For what it's worth ... > A final decision came down > by the Texas SUPREME COURT stating that essentially Texas AD has > authority to determine and certify the state champion using its own > procedures, and that the courts don't have authority to overturn that > (at least to my understanding). The Texas Supreme Court isn't as high as one might think -- it is merely the appeals court for civil cases. Their ruling was that there was really no basis in state law for the courts to interfere with the regular procedures and appeals of Texas AD. >This is what happens when thousands of dollars in scholarships are up >for grabs as prizes to winning at the state level as well as >nationals. Again, FWIW, at the state level in Texas, members of the winning team receive something like a $1500 scholarship, with overall individual medalists ranging from $1250 to $500. In my two AD- competing years at Friendswood HS, I earned $5K in scholarships spaced over four years. Monies are generally double or triple at the national level. Additionally, several schools (TX A&M and TX Tech come to mind) offer FULL TUITION scholarships to overall individual medalists, making personal performances much more important. An average member of a "power program school" such as Dobie, Friendswood, Clear Lake, or Highland Park will spend upwards of 3 hours PER DAY reading over, studying, and working on various aspects of the Academic Decathlon curriculum. This activity will start in the summer after the year's curriculum is released and continue through the state meet (late Feb/early March). This includes the standard high school AD class, lunch meetings, after school meetings, weekend meetings, and individual or group work. Going with a very conservative estimate of 450 total hours spent on AD for a competition year, for an overall gold medalist on the state- winning team, this comes out to about $6.11/hr in scholarship money. Time well spent? Draw your own conclusions. For my part, though, I'd have preferred to play quizbowl, scholarships or not. -- eps
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