The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

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cchiego
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The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by cchiego »

As a way of offering a rough benchmark for the state of good quizbowl across the United States and to encourage outreach across the country, I present the 2015 State of Quizbowl. Many people from good quizbowl-deficient states may not realize just how bad the situation is in their states. On the other hand, the states that do have solid good quizbowl circuits may serve as exemplars for others to follow or at least as a source of successful practices.

The basis for these grades are the following three criteria:

Breadth of Good Quizbowl
How many places across the state are running good quizbowl tournaments and competitions? Are all the major metro areas included? Are there rural schools participating or just metro schools? Are only a few areas active or is pretty much the entire state active? Could a new team get to a good quizbowl tournament in only a few hours drive or would every trip be basically an overnight all-day drive? Are there many AUK and NAC or other bad quizbowl-only participants that crowd out good quizbowl teams and tournaments?

Depth of Good Quizbowl
In the areas with quizbowl, how many teams compete in it? Is it just a handful of teams out of many possible schools or do pretty much all the major schools in the area participate? Are tournaments large with many teams and good quizbowl scheduling practices or are they small and single-elimination (or entirely double-elimination?)? Do schools normally just play one or two tournaments or do they play multiple tournaments over the year along with nationals?

Institutional Support or Opposition (including state championships)
Is there an official state organization that coordinates quizbowl and does that state organization support good quizbowl? Are there resources available for new teams to help build themselves and assistance for coaches (like a coach's association)? Does the state championship (and any local/regional championships) use good quizbowl questions and practices or bad? Is there a lot of AUK or NAC participation or leagues that use bad quizbowl questions and practices?

The grades are NOT based on how well teams from a state do nationally; there are other rankings for ranking teams based on quizbowl prowess. Instead, this is designed to reward and recognize states that adopt good quizbowl practices and get more teams involved in playing quizbowl.

Rough Grading Rubric
A: Almost entirely good quizbowl tournaments; many teams from multiple areas around a state; a solid state organization (or confederation of local organizations) that supports good quizbowl and ensures a good state championship tournament
B: Mostly good quizbowl tournaments; some areas of bad quizbowl or a major lack of quizbowl; state organization is usually good, but may have some issues and the state championship may not attract that many teams
C: Some areas of good quizbowl, but often competes against bad quizbowl leagues or organizations; state organization is lacking in organization or indifferent to good quizbowl; may lack teams and competitions in many areas around the states.
D: Mostly bad-quizbowl tournaments and organizations, though perhaps without actively restricting participation too much in good tournaments. Also a lack of or near-complete lack of tournaments.
F: Active bad-quizbowl organizations that severely restrict and/or oppose good quizbowl participation to the point where there are no good quizbowl tournaments even offered.

Note that History Bowl tournaments are disregarded here--this is a ranking for all-subject quizbowl. This is also mostly for high school quizbowl opportunities, not middle school or college except as those apply to the high school circuit (i.e. middle school circuit that helps build a high school circuit, college that hosts tournaments, etc.).

I gathered what information I could, but I am sure I missed some places. I am especially interested in information on states where there seems to be little quizbowl activity, good or bad, though I have spent quite some time acquiring information about quizbowl in various areas of the country.

Alabama: A
The best state organization in the country with all levels from regionals to the state championships using good quizbowl questions and rules. Tournaments on good questions run in pretty much all of the major metro areas and there is an unusual amount of rural and urban school participation along with the usual suburban contenders. A few schools still favor bad quizbowl questions, but those usually participate in good quizbowl tournaments during the year. Montgomery and Southern Alabama are still behind the Northern half of the state, but progress seems to be continuing and there are already a number of schools playing good quizbowl from those areas.

Alaska: D-
Little sign of any activity going on in Alaska. Academic Decathlon seems to have a stranglehold on competition in the far North, but there doesn't seem to be a specific barrier if a school wanted to run a quizbowl tournament. Probably not going to travel to any current quizbowl tournaments though.

Arizona: C
A handful of schools in the Phoenix area and a couple from further North compete, but these tournaments are largely small affairs and the loss of some previously strong schools like Brophy is worrying. There are frequent tournaments, but very small field sizes compared to the size of the metro area. Nothing in the Tucson area and bad Academic Hallmarks [sic] Knowledge Bowl in some of the rural areas around Thatcher and possibly around Yuma.

Arkansas, aka "Quizbowl Iran": F
The mullahs of the Arkansas Governor's Quiz Bowl Association are determined to force Arkansas teams to remain in the quizbowl stone age, enforcing a regime of bad quizbowl questions and bizarre rules like forcing teams to lug around reference books to protest the terrible questions they seem to get from Questions Unlimited. Attempts to run good quizbowl tournaments at Harding University and Parkview High in the past seem to have petered out. A couple of schools, notably Benton, seem to prefer good quizbowl and make occasional good quizbowl nationals appearances. What's most heartbreaking is how much potential Arkansas has--AETN, the state PBS affiliate, broadcasts the state finals live and there's a huge amount of participation at all levels across the state. Hoping for AGQBA to reform and bring Arkansas Quizbowl into the 21st century with good questions and practices has about as much chance of succeeding as the same thing in Iran, unfortunately.

California: B-
The rise of first SoCal and then NorCal quizbowl in the past few years has helped California greatly, with the San Diego and Bay Areas boasting solid circuits along with a burgeoning Sacramento circuit. There appear to be plans afoot for more outreach into the Central Valley as well, but aside from a few exceptional teams the LA area and Orange County remain mostly quizbowl wastelands. Academic Decathlon's heartland of Orange County has stymied attempts to form any real long-term teams and the LA area along with the Inland Empire and Ventura County have little to nothing going other than a few bad quizbowl leagues. Furthermore, even in San Diego the spectre of Academic League looms large and unless that org flips to good questions as a whole, good quizbowl will always be in danger of backsliding in SoCal.

Colorado: D+
The homeland of Academic Hallmarks saw the first glimpse of hope in a long while with Fairview High School hosting an NAQT championship this year, thanks to the valiant efforts of Jordan Boyd-Graber. There is a lot of potential here with dozens upon dozens of teams across the state playing Knowledge Bowl, but the roots of AUK run deep and it's unclear if the teams there even know about the larger world of good quizbowl, with the possible exception of Grand Junction and the Fairview attendees. Was the Fairview tournament a flash in the pan? Will the "Dude in Durango" (aka the AUK) continue to wreak havoc with terrible puns and even worse near-verbatim repeat questions? Or will good quizbowl eventually strike gold in the Mountain West?

Connecticut: C+
Yale's high school tournaments anchor a small but growing group of teams playing good quizbowl in the Constitution State. There's still a strong lack of penetration into many of the urban areas, but the Middlesex/Darien pipeline seems to be growing a stellar team there and longtime standbys like EO Smith are continuing to help prop up a respectable, if intermittent circuit. Tournaments this year seemed to feature more CT teams than ever before, but more state-wide structure and outreach in general would help since they're starting from a very small base.

Delaware: C+
There are opportunities to compete in Delaware and many nearby, but few teams willing to take advantage of them. Wilmington Charter's perennial success may have sucked the air out of many of the other teams in the area. There is some hope though for teams like Newark Charter, but they just don't go to many tournaments. No statewide championship to speak of besides a poorly-attended NAQT state tournament either and a lack of state organization make Delaware an increasingly troubled area for outreach. Perhaps the only saving grace is a lack of bad quizbowl institutions now and hopefully more cross-pollination with the Baltimore and Philly areas.

Florida: C
A few pockets of strong competition in various parts of the state are balanced out by big gaps in the center and a bizarre state format and governing organization. Ransom Everglades in the South, Buchholz in the North (aided by some solid cross-border ties with South GA), and Pensacola in the Northwest are the keystones of the Sunshine State quizbowl circuit with some surprisingly large tournaments in these areas. Unfortunately, the state championship remains caught in the grips of the bizarre Panasonic format and Panasonic die-hards control the State Department of Education. Still not many signs of good quizbowl in the Orlando, Tampa, and Jacksonville areas either.

Georgia: B
Good quizbowl maintains a strong presence in the Atlanta Metro area, but the real interest has been the rise of South Georgia in recent years, thanks to a lot of work from Bainbridge and other schools to get a South GA circuit going. GATA has also increasingly adopted more good quizbowl standards, but some strange tendencies remain like the secretive GATA forum, single-elimination at many tournaments, the lack of stat-keeping, and an attitude against the promotion of some good quizbowl tournaments. Strong Chip presence still in the Macon area and few teams from the Savannah and Augusta areas also keep GA from fully reaching its good QB potential.

Hawaii: D+
At least one tournament is better than none, but doesn't seem like much in the way of organized good quizbowl competition exists on the islands. Let's hope that something can come together to build on Iolani's small tournament this year.

Idaho: C-
The Idaho circuit remains alive but hanging by a thread. Outside of the Boise area, there seems to be pretty much nothing and in Boise only a few schools remain consistent quizbowlers. There also seems to be a lot of opportunity for improvement--there's not much getting in the way here it seems besides driving distances. But in a place like Idaho, those distances are considerable and the lack of cross-pollination with other states' circuits is a problem (though Eastern WA and Western MT are possibilities should they get circuits).

Illinois: A-
Illinois is probably the most active state in the country in terms of quizbowl, with hundreds of teams playing good quizbowl questions each year at the Kickoff and Turnabout tournaments. Years of hard work by coaches and players have made Illinois much, much better than it was even a few years ago. Unfortunately, the state championship run by IHSA still has major problems, which keeps IL from reaching a full A-level, as well as a few isolated holdout leagues on bad questions (thanks, Questions Galore). But an excellent NAQT state championship as well as the increasingly solid Masonic State tournament make up for most of Illinois' quizbowl flaws.

Indiana: C
Indiana is overall a bit of a quizbowl wasteland, but there are some bright spots. The Rotary State Championship is now run on good questions, even if it lacks attendance. The northern part of the state merges well with the Michigan and Chicagoland circuits, but otherwise there's little good to talk about a lots of bad leagues and questions. Again, there are out-of-state opportunities and in-state ones if people were willing to run them since there don't seem to be too many bureaucratic barriers, but a long period of dormancy will be hard to wake Indiana out of in the future.

Iowa: D+
Sadly, Iowa seems to have been in the decline over the last few years with the end of teams and tournaments at many of the local colleges (other than a unique ONLY NAQT Iowa Stateprogram) eliminating some of the few good QB hosts in the state. A few teams do attend good quizbowl nationals, but the dominance of Chip along the I-35 corridor hurts. This may change by next year though with the arrival of the former Greenville (IL) coach and some other intrepid individuals, who could easily build on Iowa's strong tradition of quizbowl participation to make a really solid circuit. I expect and hope to see this grade dramatically increase by next year.

Kansas, the "North Korea of Quizbowl": F
There's not much more to say about the sad state of quizbowl in Kansas other than what's been said in this thread, but like Arkansas (and North Korea), if the current regime fell there's a lot of potential there for a great state with high levels of participation and competition.

Kentucky: C+
Kentucky is maddening since it has many, many teams but the dominance of "Quick Recall" and KAAC always puts good quizbowl in danger of losing to bad quizbowl at nearly every school. This makes it hard to keep teams in good quizbowl from year-to-year since so much of the focus is on the bad quizbowl tournaments. Good quizbowl does have a fairly strong geographic footprint across the state, thanks to people at UK, WKU, and UofL, and there are plenty of opportunities to compete in nearby states as well. The Goldenrod Cup is a great idea and hopefully more progress will be made next year.

Louisiana: C+
The Pelican State features an increasing number of opportunities, with Louisiana Tech building a fledgling Northern circuit and Tulane and some of the NOLA schools working on the South. But it's still a Chip bastion and success in getting teams to good quizbowl tournaments doesn't seem to have translated into building an effective good quizbowl state organization or in pushing back some bad quizbowl tendencies still lurking among the bayous.

Maine: D-
No sign of any real competition. Somehow organized a Panasonic team to go to NTAE a few years ago. Perhaps the silence of the Maine Woods absorbs all communication about quizbowl?

Maryland: B-
It's Academic dominates a lot of the DC and Baltimore metro area, but there are a number of long-running solid quizbowl attendees that help break up the tyranny of goofy old-school bad quizbowl. Johns Hopkins running a good tournament and a number of northern MD tournaments playing on NAQT questions are both solid signs of progress. There's still a strong lack of penetration or a real statewide org, but the plethora of competition opportunities (almost too many in some cases) help make up for that.

Massachusetts: C+
While Mass. teams have made a lot of progress, thanks to some concerted outreach efforts by college folk in Cambridge, there's still quite a long way to go. One unique thing that's helpful in the Boston area is that the local bad quizbowl TV show people seem to want to encourage good quizbowl rather than oppose it (even if they won't change their questions). There are an increasing number of options of tournaments to attend, from MIT to Harvard at the college level to Lexington and others at the HS level. Almost nothing outside of the Boston area, however, and at lot of potential to expand still in the Boston area. I expect them to be on the upswing next year though, especially if a solid state organization can come together.

Michigan: B
A solid B for Michigan, which has tons of teams with a lot of good quizbowl, but an unusually high amount of bad quizbowl as well. The state championship unfortunately seems to have gone back to being a bad quizbowl fest and there remain a stunning number of local schools and leagues still doing bad quizbowl. Across much of the Detroit area, however, good quizbowl dominates and solid yearly tournaments in the area give plenty of opportunities for teams. The Upper Peninsula and the far north tip of the Panhandle have some TV tournaments that run NAQT (albeit only a few games for most teams), but most teams seem to attend bad quizbowl invitationals and nationals. It's odd that there's a lack of an effective state organization here with a large number of long-running programs here.

Minnesota: B-
Within the Twin Cities area, it's an A thanks to the efforts of NAQT and others in MNQB to have a solid slate of tournaments, even if a few are so big they have to be run on single-elim. But outside the metro area, somehow, the AUK has taken root. This has resulted accordingly in a lack of good quizbowl tournaments outside the Twin Cities and a stubborn insistence from the rural areas to stick to bad quizbowl. Will be interesting to see if good quizbowl can take root outside of the Twin Cities in the future--perhaps if more college teams could help host.

Mississippi: D+
Murrah's annual tournament is about the only good quizbowl tournament consistently held in Mississippi, but there are some teams that go compete out of state. Unfortunately, within the state the major tournaments that draw dozens of teams are almost all horrible bad quizbowl, with hoses and misdirection and trivia as well as a lack of transparent rules. A lot of potential though, like some of its fellow Southern states, if these teams switched to good questions. Hopefully more schools will start to host good QB tournaments here in the future to take advantage of the large number of active teams.

Missouri: B+
MSHSAA is still a drag, but the questions have improved and there's good coverage throughout much of the state of good quizbowl, including in some rural areas. The Missouri River valley is still the most fertile source of teams (though St. Louis seems to have oddly declined in recent years from some very tall heights a few years ago) and the work of the MOQBA has helped coordinate a large number of good QB tournaments across the state. Overall a good situation to be in and with a few more changes in MSHSAA and some continued geographic expansion to other areas of the state, a good shot at moving up.

Montana: D
One tournament on good questions that kind of sort of reports stats? No teams besides Frenchtown that seem to know good quizbowl? AUK tournaments or worse everywhere else? Yep, it's a bad state of affairs in the Big Sky state.

Nebraska: D+
Another state with massive potential in terms of the number of teams, but also near-blanket coverage of bad quizbowl thanks to our good friend the AUK. Omaha North attending HSNCT this year was neat to see as was their league using NAQT questions during the year. There's not much potential for NE teams to really go out of state though unless Iowa gets some more good tournaments going on along the Missouri River.

Nevada: D+
Varsity Quiz in Vegas, Academic Olympics in Reno, many random local leagues that don't seem to use very good questions...oh wait, Academic Olympics may be using NAQT questions and more teams are learning a bit about NAQT in the area? There may be hope at last for Nevada. There are many teams here who currently play bad speedcheck questions, so the Las Vegas and Reno areas seem ripe for expansion if they got some dedicated good quizbowl people in there to get those teams to good tournaments or to reform the leagues more fully.

New Hampshire: D-
A couple of schools seem to have achieved awareness of good quizbowl, but the state tournament remains poor, good quizbowl teams (outside of honorary Vermont team Hanover) few, and not much else is going on in the Granite State.

New Jersey: B
NJ is a bizarre patchwork of good and bad quizbowl existing side-by-side in some areas, with an array of bad quizbowl from ancient Jeopardy!-style tournaments to Chip teams to "Academic Challenge" and others. A few parts of the state have almost no competition, such as Atlantic City. However, where good quizbowl is popular it's very popular--Northern NJ has many big tournaments and plenty of opportunities for teams to compete around most of the state and within easy driving distance out of state. There's a strong NAQT state tournament, but not much in the way of coordinated quizbowl organization besides that.

New Mexico: D
Earth to New Mexico--do you read us? It's quizbowl. We exist. Please verify your existence. Some AUK-friendly stuff around Las Cruces, along with occasional overlap to the El Paso NAQT stuff there, but besides that there's little info.

New York: C+
The Chip Presence is strong here, throughout Long Island and into Westchester County still. There are good quizbowl teams and tournaments, but the overwhelming stench of Questions Unlimited covers most of the NY Metro area. I'm still astounded at how few teams there are in the NYC area considering the sheer number of schools, but there is a solid, if unspectacular, circuit and a good number of good tournaments in the region. Masterminds is making improvements upstate, though there's still a ways to go in the Hudson Valley with many schools and in getting Masterminds teams to good quizbowl.

North Carolina: B
There are opportunities across the state, but Western NC and Eastern NC seem to have fewer competitions, with the majority in the Charlotte and Research Triangle area. The state organization is, by many accounts, a little weird and restricting, but perhaps somewhat useful to promoting new competition. Perhaps the most limiting thing here is the number of teams--there just don't seem to be as many as there ought to be for a state of this size, especially in the Charlotte-Mecklenberg area.

North Dakota: D
Another state mostly lacking in competition opportunities and pretty far from any other competitions. There doesn't necessarily seem to be a lot of bad quizbowl, just a lack of competitions outside of every now and then something in the Fargo area. Previous NAQT attempts to run things here didn't seem to stick.

Ohio: B-
I'll stand by something I said a long time ago: "Ohio has a somewhat fractured quizbowl circuit, with a few small pockets of intense competition (like in Mahoning County) and with the rest scattered around the state." But those previously very fractured subcircuits have lately started to come together a bit more often, thanks in part to people working on OAC to add more participation even if a lot of weird practices remain. There's still a lack of coverage in areas like the Southwest and even in relatively active areas the circuit isn't as deep as it should be outside of maybe the Cleveland area--a few key departures of coaches and some whole circuits could collapse.

Oklahoma: C
A fair number of good quizbowl tournaments, but also many bad tournaments and teams plus a terrible state organization that encourages bad quizbowl and the NAC in particular. Still, there are opportunities here for teams to play and a few of the better teams appear to have seen the light, though the loss of some college teams here has hurt the hosting circuit and left tournament sizes fairly small.

Oregon: D+
A couple of tournaments sort of materialize around Grants Pass using NAQT questions, but nothing seems solid yet. The Willamette Valley would seemingly be fertile territory for good quizbowl expansion and Westview, an HSNCT attendee, could get something going in the Portland area. Can we get hipsters to take a liking to quizbowl?

Pennsylvania: B-
By far the most diverse state in terms of levels of quality quizbowl, ranging from the offensively horrendous Pennsylvania State Academic Competition to a number of excellent good quizbowl tournaments and burgeoning circuits. Some areas have strong leagues that play on good questions, others have almost nothing or just bad quizbowl questions and even some NAC holdouts. Pittsburgh and the Philly suburbs anchor the two most active areas, but there are an increasing number of pockets of good competition across the state.

Rhode Island: D
Brown seems an island of amid an Ocean State of quizbowl nothingness. There are driveable tournaments nearby and I'm sure Brown would love to host more high school events, but until something changes there ain't much here.

South Carolina: C
SC quizbowl has seen better days. Still some decent good quizbowl coverage upstate, anchored by Dorman and occasionally some college or other programs, but the central area of the state around Columbia has little going on (a decline from the glory days of Aiken and Irmo years ago). The coastal areas are curiously lacking in good quizbowl both here and in NC and GA, so it's a little hard for burgeoning teams from those areas to get to good tournaments. No sign of an effective state organization here either.

South Dakota: C-
There is a yearly tournament in Sioux Falls on NAQT sets that attracts a decent field, but none of those teams seem to have a desire to do more and the champion is often an Iowa team. Little going on here in the way of good quizbowl to the West, with some scattered bad quizbowl leagues including in the Black Hills. Distance is a big problem here--until Iowa gets a solid circuit going, the only consistent hosts of good quizbowl tournaments seem to be in Minneapolis or Kansas City--both just too far away.

Tennessee: B-
A tale of three regions. West TN is unfortunately mired in the AUKiness of Knowledge Bowl, but there are a few schools keeping the good quizbowl banner up there and hosting good tournaments. Middle TN is the most active region and contains pretty much all of the official "state" organization, TACA, that runs a limited state championship on good questions but with weird rules. There aren't many barriers to participating in good quizbowl in East TN, but there seems to be a lot of inertia keeping teams from fully embracing it and some ancient bad-quizbowl tournaments that haven't died. The loss of UTC as a consistent HS host was a blow to participation. Lots of potential if college teams can be re-started (at the UTs) or weened off a nasty trivia/trash addiction (Vandy).

Texas: B+
Texas Quizbowl has made great strides over the past few years by establishing solid circuits in the Houston, Austin, and San Antonio areas and a very well-organized state tournament, but there's still a lack of coverage in East Texas, North Texas, and West Texas. While the top teams are some of the best in the country, there's still not enough depth all the way down in terms of tapping the huge potential fields of teams. In the far west, El Paso is one of the most bizarre regions in all of quizbowl--lots of tournaments on NAQT questions, but the teams all go to ChipBowl and seem to not have any contact with the rest of the state, much less the quizbowl world. An increasing number of tournaments in the Dallas area bodes well for the future, but still much more that could be done to increase opportunities statewide.

Utah: D
There are indications of bad QB leagues scattered throughout some of the state, but no major barriers seem to exist if a school did want to run good quizbowl, especially in one of the more heavily populated areas. Whatever used to be at BYU and in a few schools the ventured up into Idaho seems to have dissipated.

Vermont: B+
The state format is odd with the many shortened after-school matches, but it seems to make sense for the largely rural state, with lots of schools far from each other and winter closings potentially affecting tournaments. Pretty much every tournament here seems to be on NAQT questions though there aren't that many tournaments throughout the year and almost no Saturday invitationals on housewrites or more difficult sets. Coverage seems to be fairly good in terms of participation overall for one of the smallest states.

Virginia: B
VHSL is great. But given that so many schools play at least some good quizbowl each year, the absence of those schools at circuit events is surprising. The circuit is very top-heavy with a few schools dominating many tournaments and a lack of depth of quizbowl in the NoVA area especially compared to the schools there. Perhaps even more surprising is that Virginia Beach seems to be lacking entirely in any form of good quizbowl. Outside of the Richmond-Charlottesville-Vienna axis, there's the Blacksburg/Cave Spring circuit, but that's somewhat isolated. Definitely much more potential here.

Washington: D+
Knowledge Bowl wraps the state of Washington in a warm blanket of bad quizbowl terribleness and only a few plaintive cries of good quizbowl can be heard around the Seattle area. The few UW tournaments do get some teams, but the field sizes are tiny and Knowledge Bowl's dominating stature and ties to the NAC help ensure that only bad quizbowl gets a hearing from the vast majority of schools in the state. Would be neat to see if something around Spokane could emerge to at least provide an opportunity beyond the Scablands.

West Virginia: C+
Somewhat of a backpedal from previous years that featured even larger fields and more good quizbowl tournaments, but there is still a state championship and there are multiple tournaments on good quizbowl questions. Unfortunately, there are also unique WV rules and a stubborn insistence on bad quizbowl in too many areas.

Wisconsin: C-
The Badger State is a sleeping giant potentially, with only a few bad QB leagues in some areas and a widely scattered circuit that's starting to see more good quizbowl tournaments every year. The Milwaukee area has easy access to Chicagoland tournaments and schools here seem interested. Good potential, but still no real organization at this point.

Wyoming: F
Similar story to the Dakotas and Montana--huge distances, a state org that uses AUK, and no sign of good quizbowl from the Tetons to Cheyenne. Interestingly, the AUK champion of the state plays the Montana AUK champion each year. Academic Hallmarks must be tickled.
Last edited by cchiego on Thu Jul 09, 2015 9:21 am, edited 5 times in total.
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by Fado Alexandrino »

No love for Ontario?
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by jonah »

The Last 21 Stanley Cup Winners wrote:No love for Ontario?
Did he say "The Province of Good Quizbowl"?!
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by mahir256 »

Image

I put together a map using the information given. You may hijack and modify it as you wish. The full version is here.

EDIT: made the color scheme coherent, uploaded to the wiki, and embedded the file

NOTE: no rating for the territories and DC was given as of this edit.
Last edited by mahir256 on Thu Jul 09, 2015 7:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by bsmith »

The Last 21 Stanley Cup Winners wrote:No love for Ontario?
No love for Alberta, Joe?

Anyway, Ontario's situation has similarities to the descriptions of Arizona, Delaware, and New York, so I'd say C+. Alberta seems like Nebraska or Washington, so I'd say D+. "F" seems to be reserved for actual malice against good quizbowl, so the rest of the provinces just get a D-.
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by cchiego »

Edited to add information about Michigan and South Dakota, resulting in a change to South Dakota's rating from D- to C-. Any additional helpful information is appreciated!
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by UlyssesInvictus »

This is a great write-up--are you planning on doing D.C. and Puerto Rico as well? (Or even Guam, or our Northern Neighbors, as Joe and Ben already mentioned.)
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by Skepticism and Animal Feed »

I have learned more about high school quizbowl from this post than I have in the last 11 years of reading HSQB.
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by matthewspatrick »

Everyone from a "blue" state who expected the only state to get an A to be Alabama, raise your hands...
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by cchiego »

A quick check by region (with 1 for F, 12 for A, etc.) shows the following:

South Average: 7.2
South Median: C+

West Average: 3.8
West Median: D+

Midwest Average: 7.6
Midwest Median: B-

Northeast Average: 6.3
Northeast Median: C+

US Average: 5.92
US Median: C

I have no plans to include non-states in the ratings, but I do hope to update these next year and compare their progress compared to these initial grades. Really hoping for more progress around the country next year!
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by Good Goblin Housekeeping »

mahir256 wrote:I put together a map using the information given. If you at least embed it in your original post afterwards, that others may have a quick overview at the beginning, you may hijack and modify it as you wish.
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by Aaron's Rod »

Does this make Arkansas/Kansas/Wyoming the axis of evil? Although I don't really see a difference between Montana and Wyoming here.
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by cchiego »

Aaron's Rod wrote:Does this make Arkansas/Kansas/Wyoming the axis of evil? Although I don't really see a difference between Montana and Wyoming here.
Frenchtown (MT) hosted two NAQT tournaments, although the stats are oddly reported.

The official state and regional tournaments for Montana though appear to be fully AUKed (i.e. using Academic Hallmarks and things like a weird written round), which brings down what would otherwise be a higher score.

Wyoming, in contrast, I could only find info for the state AUK championship and no evidence of pyramidal questions, ever. Reminds me more of, say, Eritrea than a real Axis of Evil member since it's so small and not well known.
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by t-bar »

This post is pretty great. A thing that I've always found impressive in Chris Chiego's outreach work is his encyclopedic knowledge of specific local quizbowl circuits and competitions, even (especially) those that aren't well publicized on this board. Thanks, Chris, for sharing this information with the rest of us in this convenient summary!
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by The Stately Rhododendron »

cchiego wrote:Connecticut: C+
Yale's high school tournaments anchor a small but growing group of teams playing good quizbowl in the Constitution State. There's still a strong lack of penetration into many of the urban areas, but the Middlesex/Darien pipeline seems to be growing a stellar team there and longtime standbys like EO Smith are continuing to help prop up a respectable, if intermittent circuit. Tournaments this year seemed to feature more CT teams than ever before, but more state-wide structure and outreach in general would help since they're starting from a very small base.
I'm planning to try to do some (Yale sponsored) outreach in New Haven this coming academic year.
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by Habitat_Against_Humanity »

The Stately Rhododendron wrote:
cchiego wrote:Connecticut: C+
Yale's high school tournaments anchor a small but growing group of teams playing good quizbowl in the Constitution State. There's still a strong lack of penetration into many of the urban areas, but the Middlesex/Darien pipeline seems to be growing a stellar team there and longtime standbys like EO Smith are continuing to help prop up a respectable, if intermittent circuit. Tournaments this year seemed to feature more CT teams than ever before, but more state-wide structure and outreach in general would help since they're starting from a very small base.
I'm planning to try to do some (Yale sponsored) outreach in New Haven this coming academic year.
If you are planning on looking in the New Haven area (though I don't know about NHPS itself), I might have a few teacher friends in nearby places like Branford and Trumbull that might be useful contacts.
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by AKKOLADE »

cchiego wrote:Virginia: B
VHSL is great. But given that so many schools play at least some good quizbowl each year, the absence of those schools at circuit events is surprising. The circuit is very top-heavy with a few schools dominating many tournaments and a lack of depth of quizbowl in the NoVA area especially compared to the schools there. Perhaps even more surprising is that Virginia Beach seems to be lacking entirely in any form of good quizbowl. Outside of the Richmond-Charlottesville-Vienna axis, there's the Blacksburg/Cave Spring circuit, but that's somewhat isolated. Definitely much more potential here.
I really don't get the dismissal of VHSL here. It is very comparable with ASCA and uses HSAPQ questions, so it's good stuff.
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by Cheynem »

I don't think Chris is saying the VHSL questions are bad at all.
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by Whiter Hydra »

Stefan HSQBRankovich wrote:
cchiego wrote:Virginia: B
VHSL is great. But given that so many schools play at least some good quizbowl each year, the absence of those schools at circuit events is surprising. The circuit is very top-heavy with a few schools dominating many tournaments and a lack of depth of quizbowl in the NoVA area especially compared to the schools there. Perhaps even more surprising is that Virginia Beach seems to be lacking entirely in any form of good quizbowl. Outside of the Richmond-Charlottesville-Vienna axis, there's the Blacksburg/Cave Spring circuit, but that's somewhat isolated. Definitely much more potential here.
I really don't get the dismissal of VHSL here. It is very comparable with ASCA and uses HSAPQ questions, so it's good stuff.
It's not so much VHSL as it is the declining number of teams attending tournaments. Only three circuit events in Virginia drew fields of over 18 teams (with the largest at 28), while back in high school we would regularly go to tournaments with 24-48 teams.
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by Ithaca Cricket Ump »

Masterminds is making improvements upstate, though there's still a ways to go in the Hudson Valley with many schools and in getting Masterminds teams to good quizbowl.
It's not like they haven't been reached out to, on multiple occasions. A lot of MasterMinds coaches seem to consider Saturday tournaments as "extra work" that they're not getting compensated for, so they tend not to show up all that much. There are a few exceptions. Geneva has had back-to-back playoff appearances and top 25 finishes at SSNCT, and will be playing circuit tournaments starting this year. The two-time defending MasterMinds champions, Bethlehem, were the best team in all of New York state last year (by a small margin when it was just Eric Wolfsberg playing solo, by a larger one on the few occasions when the actual full A team showed up to stuff), and the runners up to them, Brighton, didn't attend HSNCT (after their top player, David Kilbridge, gave full-strength Ithaca A two close games in the Cornell tournament, playing solo) only because they didn't even find out about HSNCT's EXISTENCE until I talked with David about it at Cornell, and couldn't find chaperones to accompany them to Chicago in time (their coach, who refused to chaperone them to Chicago, is apparently pretty close to useless even in MM and has no interest in real quizbowl whatsoever). They'll be playing circuit tournaments this coming year, but it'll be the students themselves attending in conjunction with parents. Their approximate strength is probably about 5-5 HSNCT / borderline playoffs if they got a good draw. Ithaca, who have the best PROGRAM in upstate NY, by far, do not and will not participate in MasterMinds because 1) of its prohibitive cost, and 2) they already play good metro NYC tournaments, BB Fall, Bull Bowl, etc., every year - playing an A set competition isn't going to develop them at all.

MasterMinds teams do show up to tournaments like BrainBusters Fall and Bull Bowl occasionally and are generally competitive unless they get drawn against Bethlehem or Ithaca, who tend to annihilate them (Brighton being the exception) simply because they're vastly more familiar with the canon and MasterMinds is played on only novice-level (A set) questions. Also, at the moment, Eric and the Ithaca guys simply take quizbowl more seriously than the MasterMinds teams do and work harder to improve (although Geneva and Brighton are making strides in this area). The non-Bethlehem teams are not going to WIN any tournaments where the upstate powers show up, but the better ones could certainly qualify for HSNCT or SSNCT.

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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by Kyle »

I really enjoyed Chris's post. I don't want to seem unappreciative of his hard work by immediately asking for more, but I'd be very curious to see something similar written up about middle school quizbowl (a game whose state I don't understand at all and which I have never seen in person). In particular, I'm curious how much there is a correlation between states with good high school quizbowl and states with good middle school quizbowl.
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by AKKOLADE »

Public safety diving wrote:
Stefan HSQBRankovich wrote:
cchiego wrote:Virginia: B
VHSL is great. But given that so many schools play at least some good quizbowl each year, the absence of those schools at circuit events is surprising. The circuit is very top-heavy with a few schools dominating many tournaments and a lack of depth of quizbowl in the NoVA area especially compared to the schools there. Perhaps even more surprising is that Virginia Beach seems to be lacking entirely in any form of good quizbowl. Outside of the Richmond-Charlottesville-Vienna axis, there's the Blacksburg/Cave Spring circuit, but that's somewhat isolated. Definitely much more potential here.
I really don't get the dismissal of VHSL here. It is very comparable with ASCA and uses HSAPQ questions, so it's good stuff.
It's not so much VHSL as it is the declining number of teams attending tournaments. Only three circuit events in Virginia drew fields of over 18 teams (with the largest at 28), while back in high school we would regularly go to tournaments with 24-48 teams.
Right, but if practically every school in the state has a team playing VHSL, who cares about invitational fields shrinking by 6 for the purposes of this study?

I can find other shortcomings with this list that I don't have time to write up right now, but it was an interesting and good read all the same. Thanks for doing it, Chris.
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by i never see pigeons in wheeling »

Kyle wrote:I really enjoyed Chris's post. I don't want to seem unappreciative of his hard work by immediately asking for more, but I'd be very curious to see something similar written up about middle school quizbowl (a game whose state I don't understand at all and which I have never seen in person). In particular, I'm curious how much there is a correlation between states with good high school quizbowl and states with good middle school quizbowl.
I would venture to say that there hasn't been enough time elapsed since the inception of good middle school quiz bowl to collect good time series data on its effect on high school quiz bowl. Jeff Hoppes can probably pose some excellent insights on this topic for NorCal.
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by Kyle »

i never see pigeons in wheeling wrote:
Kyle wrote:I really enjoyed Chris's post. I don't want to seem unappreciative of his hard work by immediately asking for more, but I'd be very curious to see something similar written up about middle school quizbowl (a game whose state I don't understand at all and which I have never seen in person). In particular, I'm curious how much there is a correlation between states with good high school quizbowl and states with good middle school quizbowl.
I would venture to say that there hasn't been enough time elapsed since the inception of good middle school quiz bowl to collect good time series data on its effect on high school quiz bowl. Jeff Hoppes can probably pose some excellent insights on this topic for NorCal.
Well, I don't care that much about cause and effect; that's something we can worry about in a few years. But for now, how about this question: are there any states that get poor grades above that would get higher grades for middle school?
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by Important Bird Area »

I'm quite certain that every state in the country would get lower grades for middle school quizbowl prevalence compared to high school.
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by merv1618 »

bird bird bird bird bird wrote:I'm quite certain that every state in the country would get lower grades for middle school quizbowl prevalence compared to high school.
Illinois might not. Their MS circuit on decent questions is absurd, though I'm not 100% sure how IHSA factors in to it.
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by Adventure Temple Trail »

This is quite a comprehensive post. While I don't agree with all of its analysis (I second Fred's incredulity about the attitude towards VHSL, which 270 teams play every year, and have other pockets of optimism/pessimism elsewhere), I am really glad to see the entire outreach picture laid out in one place. Thank you, Chris.

The main thing I learn from this post is that the attitude towards the success of good quizbowl I projected in my "Big Vision" posts from last summer was far, far too optimistic, perhaps because I've been at or close to the center(s) of well-established good quizbowl for so much of my playing (and outreach-making) career. As such, I've seen a lot of the progress among teams and circuits who are serious enough to try to attend national championships -- a group which has exploded in size during my time in the game at all levels of play -- but don't know as much as I should about the broader picture beyond that group of at max 272 teams. There's much yet to do.

To speak up for the non-state I love most: If you're not going to take a look at Washington DC, at least lump it in with Maryland or something.
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by Stained Diviner »

merv1618 wrote:
bird bird bird bird bird wrote:I'm quite certain that every state in the country would get lower grades for middle school quizbowl prevalence compared to high school.
Illinois might not. Their MS circuit on decent questions is absurd, though I'm not 100% sure how IHSA factors in to it.
Middle school quizbowl in Illinois is less prevalent and of generally lower quality than high school quizbowl in Illinois. Part of that is due to the scarcity of good questions, but that's not the only reason. Also, the IHSA Tournament is better than the IESA Tournament. Seriously.

I don't want to be too critical of middle school quizbowl in Illinois, which does have some good tournaments and good teams. That being said, Jeff is probably correct.
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by merv1618 »

Yellow-throated Honeyeater wrote:
merv1618 wrote:
bird bird bird bird bird wrote:I'm quite certain that every state in the country would get lower grades for middle school quizbowl prevalence compared to high school.
Illinois might not. Their MS circuit on decent questions is absurd, though I'm not 100% sure how IHSA factors in to it.
Middle school quizbowl in Illinois is less prevalent and of generally lower quality than high school quizbowl in Illinois. Part of that is due to the scarcity of good questions, but that's not the only reason. Also, the IHSA Tournament is better than the IESA Tournament. Seriously.

I don't want to be too critical of middle school quizbowl in Illinois, which does have some good tournaments and good teams. That being said, Jeff is probably correct.
Well, it's not like I've never been wrong before on here.
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by cchiego »

There are multiple issues with VA and VHSL that kept me from giving it a higher grade. First, I had a very hard time finding results from anything less than state in VHSL, where it looked like there were very small pools that actually determined the championships and didn't seem to necessarily indicate that good quizbowl had attained the potential depth that a state like VA ought to have. I graded each state on a curve compared to its potential--VA's under-performance in terms of producing quizbowl teams compared to its potential number of schools and regions worked against its ratings. Second, the top VHSL teams seemed to pretty much be the few major quizbowl Saturday tournament attendees--it didn't seem like VHSL was necessarily reaching all corners of the state in getting new teams involved at any level outside of VHSL. Furthermore, as mentioned above, despite VHSL participation many of the teams involved in VHSL didn't seem to attend many or any other quizbowl tournaments. In other states, it seemed like teams that attended the regional championships also participated in other local good quizbowl tournaments. Finally, considering the plethora of potentially competitive teams in Virginia, the lack of full or even majority participation by many of these teams and the large geographic gaps in the areas covered by them worked against VA's rating. Just having a "state championship" that's on good quizbowl questions isn't enough to merit a state a good score--it depends on, like I said above, the other factors as well.
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by Zealots of Stockholm »

As a quiz bowl player from Alabama myself, I was initially shocked to see Alabama receive an A as a whole, until I read the review for the other 49 states. My only personal complaint of our state would be that ASCA still insists on using worksheets..
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by fett0001 »

cchiego wrote:There are multiple issues with VA and VHSL that kept me from giving it a higher grade. First, I had a very hard time finding results from anything less than state in VHSL, where it looked like there were very small pools that actually determined the championships and didn't seem to necessarily indicate that good quizbowl had attained the potential depth that a state like VA ought to have. I graded each state on a curve compared to its potential--VA's under-performance in terms of producing quizbowl teams compared to its potential number of schools and regions worked against its ratings. Second, the top VHSL teams seemed to pretty much be the few major quizbowl Saturday tournament attendees--it didn't seem like VHSL was necessarily reaching all corners of the state in getting new teams involved at any level outside of VHSL. Furthermore, as mentioned above, despite VHSL participation many of the teams involved in VHSL didn't seem to attend many or any other quizbowl tournaments. In other states, it seemed like teams that attended the regional championships also participated in other local good quizbowl tournaments. Finally, considering the plethora of potentially competitive teams in Virginia, the lack of full or even majority participation by many of these teams and the large geographic gaps in the areas covered by them worked against VA's rating. Just having a "state championship" that's on good quizbowl questions isn't enough to merit a state a good score--it depends on, like I said above, the other factors as well.
The other problem with VHSL is that the district level doesn't require the use of good questions.
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by Cody »

fett0001 wrote:The other problem with VHSL is that the district level doesn't require the use of good questions.
It's not required but, as far as I remember, every single district (or all but one) that offers Scholastic Bowl uses HSAPQ questions. The use of bad questions is basically non-existent, to my knowledge.
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by mithokie »

Most VHSL districts and/or conferences use the HSAPQ supplied VHSL questions for regular season play. There are a few districts that use archaic formats for their regular seasons and that is a problem. Another problem is that the volume of play form VHSL varies widely from school to school. At my previous position at Auburn HS, there was not any regular season play at all, and the district tournament was double elimination, so the bottom two teams entire season consisted of losing two matches and never competing again. At my current school, we have a regular season consisting of a minimum of 14 matches, 7 that count in district standings and 7 "practice" matches. Our conference tournament is also round robin. So the bottom teams from my current district are playing a minimum of 19 matches throughout the course of the year.

VHSL Scholastic Bowl does not have a historical pattern of posting results anywhere at all. I would like to see that change, but I don't know how to get that going. I believe that all results are reported to HSAPQ eventually, but have not ever seen them posted anywhere. Does HSAPQ get all of the results? Would they be willing to let me or someone else in Virginia with SQBS skills have access to the data, so that results can be published on-line?

In our area, we have three (Blacksburg, Christiansburg, Cave Spring) very active schools that play nearly all tournaments in the area. There are a number of other schools that come to tournaments occasionally. The size of fields has gone down considerably over the last few years, but the number of events has increased dramatically as well. If you counted up the total number of matches played at invitational tournaments in Virginia during 2015, it is not clear to me that this would necessarily be smaller than the total number played in Virginia during 2010 or some other year that had large field sizes.
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by Howard »

Public safety diving wrote:It's not so much VHSL as it is the declining number of teams attending tournaments. Only three circuit events in Virginia drew fields of over 18 teams (with the largest at 28), while back in high school we would regularly go to tournaments with 24-48 teams.
I've repeatedly posted for a number of years about the declining numbers of teams at tournaments in the DC metro area, but have been basically told that the few bright spots (like VHSL, which should be applauded) make this unimportant.
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by Ben Dillon »

Indiana will probably not warrant higher than a C grade until Chip retires and/or QUnlimited folds its tent. Teams in the Indianapolis-based league *prefer* and even *like* the QU format over any pyramidal-style. Harrison's coach says NAQT questions are gender-biased; she often has girls come out of games and tell her that "my questions weren't asked". And, unfortunately, they've had success at it: Harrison has won NAC twice, another team from that league, Zionsville, also won, and Harrison has won the JV title more than once.
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by tuscumbiaqb »

Ben Dillon wrote: Harrison's coach says NAQT questions are gender-biased; she often has girls come out of games and tell her that "my questions weren't asked".
That's a new one for me. Do you know what kinds of questions she's referring to?
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by Maury Island incident »

At least she has female players, which is a bigger deal than it should be for quizbowl. I, too am curious as to what this "gender bias" constitutes.
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by bdavery »

And I would be curious to know what exactly Chip asks that would cause girls to think of his stuff as gender-unbiased...
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock »

bdavery wrote:And I would be curious to know what exactly Chip asks that would cause girls to think of his stuff as gender-unbiased...
Well, I do remember at least 1 or 2 women's hair care questions making an appearance last year in my former local league, which sadly uses Chip questions.
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by dollmi »

When I coached our team in a league that played QU and we attended NAC, I made a packet of "girly things" for them to study. It was a packet filled with terms related to cooking, clothing, dance, etc. Our team has always been predominantly male, and that was a weakness.

At NAC one year, I remember one of our teams not sweeping a lightning round because of a question on pantyhose.
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by vishdog101 »

I'm just surprised Texas didn't get an A to an A-. They have programs almost unmatched anywhere else, and disgraces such as Chip Bowl are usually disregarded for
NAQT IS sets. Heck, the middle school teams here could probably wreck the competition at a tournament outside of TX(exceptions being Illinois, New York, New Jersey, and Virginia),
and Prep Bowl @Strake Jesuit has been running strong for 42 YEARS AND COUNTING. With at least 3 new programs established per season, you have to admit that TX Quiz Bowl is very
strong and continues to grow in size and strength. As mentioned, the top teams in TX are usually to the top teams at HSNCT/MSNCT/SSNCT and have to actually FIGHT for the same nationals berths that mediocre teams in smaller states(Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Arkansas) get easily because of how shallow the pools are at competitions. TX still has flaws, but they're diminutive in comparison to it's upsides.
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by etchdulac »

vishdog101 wrote:I'm just surprised Texas didn't get an A to an A-.
We appreciate the positive recognition we received from Chris, but acknowledge our work is far from done here.
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by Dantooine is Big! »

cchiego wrote:Illinois: A- Unfortunately, the state championship run by IHSA still has major problems, which keeps IL from reaching a full A-level, as well as a few isolated holdout leagues on bad questions (thanks, Questions Galore).
God, IHSA makes me sad. I know we don't really have much to complain about in Illinois considering how good the non-IHSA and non-mid-to-south circuit is, but I would really love to see the quality of the IHSA circuit be as good as basically every other tournament we have during the year. I have no idea what kinds of efforts have been made so far in this regard (other than, well, you know) nor what it would take to really fix IHSA scholastic bowl, though, so I guess I can't really talk.
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by AKKOLADE »

Pulling this out of the gutter: does anyone know if Nebraska has moved toward good questions?
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by Ciorwrong »

Also: will these grades be updated? I know Michigan's B grade inspired me to put some work into getting the state tournament questions back on the pyramidal style versus the garbage KMO of 2015 and 2016.
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by cchiego »

AKKOLADE wrote:Pulling this out of the gutter: does anyone know if Nebraska has moved toward good questions?
A few of the ESUs (Educational Service Units) that run tournaments in the interior of the state seem to have experimented on NAQT questions over the years, but it hasn't really stuck and most seem to be firmly AUK AUK AUK.

The Omaha-area tournaments that feature a different set of teams outside the ESU orbit also remain almost entirely AUK now (despite a few NAQT tournaments over the border in Iowa now). They also continue to produce some of the NAC's strongest customers.
Progcon wrote:Also: will these grades be updated? I know Michigan's B grade inspired me to put some work into getting the state tournament questions back on the pyramidal style versus the garbage KMO of 2015 and 2016.
That's great to hear! Yes, I am planning an update this summer.
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by Father Comstock »

I shall certainly try my best to get Indiana out of the gutter next year. This year, there were 2 IS-A tourneys, nothing harder, and 3 NAC tourneys, which gets an F from me.
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by AGoodMan »

I wonder if Illinois can now be considered an A state considering the change in the IHSA writing team.
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Re: The State of Good Quizbowl, State-by-State

Post by High Dependency Unit »

An update to this may be a good idea.
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