It's billed as the Parity in Interscholastic Athletics Act.

It aims to level the playing field between public and private schools in big team sports like football, boys and girls basketball, boys and girls soccer, baseball, softball and girls volleyball.

It comes after years and years of cries about the lack of fairness in the PIAA playoff system.

Private schools have no boundaries.

Public schools do.

The two are playing under different rules and the private schools have an unfair advantage.

While that is essentially true, the legislation proposed by state Rep. Aaron Bernstine won't fix it.

Far from it.

In fact, it will make some of the problems that plague the PIAA worse.

Much worse.

First, let's start with the meat of the proposal: forming separate state playoffs for public and private schools.

On the surface, these seems fine and dandy.

Maybe the private schools should have a separate tournament and the idea of the private champion squaring off against the public champion for ultimate bragging rights sounds intriguing.

The problem, though, lies in the elephant in the room.

Charter schools.

Charter schools are considered public schools and are exempt from separation.

Five of the six PIAA boys basketball champions this past winter were private schools. Four of them were charter schools (Lincoln Park, Imhotep Charter, Math Civic and Science and Sankofa Freedom).

It's not difficult to see that this legislation wouldn't have made a bit of difference in the boys' brackets.

Another issue is scheduling.

The number of championship games will triple in each sport.

Again, take basketball for instance. Six classes. Two separate tournaments for public and private schools. That's 24 title games between boys and girls.

Then the 12 public and private school champs will play each other.

That's 36 championship games.

Yikes.

Yes, more schools will have a chance to celebrate a state title, which is a great thing for an athlete and school.

But at what cost? How watered down would that be?

Perhaps the biggest issue with the bill is the elimination of the transfer rule.

Sure, the current transfer rule is exasperating because of the district's involvement. It is entirely left up to judgement whether a student-athlete is transferring for academic or athletic reasons. It often isn't clear-cut and leaves it wide open to interpretation.

The WPIAL has been a big example of this. Some of that body's judgements on transfer eligibility have left many scratching their heads.

This bill would certainly simplify that, but it would also throw the process into chaos.

There would be no stopping a football player from a school like Butler to transfer to a gridiron power down the road like Pine-Richland.

The Golden Tornado would likely never be able to recover.

The rich would get richer. The poor would get poorer. It would be a feeding frenzy by the strong on the weak.

I'm not sure why this is even part of the bill. Perhaps it was compromise to try to get it moved along instead of potentially dying in committee.

I have to agree with PIAA executive director Bob Lombardi, who said the legislation was “poorly crafted at best.”

There has to be a better proposal than this.

Mike Kilroy is a staff writer for the Butler Eagle.