Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
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Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Football and the magical GPA: An academic disgrace
(Michael Oher, football player)
How do you get a high school sophomore into college who is homeless, attended 11 schools in 13 years, missed 46 days of school in first grade, didn’t even attend for 18 months around age 10 and sports a 0.9 GPA at the end of 10th grade?
Impossible, right?
Oh, did I mention he weighs 344 pounds and is a potential NFL football star? Now what do you think his chances of getting to college are?
If you guessed 100 percent, you’re right.
I’m a huge fan of Michael Lewis, the author of a great book about baseball called Moneyball and a frequent contributor of engaging narratives to the New York Times magazine.
Lewis writes a lot about sports and this week’s cover story in the Times magazine is another mesmerizing read. It’s mostly the inspirational story of Michael Oher, once homeless and essentially orphaned, who now appears headed to NFL riches.
But along the way, the story indicts education systems that alternatively failed Oher and now seek to exploit him. The Memphis school district takes a beating for passing him on year after year even when he wasn’t even showing up for school.
But as it becomes clear in high school that Oher has the potential to make millions in football, supportive adults surround him and try somehow get him onto a college football team despite the train wreck that is his academic career.
Most stunning to me was the way they turned his D average into a sports-eligible 2.65 GPA almost overnight. And apparently this is perfectly OK under NCAA rules. Oher signed up for Internet courses in “character education” offered by Bringham Young University:
“The B.Y.U. courses had magical properties: a grade took a mere 10 days to obtain and could be used to replace a grade from an entire semester on a high-school transcript. Pick the courses shrewdly and work quickly, and the most tawdry academic record could be renovated in a single summer.”
Oher also had help from a tutor, Sue Mitchell. Here’s what it took to pass one of these BYU “courses:”
All you had to do in such a “character course� was to read a few brief passages from famous works — a speech by Lou Gehrig here, a letter by Abraham Lincoln there — and then answer five questions about it. How hard could it be? The A’s earned from character courses could be used to replace F’s earned in high-school English classes. And Michael never needed to leave the house!
Thus began the great Mormon grade-grab. Mainly it involved Sue Mitchell grinding through the character courses with Michael. Every week or so, they replaced a Memphis public school F with an A from B.Y.U. Every assignment needed to be read aloud and decoded. Here he was, late in his senior year in high school, and he had never heard of a right angle or the Civil War or “I Love Lucy.â€? But getting the grades was far easier than generating in Michael any sort of pleasure in learning.”
Wow. I just found that shocking. In a matter of weeks they took a kid who is barely prepared for high school work and not only got him into college, they made him eligible to play football! Here’s how the story of his academic makeover ends. Sean is the wealthy private school gadfly who adopts Oher:
On July 29, Michael took his final B.Y.U. test — another character course. Sean sent the test to Utah by Federal Express, and the B.Y.U. people promised to have the grade ready by 2 o’clock the following afternoon. … With Michael’s final A in hand, Sean rushed the full package to the N.C.A.A.’s offices in Iowa. The N.C.A.A promptly lost it. Sean threatened to fly up on his plane with another copy and sit in the lobby until it was processed — which led the N.C.A.A. to find Michael’s file. While it remained suspicious and didn’t close its investigation, the N.C.A.A. on Aug. 1, 2005, informed Michael Oher that he was going to be allowed to go to college and play football.”
Amazing.
(Image credit: www.nytimes.com)
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