, not only for school sports, team building, but for democratic public schools. Perhaps we’ll soon see a public school renaissance and a great refocus on the greatness of our country and its children and their schools, not only with sports but learning. Now that’s truly a winning idea!
All I know is…my son’s volleyball team built of working class kids who really had sheer grit to compete won the league (their best player had to quit to help the family make ends meet). Then they headed to the playoffs and were paired against Valley Christian, a private Catholic school with Club A Team athletes. They were defeated in the first round but not obliterated. San Jose had the best of the best from more than one million people. Height, money and could afford club team volleyball. A little town of Templeton, CA were the “shining stars” of high school football, but once got to the playoffs were annihilated by yet another private Catholic school. All I know is that was the only boys’ volleyball pennant hanging in the my son’s high school gym because of their will to compete and sheer ability. In all reality, the private schools get the best athletes and public schools (rare) end up on the top. And, I coached many years on a volunteer basis because they didn’t have the money to pay coaches.
Thanks for sharing, Rick. It can inspire students to be the underdog team until their school runs out of resources. How proud your son must be of that pennant. And good for you volunteering.
Oh, yes. Sports and marching band dominated our boys lives. And, sports gave the struggling academic student a place to shine and a reason to study as well. I never coached the kids to win. Winning was a byproduct of: spirit, athleticism, sportsmanship, family, faith, friends, and whatnot. We learned how to “leave it out on the court” and knew win or lose, it was worth the effort. My girls’ team could not win a game. I reminded them to have fun. I made a couple switches (when one coaches — at least for me — I studied film, coaching strategies and then made a few switches. Our last game we won by 20 points because they learned how to put all the fundamentals together. Never fear the “giants” and do the best you can. Senator Bill Bradley wrote a book, “Values of the Game.” Sports teach more than many realize. John Wooden said, “I never coach to win. Winning is the last on my list.” But to take activities like art, sports, and music away really gives kids a loss of hope. For many (especially marginalized kids) it is a way out and on to big and better things. There is an amazing relationship between a coach who teaches life’s lessons through sports and, well, nothing after school to do.
Absolutely agree. I still get excited to see the Friday night lights of high school football as I marched in the band. Those experiences are wonderful for young people. Thanks. And it is true that students learn many skills by playing the games.
Valley Christian is not a Catholic school.
Oooops! My mistake. What I meant is compared to our little town, Private schools can draw students from a larger geographic area, not just one neighborhood.
Even if they don’t “officially recruit,” strong athletes may choose to attend. This can lead to more roster depth and year-round competition for spots.
Rick, appreciate you clarifying, and thank you for sharing your experience.
What strikes me about this discussion is that we risk blaming children and families for the fate of local sports programs. I care about school sports too… they can be a real source of pride and growth… but a vibrant football or volleyball program is still secondary to the interests of a single child.
When families look for environments where their kids can thrive, that isn’t “talent drain.” It’s people exercising agency. We already see this inside the public system: families pursue transfers when a school isn’t the right fit. When that becomes difficult, it often reflects institutions being protected ahead of students.
In my own community, our local public school is losing enrollment largely to another regional public school that’s become an athletic powerhouse. That matters because it shows this isn’t a public-versus-private issue. Public, secular private, and religious schools can all act as magnets when they build strong programs. Weak programs lose students. That’s not ideology: it’s reality.
If preserving a local program requires children to limit their opportunities, we’re asking them to shoulder adult responsibility while restricting their autonomy. Responsibility and autonomy can’t be separated. Adults build community. It isn’t fair to require children to sacrifice choice in order to sustain institutions.
And when we omit freedom of action from the conversation, we deliberately ignore the real reasons families leave schools: reasons that are often grounded in firsthand experience and are frequently ideologically inconvenient. We lose real signal and replace it with synthetic narratives, which ultimately makes everything more fragile.
I understand the desire to believe that limiting autonomy will create stronger systems for everyone. But experience suggests the opposite: when we reduce freedom while increasing obligation, communities don’t become more vibrant, they become less so.
Just my perspective as someone who moved his kids out of public schools.
I tell you what, excellent points, as did we. My kids loved school until they came home and said, “School is boring.” As an art teacher (and in order to keep my job a teacher of many other subjects plus coaching) I noticed at the parent conference no time for science, social studies, art, pe, and music. Huh? So we tried private school and home schooling for middle school years till it became to much for my wife and I to work and teach and “home teach.” I just know that I really never got much of anything and paid for my supplies, plus they always seemed to run short on funds for coaching so I volunteered my services. Middle was short season, but high school was four months and Winter Break. And, so of the other gyms I went to — amazing — loaded with funding. Never cried about it, but made the most of it. Most of the things kids really enjoyed they limited, made it before school, or cut, like my art programs. Great thoughts!
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, elite schools and universities dominated athletics under the guise of “amateurism” that kept working class and minorities out of the competition. Now we have mass corruption in interscholastic sports where year round leagues and private schools recruit top athletes from public schools. Private equity has even gotten in on the act. I grew up in the “sand lot” era where pick up games were just as important as the Super Bowl. Now it is all pay for play. Ball fields are more like fields of dreams with well manicured turf and pristine practice facilities. We lived down the street from my son’s high school where each sports field was distinct and only available to a small minority of students at the school. Like our politics, the democratic nature of our participation in sports is under threat. Add to this the growing gambling industry and the ideal reason for playing sports gets lost in the desire for misbegotten fame and fortune. My oldest was showing real promise as an athlete when she was in elementary school, but we didn’t allow her to play in AAU or year round leagues that require no vacation contracts and significant investment in equipment. She went out for her middle school basketball team in seventh grade and came home dejected because most of the girls trying out had played AAU ball. I told her the coaches were looking for athletes not credentials. She made the team. Too many parents have illusions that just getting in the right program or with the right coach will get them a college scholarship. Children have a better chance if they focus on academics. I wouldn’t trade my experience with sports for anything. I was not able to be the star football our basketball player, but I could enjoy playing the game. That’s what we’ve lost and money, as with many of our ills, is at the root of the problem.
Thank you for sharing your experience and your daughters, Paul. I know there’s more to the story than saving public school sports. Lots of notes about the NIL and Olympics, and the increased emphasis on sports gambling, too. Your description of days playing sports for fun, as I too remember, seems lost, which is sad.
My son was a gifted athlete. We sent him to private school because his public school was not meeting his needs — long story. He tried out for the basketball team. I watched the tryouts. Even though he was sick, he outperformed many (not because he was my kid, but from my coaching perspective). On cut day, he was out of the locker room so quickly. I said, “That was fast. Coach didn’t even sleep on it?” A parent was standing outside and told us that the coach had cut a kid who was the son of an “elite status family.” He quickly made a switch when that parent complained and cut another kid who was much better (low status family). My son was never going to make the team because he was an “outsider” and the coach already had his team picked from the start. I always made it clear to the kids trying out, “I have 15 uniforms, so I am keeping 15 kids (some coaches only kept 10-12).” I had a heck of a time figuring out how to select my athletes. I didn’t always pick the best, I looked for team players who could build other players up — no prima donnas so to speak. I had nearly 60 or so kids trying out for 15 spots. I had a checklist, grade list, and all sorts of criteria. I had the kids put their tryout numbers on their backs so I could see. I staggered tryout times and I gave them a week of tryouts. I made it clear that having to cut athletes was the hardest thing I had to do, but I made the best choices at the time. Also, I made sure if they didn’t make the team they could come by and see me for some practice tips to do on their own to try out next season. I told them, “You know, by the end of this week, you will be a better player than when you walked in here and if you don’t make the team, it doesn’t mean I don’t like you.” I really analyzed what each ball player could bring to the team because in the end, I was a teacher and was giving them skills they would use for life. In the end, my son went on to be an outstanding player at his public high school winning MVP of many tournaments and defensive player of the year. I mean, he was good for being small.
I bet selecting team players is difficult. I would find it hard to do. It sounds like you figured it out. Happy for your son’s success.
It was very difficult to do because young people feel defeated. I had to tell a very talented young man he needed to focus on his grades and, or course, I would help him. Right now was not a good time for basketball. I was not only looking out for his “now” but for his future. If he really wanted to play basketball, he would need to take his studies serious and practice. Basketball would be there and so would I.
A thorough article and all true. As a veteran teacher in performing arts, my prediction for sports and performing arts is you will see an elitist system expand and Republic votes fall drastically. When people vote for a concept and know nothing about the systems involved, this people need to experience the fallout for themselves and their families. Unfortunately, I think we will have to let that happen, but it will turn around.
Thanks, Janene. I think you’re right. Whenever school choice is on the ballot, it has always been voted down. It seems like the policymakers and those who want school privatization keep this floating.
Thank you for your acknowledgement:
Diane Ravitch https://dianeravitch.net/2026/02/10/nancy-bailey-will-school-choice-kill-school-sports/
and
Peter Greene https://curmudgucation.substack.com/p/will-school-choice-kill-athletics
And to all those who read the post.
Thank you Nancy for putting in all the work to have these blog site. I love having positive conversations and learning. You know, for years I would hesitate to share but between you and Diane, it is so wonderful to not only share, but to learn, learn, learn, and educate myself on many new ideas and concepts. And if anything I share can help another person, their family, friends, it makes me feel wonderful.
Thank you, Rick! You have shared some interesting experiences which I always appreciate.