My son and daughter attend Benet. My daughter is older and not athletic, my son is athletic and does play football. Our factors in choosing Benet in order were:
1. Faith
2. Academics (28.9 ACT average last year, private schools are not "ranked" on those various "rankings")
3. My wife went to school there also and due to positive experience wanted it for our children.
You will notice that absent from that list is football or any athletics, which did not even enter the equation, despite my son having some success. As I write a substantial check each year for tuition I am reminded of our reasons for the decision and don't regret it. Lets not even talk about that I am subsidizing the students in the public schools with my taxes, its a decision we made. Don't even start down the path of we can afford it so its no big deal, because its not accurate. What is accurate is we made a conscious decision to send them there and forgo other luxuries in our priority list.
if you were to tour the "facilities" you would find the laughable compared to the public schools (that I subsidize). There are 6-8 well known programs that are private (a couple in our conference), that do recruit and do all those "evil" things that other programs complain about, including the parents in our program. Yet you want to paint the broad brush of all private schools because of the deeds of those well known programs. Even using the 63 private number, which I doubt is accurate, that means a 10-11% factor of "problem" programs you want to blow up AGAIN the existing system.
While you are lamenting "all" the private schools that are recruiting you are curiously silent on schools such as Whitney Young, a HS that is virtually impossible to get into if you live in Chicago unless you are a very good basketball player from somewhere within CPS borders. I don't hear the outrage over the entire starting Bolingbrook girls basketball team moving into the same 1 bedroom apartment in Homewood-Flossmoor when the coach just happened to switch jobs.
The multiplier is a punitive system, there is no other way to view it. in the 2014-2015 season Benet was slotted into 8A play offs. Even with the multiplier applied they were the smallest enrollment in 8A, they had a grand total of 57 Varsity players at the start of the season. Not a single player was cut. Yet, for all those chest thumping "its not fair" proponents, its not punitive enough you want to make it even more difficult.
Lastly, let me be blunt in summary. Given the above factors, I find it offensively insulting that some peoples fixation on 6-8 programs want to not examine internally where their program can improve, but, point the finger at a minuscule "boogie man" and not at the effort and accomplishments of the vast majority of private schools that do not recruit. The "its not fair they recruit" statement/philosophy is not only completely inaccurate but also diminishes efforts of the students.
So maybe the best solution is for the private schools to sit down in a back room and ask the 6-8 schools that you say do recruit to put their big boy pants on and move up a few classes on their own and let schools like Benet remain in a lower class????