The OSSAA Board gathered on August 14, 2019 for its regular meeting. Among the items discussed was the public/private competitive equity committee recommendations for re-considering the effectiveness of Rule 14 - in providing more equitable competition classifications. And guess what? It's almost perfect.. No major changes needed..
As a matter of fact, Rule 14 was judged effective for "leveling the playing field" in all sports, except for tennis and volleyball - I think.. because no one was provided a copy of the research data and analysis. I requested a copy of the report, but was told I'd have to wait until it's posted on the website. We will not be able to test for validity and reliability of the committee's analysis nor check for errors until the report is provided, but we can comment on some other research conducted to answer the same question. The documents may be studied here and here, and represent a valid and reliable analysis for two sports - football and baseball. It was conducted in consultation with some of the same researchers from the University of Oklahoma and elsewhere, who invalidated the school A-F grading scheme a few years back. The recommended methodology (correlation analysis) was utilized in running a quantitative study in judging the effectiveness of Rule 14 for providing competitive equity between schools which provide financial assistance to students and/or restrict enrollment and those which do not. There exists both private schools and public schools in both comparative groups. I sincerely hope that the OSSAA will consider valid and reliable research as well as the analysis provided by the Committee. When the OSSAA deems it appropriate to provide that research and analysis, we will forward that document to researchers at OU and OSU for closer study.
Back to the OSSAA meeting on August 14: At the conclusion of the committee's report, I stood to provide a copy of our own analysis of the effectiveness of Rule 14 for providing competitive equity for all schools. This analysis directly contradicted the committee's analysis for most sports. I was told that no public comment would be allowed concerning the committee report, but I was only providing our analysis to the executive director. I was then told to provide the report to the "minutes clerk", Amy Cassell, instead of the board or the executive director. I complied with the order.
Interestingly, the OSSAA bills itself as a private, non-profit organization. Examples of private non-profits would be the Walton Family Foundation, Gates Foundation, and others, which are really "profitable" non-profits. Since the OSSAA is a private organization, it has the ability to disallow public comments concerning agenda items, so the fact that it doesn't allow public input or even membership input on issues concerning it's public schools - is certainly justified. What is truly puzzling, however, is that most if not all of the superintendent directors on its board allow public comments at their own school board meetings. Even the State Board of Education usually has two "hearing of the public" items at its board meetings.
The OSSAA said it would be forwarding the committee report and recommendations to the regional meetings in October - for garnering support. Bear in mind that all we know right now about the report and recommendations is what flashed across the screen during the report. The regional meetings are scheduled at Woodward... Oct. 14, Elk City... Oct.15, Cache... Oct.16, Ponca City... Oct. 21, Adair... Oct. 22, Jenks... Oct. 23, Henryetta... Oct. 24, Ardmore... Oct. 28, Kiowa... Oct. 29, Antlers... Oct.30, Westmore... Oct. 31.
Update August 22, 2019: The research and related documents which indicate that only "country club" sports should be re-classified, has now been posted on the OSSAA website. The committee determined that Rule 14 has been effective for leveling the playing field in all other sports. We will be forwarding the committee's research and subsequent analysis to OU and/or OSU education researchers for review.
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