My proposed IHSA distribution

[Stained Diviner]

That is correct, Jonah.

As far as computation is concerned, the old rule was at most 8 computational tossups and 8 computational bonuses. The new rule is 4-6 computational tossups with some specificity over what topics they will be in without any control on computational bonuses.

The only difference the student surveys made was during a discussion over 5 lit/1 language arts vs 4 lit/2 language arts. When we pointed out that half of the students wanted to eliminate language arts, it switched the swing vote over to the 5/1 side. Drivers Ed was discussed specifically for several minutes, with four people voting to keep it. After that, there wasn't much point in discussing the other miscellaneous topics, since the case against Drivers Ed was the strongest.

[Irreligion in Bangladesh]

Overall, I like it, but the 3/3 history is a heaping helping of fail. I definitely think B should be dropped to 1/1 the way C is (but separated as is otherwise) and bump history to 4/4. A little less grating, but still annoying, is the double emphasis art gets over music (which isn't done well at all in IHSA rounds as it is) That said, VERY happy with science and lit.

[jonah]

Oh, Tom Egan pointed out that I missed the restriction of government questions to exclude Illinois-only things by specifying "federal or comparative". Thank god.

[Captain Sinico]

This looks like progress to me. Well done.

Overall, I like it, but the 3/3 history is a heaping helping of fail. I definitely think B should be dropped to 1/1 the way C is (but separated as is otherwise) and bump history to 4/4.

Yeah, I agree with this.

...annoying, is the double emphasis art gets over music...

I don't agree with this, though; it's eminently normal.

[cvdwightw]

Overall, I like it, but the 3/3 history is a heaping helping of fail.

Can someone explain to me exactly who, in Illinois, is of the belief that math is twice as important distribution-wise as history? I'm not familiar with the Illinois curriculum, but my high school only required two years of each (plus, you know, one year of substantive American/European/World for each grade between fifth and eighth), and if they are justifying the existence of such topics as driver's education because of a "standard" high school curriculum (I can see no other rational explanation for keeping Driver's Ed), then they also need to justify this travesty in the same way. I'm not sure that such a thing can be done.

As for the visual/musical arts, I don't think it's as big a discrepancy as you think it is. It strikes me that it will likely be 1/1 or 1/2 or 2/1 painting and 0/1 or 1/0 or 1/1 architecture/sculpture/etc., and 1/1 classical music and 1/0 or 0/1 arts-other (music). This is not that imbalanced.

[Tegan]

(I can see no other rational explanation for keeping Driver's Ed)

Are you kidding!! Driver's ED actually saves lives!!! Human lives!!!! How many lives have been saved by your so called "history" (interrobang).

[Stained Diviner]

The proposal that went to the committee had the social studies split up 4/1/1, and the committee changed it to 3/2/1 by a 4-3 vote. College bound students in Illinois generally take four years of math and four years of social studies. The people on the committee who voted to alter the proposal, who generally are from small rural schools, stated that their schools don't really offer four years of history and that their students often take classes in Government and/or Geography for a year or two instead of History.

This past year, there were 30 US History, 25 World History, 28 Geography, 24 Government, and 5 Current Events questions in the state series, counting tossups and bonuses. Under the new distribution, the US and World History questions will add up to 66, and the other three will add up to 44. I'm not saying this to justify the decision--I spoke out in favor of 4/1/1 myself--but I do want to point out that the new distribution actually is a slight improvement over what we had this past year even in Social Studies, which was the one area where I believe my proposal was changed a bit for the worse.

I'll add that, if you read the distribution closely, the ratio of visual art to music is 9:7. Even if you throw out Musical Theatre, the ratio is closer than 2:1.

[jonah]

College bound students in Illinois generally take four years of math and four years of social studies. The people on the committee who voted to alter the proposal, who generally are from small rural schools, stated that their schools don't really offer four years of history and that their students often take classes in Government and/or Geography for a year or two instead of History.

I think they're right about the curriculum. Personally, I took only two history courses (US and world) in addition to two other social studies courses (economics and political science), and the overwhelming majority of people I know had at most three years of history (lots of people did take modern world history, which I didn't, but very few took the fourth course available, European history). However, that's all irrelevant in my opinion because in that opinion, curricular arguments for distribution stuff are almost universally terrible and should not be made.

[rjaguar3]

Here is the new distribution, as passed by the IHSA Scholastic Bowl Advisory Committee:
...
B. 2/2 taken from two different ones below:
a. Geography
b. Current Events from the past year
c. US & Comparative Government

Just a quick question here, how is this going to work? Does this mean that two of them will get 1/1 and the other will be left out? Or does it mean that there will be 1/1 in one and either 1/0 or 0/1 in the others?

And, just out of curiosity, when do you expect the minutes to be posted on the IHSA website?

[Stained Diviner]

We probably should rephrase that--we kept the wording from when it was 1/1, but now it does not make much sense.

There is a draft of the minutes already circulating among the attendees. They probably will be edited and posted within a week.

[Stained Diviner]

The minutes are up. I want to thank Greg. Even though his proposal was altered many times on the way to passage, the basic idea was maintained and is an improvement over what we had before.

[Maxwell Sniffingwell]

Artistic Dance is gone?

[jonah]

Artistic Dance is gone?

The artistic dance party will commence at Greg's house immediately.

Also, minor detail on those minutes: Grierson is cited as having a New Trier affiliation. If they still can be fixed, that ought to be.