> natural solution would be to increase the number of teams
Reminds me of my dad (b. 1945) talking about his HS sports experience in the early ‘60s at a large (~3500) Southern California public school. Not only were there varsity, JV and frosh teams, in high-interest sports like football and basketball there were multiple teams for every grade. Competition was still high if you wanted to play at the highest level, but if you wanted to play, there was probably an option for you.
Public schools are simply not funded the same way today
That's total into the system divided by number of students though.
Is there any measure of how much of that reaches pupils and improves their education versus the amount sucked up by middle layers, consultants, prestige buildings, etc?
It might be similar to the US health spend .. high per capita spend, low outcomes per citizens (compared to, say, Australia) .. with a rich middle layer of providers, insurers, etc.
My HS spent millions on a completely new athletics complex. our math and reading scores were in the dirt, classrooms had 70s era carpet growing crap I don't want think about, the band had 30 year old uniforms...but we had a gorgeous basketball complex.
Reminds me of my dad (b. 1945) talking about his HS sports experience in the early ‘60s at a large (~3500) Southern California public school. Not only were there varsity, JV and frosh teams, in high-interest sports like football and basketball there were multiple teams for every grade. Competition was still high if you wanted to play at the highest level, but if you wanted to play, there was probably an option for you.
Public schools are simply not funded the same way today