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August 23, 2006
States dodging dodge ball?A provocative article on CNN.com raises serious questions about physical education in schools. As the resounding dirge of childhood obesity sounds throughout the nation, the 2006 Shape of the Nation "concluded that most states are failing to provide students with adequate physical education requirements."
The report, a joint effort of the American Heart Association and the National Association for Sport and Physical Education, indicates that while some 41 million kids participate in extracurricular sports, there is a noticeable drop in P.E. classes in school.
"With the obesity rates going up and it's in our face, why are we cutting P.E. time? I don't get it," says Garrett Lydic, a physical education teacher at North Laurel Elementary School in Laurel, Delaware and his state's Teacher of the Year in 2006. "The focus right now is on testing," he said, referring to a series of academic tests now mandated by federal law. "The result is that there's less time to get kids more active."
Proponents of P.E. note that exercise can actually help students become more focused in school, which could in turn help with testing. Just a few of the relevant resources from NSBA's School Health Programs can be found here, here, and here.
"Schools are the one thing that kids do each and every day, so if P.E. can become a core subject in the school ... every child can get a strong background, and we know they'll be more likely to participate in physical activity as adults," said Jacalyn Lund, president of National Association for Sport and Physical Education.
Well, what do you know? Elementary school dodgeball was good for you after all!
As valuable as this discussion is, however, something crucial is missing. All too often national advocacy groups focus this kind of report specifically on state mandates as the sole measure of "how well" a state is doing.
Now, it's entirely plausible that P.E. is suffering at the local level and that school boards need to think hard about whether this is self-defeating. NSBA's immediate past president Joan Schmidt warned school boards about this danger. But these endless reports that focus solely on state laws while making little or no attempt to get the real picture at the local level are, well, lazy.
To be blunt, BoardBuzz thinks a lot of this phenomenon stems from a simple reality: data are easier to gather from 50 states than from over 14,000 districts. Just like it's easier to lobby 50 state legislatures than over 14,000 school boards. But these are poor excuses for the failure of researchers and advocates to consider whether they're even looking in the right place for accurate information or even focusing their advocacy where it makes the most sense.
A state where 99% of local school boards have adopted sound local policies without state lawmakers issuing decrees is a "failure" under this approach—even if the local policies are much better at meeting the needs of children in widely varying communities.
We've said it before, again and again and again and again. The knee-jerk reaction of every well-meaning group that thinks its agenda in schools is getting squeezed by NCLB can't be, "Hey, we need to get our stuff added to the mandates and accountability measures, too!" You can't run schools that way, folks.
Posted August 23, 2006 12:46 PM | Health & Wellness
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