By Keith Groller
The numbers are scrutinized like winning lottery numbers.
As soon as the finalists for the PIAA’s basketball championship games are determined, many fans crunch the numbers to determine how many of the teams headed to the Giant Center are public schools, charter schools or private schools.
The breakdown of the 24 teams going for the gold this week is: 11 public, 11 private, two charter.
But PIAA Executive Director Robert Lombardi doesn’t need new data to know the numbers are disproportionate. He hears about it every day, and the volume is turned up a notch or two every December and March, when the state football and basketball champs are decided.
The dominance of private/charter schools, particularly from Philadelphia, and the controversy over transfers continue to be the PIAA’s hot-button issues.