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What should America do about college sports?

In the wake of the sexual abuse scandal involving the football program at Penn State University, many pundits wonder if theres something wrong with college athletic departments. There is, but the solutions people offer seem way off.

Its hard not to wonder: Is college football really good for college? Taylor Branch delivered a tour de force take for The Atlantic this year on the injustices suffered by big time collegiate athletes. But what about the rest of the university? What does football culture do for the students who dont play every Saturday? What does football do for schools finances? Their academics? Their reputations?

As Weissmann points out, winning teams might lead more students to apply to the school but they also seem to be bad for student grades. Furthermore, big sports seem to often lose money.

Meanwhile, however, the New York Times Magazine published an article by Joe Nocera arguing that colleges should just pay college athletes because the existing system, one of free labor, is so unfair.

Both of these positions seem a little extreme. Actually wouldnt everyone just be rather better off with normal, reasonable, athletic programs? Less money and less prestige would surely be a better way to keep athletic scandals away.

The problem is not that college students playing football or basketball is, in and of itself, actually a problem. Problems, indeed, seem to occur in places where schools just place too much emphasis on college athletics.

In 1937 the Heisman Trophy, the award to Americas outstanding college football player, went to Clint Frank of Yale. Frank later established a successful Chicago advertising agency and died in 1992. The runner up that year was Byron White of the University of Colorado, who briefly played for the Detroit Lions and served as United States Supreme Court justice from 1962 to 1993.

Its almost unimaginable to think of two similar people vying for the Heisman Trophy today. Thats probably indicative of quite how far college sports have become removed from actual college.

Eliminating college sports is just a nonstarter; fans are too devoted. But paying student athletes? That, if anything, would indicate that college athletes are much more important than the other students. Is this really where we want to go with college sports?

Taco Ravioli. Peanut Butter Cran-Jelly. Carrot Raspberry Ice Cream. Pompeii Soup.

These aren’t nouveau cuisine available from top chefs at a four-star restaurant. They’re a few of foods created by high school students who designed them to fit the palates and nutritional needs of child cancer patients

I had the chance meet these student-chefs when I visited the program at the Teterboro, N.J., campus of the Bergen County Technical High School.

Even though I met the students and their teachers the day before their December holiday break, Principal David Tankard reassured they were looking forward to meeting me, not just the vacation ahead. “They want to be here,” he told me. “They love to have the opportunity to share their work.”

Upon entering the brightly painted workspace to meet 18 students in elegant black shirts, ready to present their research and findings, I knew he was right.

Culinology is a discipline that blends the culinary arts and food science. Students study the advanced science and technology of food production and use that knowledge to invent their own food products. Science teachers, seasoned chefs and technology faculty collaborate to provide students with both theoretical and practical knowledge. Strong relationships with partners (Rutgers University, Hackensack University Medical Center and The Research Chefs Association, whose education committee approved the program) enhance the program.

Teacher-Chef Dominic Branda offered me a delicious cup of coffee and presented a selection of student-made pastries while the student teams prepared their presentations. The teams taught me about their research creating suitable foods for children going through chemotherapy. Such children often lack appetite and may have sores in their mouths, they said. Still, it’s essential to create soothing foods that provide nutrients for young palates.

“We’re still children,” one chef told me, “so we still know what tastes good to them.”

A group of young men took the floor to present their creation. “Our soup is based on the volcano at one informed me.It’s packed with nutrition and is also an aesthetically pleasing comfort food. Each item in the soup represents an item from the site – trees, lava and volcanic wreckage – so this way the children learn some history while they eat.”

“Our reduced sugar Carrot Raspberry Ice Cream is cold on the children’s throats,” a student informed me, her open face showing sincere compassion.

A classmate added, “When you can’t eat, you just want something that’s magic inside.”

“That’s all part of this,” said Principal Tankard. “The students are really engaged in service to the community and are motivated by the fact that their work will help the children in treatment.”

I left the school visit feeling inspired. These high school chefs and their teachers teach all of us about the magic that happens when powerful teams learn and work together.

Read Secretary Arne Duncan’s 2010 remarks about the importance of A Well-Rounded Curriculum.

A case about Indian trust land granted review this week by the U.S. Supreme Court is being watched closely by a Michigan school district.

In fact, the Wayland Union school district, in southwest Michigan, joined a friend-of-the-court brief urging the justices to take up the case. The reason: The district and other local governments are reaping an unexpected windfall from their share of revenues from an Indian casino built on 147-acre parcel of land held in trust by the federal government for the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians.

A Michigan resident who opposes the casino sued the federal government to challenge the land acquisition. David Patchak argues that the federal government’s acquisition was unauthorized because the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band was not recognized as a tribe at the time of a 1934 federal law on Indian trust lands.

Patchak lost in federal district court, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, in Washington, revived his suit in a decision last January. A panel of the appeals court said Patchak had standing to challenge the secretary of the Interior’s actions to acquire the land in trust for the Indian tribe because of the negative effect of the casino on him and his nearby property.

Both the Indian band, also known as the Gun Lake Tribe, and U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken L. Salazar appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court, which granted review on Dec. 12 in Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians v. Patchak and Salazar v. Patchak .

The $165 million Gun Lake Casino opened in February and, by all accounts, has been highly successful. It created 900 jobs, and under an agreement with the state of Michigan and local governments, it is sharing 2 percent of its slot machine revenues. In its first two months alone, the casino shared $2 million with the state and more than $500,000 with local governments.

The 2,800-student Wayland Union Schools received $195,000 in that first disbursement, the friend-of-the-court brief says. That revenue, and the promise of more, has allowed the district to cut preschool tuition rates by one-third, and to subsidize “pay-to-play” athletic fees that had been $100 per student per sport.

“The Band’s shared revenue will eliminate this fee and thus alleviate the financial burden on families of high school athletes,” the brief says. Also, the school district is using the new revenue to establish a scholarship fund for graduating seniors “to encourage families to stay in the Wayland area,” the brief says.

All these benefits are threatened by the possibility that the litigation will force the removal of the land from Indian trust status, and thus the closure of the casino.

The appeals court’s decision “threatens to unravel the tremendous economic benefits generated by the Band’s development of the trust lands,” the local governments’ brief says.

A Cooley Law School professor put it another way in an interview with The Grand Rapids Press. “They could have the world’s most expensive bingo hall” if the Indian trust status is removed, Professor Curt Benson told the paper.

The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the consolidated cases in March or April, with a decision expected by the end of June.

A forum Monday at Western Michigan University — titled “Hitting the Reset Button on Education” — was only the latest in a steady drumbeat of business and education leaders touting the value of universal preschool.

Sean Welsh, regional president for PNC Bank, suggested Monday that every $1 spent on preschool or other early childhood programs eventually yields $16 in economic benefits. Tim Bartik, an economist for the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, says the spending money on preschool makes just as much, or even more sense, than traditional economic-development strategies such as tax breaks for businesses.

The rationale: Academic interventions are most effective for very young children, and improving educational outcomes has huge benefits for both individuals and society.

The downside: High-quality preschool can’t be accomplished on the cheap, Bartik says, and costs about $5,000 per child. He estimates that expanding the current system of state-fund preschool to cover all children would cost about $300 million, or about $30 per Michigan resident. Still, Bartik estimates that $300 million investment would boost the present value of state residents’ earnings by $834 million.

So is it worth it? Should the state find the money? What do you think?