MathCounts Excludes Homeschoolers from Team Competition

Examiner.com Fort Collins ^ | August 14, 2010 | Christa Novelli

[aberaussie]

Parents of middle school aged children may want to be aware that the national MathCounts Foundation has changed the rules for homeschoolers this year. MathCounts provides an opportunity for 6th through 8th grade students to compete in academic problem solving and mathematical competitions which may be of particular interest to gifted middle schoolers.

[aberaussie]

They have banned homeschoolers from the team round of the competition. Homeschoolers may still compete as individuals.

Our homeschool group has sent a team to regionals every year for the last sixteen years. We followed all the rules and all participants were members of our support group. We did not recruit outside of our group or go looking for "ringers" to create a super team. Apparently some tutoring centers or enrichment programs have been recruiting gifted math students, labeling them "homeschoolers" and participating in the competition. MathCounts decided that since homeschoolers are such a small percentage of their participants, they would just ban homeschoolers altogether from the team round of the competition.

I know some folks might think that is fair - they still get to compete. We have been involved with MathCounts for many years and my husband has been the coach for our homeschool group's team for over ten years now. We no longer have children in that age group, but he loves doing it and we live and breathe MathCounts in January and February every year leading up to and during the regional competition. The team round is the best part! Students work in teams of four to solve the problems. The top three or four teams qualify to go to the state level. Two of our children did that twice each and it was a wonderful experience! It fostered an enduring love for problem solving in both of them. Our older son qualified to represent the state in 2000 at the national competition and it would not have happened if his team had not gone to the state competition as a team.

This is so disappointing!

[aberaussie]

ping

[pnh102]

Lemme guess, they were worried that the home schoolers would be regularly handing the other students their collective rear ends?

[jacknhoo]

Homeschoolers should start their own competition ensuring to allow government and private school participation.

[ConservativeDude]

looks like you can go comment on this article pretty easily, and without signing in!

LET ‘EM HAVE IT!

Let’s overwhelm that message board with pro-homeschooling, anti-Math Counts messages!!!!

[aberaussie]

It is not always easy to tell who the homeschoolers are in these competitions because each state has different rules regarding homeschooling. Some homeschoolers will look like they are part of a private school. Our group includes "Homeschoolers" in its name, so it is obvious. We have been competing for sixteen years and qualified for the state competition four our of those sixteen years. I don't really see homeschoolers as being that much of a threat! There just aren't that many of us participating...and a winning team, at least for us, takes at least two strong math students plus two more above average math students. Brick and mortar schools have many more students to draw from and should not be afraid of us...

That said, my homeschooled son was 58th nationally in 2000.. ;-)

[elpadre]

I though Math Counts was sponsored by the national association of Mechanical Engineers??

[The Comedian]

They have banned homeschoolers from the team round of the competition. Homeschoolers may still compete as individuals.

Is anyone surprised they won't let Superman compete in the Special Olympics?

Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.

[aberaussie]

National MathCounts sponsors include: Raytheon, The National Defense Education Program, Northrop Grumman Foundation, National Society of Professional Engineers, CNA Foundation, Thinkfun, Texas Instruments, and 3M. There are other supporters listed on their site and I know my husband's company supports it as well and it is not listed.

If you were to write anyone, it would be good to write the MathCounts Foundation or its sponsors.

[JenB]

What a shame! I helped train with a MathCounts team when I was a teen - was too old when my homeschool group started it, but I went to the training and had fun and they did ok at the match.

[JenB]

This ping list is for articles of interest to homeschoolers. I hold both the Homeschool Ping List and the Another Reason to Homeschool Ping List. Please freepmail me to let me know if you would like to be added or removed from either list, or both. The keyword for the FREE REPUBLIC HOMESCHOOLERS’ FORUM is frhf.

[MrB]

Grin...

That’s what I was thinking - they didn’t want the homeschoolers to kick their asses in yet another academic contest.

[christianhomeschoolmommaof3]

. Anyone with concerns about this is urged to contact MathCounts’ program manager Chris Bright at 703-299-9006 x 104 or chris@mathcounts.org.

They asked for it.

[WKUHilltopper]

“This is so disappointing!”

So disappointing or so telling?

[imskylark]

Is anyone surprised they won’t let Superman compete in the Special Olympics?>>>>>>>>

Good point. :-)

[N3WBI3]

Well, to be fair, most schools don’t get to pick and choose their membership. Where as a homeschooling team can do nothing but select the best kids from all over.

A better compromise would be to require that members of a home school team are all from the same zip code..

[aberaussie]

So disappointing or so telling?

For us it is disappointing. We spend a lot of time on MathCounts. It feels like a betrayal. Of course, that is not the right kind of language to use when we discuss it with the leadership - engineering and math types respond much better to logic than to feelings. ;-) I can say that because of the number of engineers in my family....

[WKUHilltopper]

They’re not going to do anything that outclasses their fraudulent “clown show”. Thus, Home-schoolers are out because they’d wind up winning.

[God'sgrrl]

This STINKS!

[aberaussie]

Well, to be fair, most schools don’t get to pick and choose their membership. Where as a homeschooling team can do nothing but select the best kids from all over. A better compromise would be to require that members of a home school team are all from the same zip code..

Only if they make the public schools and private schools follow the same rules. In our area, schools are pretty big and draw from a large area. The several schools that dominate our regional competition year after year draw from a large pool of families of professionals - doctors, engineers, college professors, etc. Private schools draw from several counties, not just zip codes. Our little homeschool group draws from about fifty families in three or four counties. No one joins to be able to participate as a ringer in MathCounts. Homeschoolers are small in number. I wonder how many counties would have enough homeschoolers to field a team....