Once again, testing gets blamed for the lack of interest in - or funding for - physical education classes:
Overpopulated physical education classes are just one of the limitations that the Salem-Keizer district is facing in combating the epidemic of overweight youths. The increased focus on national standardized test scores has stripped those classes of their impact, Lacey said. Physical education is becoming an afterthought, or even a back-door way to cater to the all-important test score.
"Physical education in the Salem-Keizer district has been used as an overflow valve," Lacey said. "It's used for the balancing act of leveling class sizes." He said that the priority placed on elevating test scores to maintain national funding under the No Child Left Behind Act has turned P.E. classes into a holding tank to keep class sizes down.
Lacey said standardized test scores place a higher priority on small class sizes in non-P.E. courses, whereas class size in a physical education class is of little concern. It also affects the allocation of funding for new equipment and facilities and for the hiring and retention of physical education teachers.
A survey released in September by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention verified the widely accepted trend of declining participation in high school gym class. After a sharp drop from 41.6 percent in 1991 to 25.4 percent in 1995, numbers have risen slightly. In 2003, just 28.4 percent of high school students took gym every day.
Mmm, don't those numbers suggest that gym classes dropped sharply in the 6 or so years before NCLB was passed? And it seems to be going up since then? I mean, yes, it's still lower than it was in 1995, but I see nothing to suggest that increased emphasis on testing is the cause.
I do agree with the idea that gym class can be extremely beneficial to teenagers:
Lacey said he is shocked that so few children in a required physical education class know how to organize a simple game with a group of their peers if they are given a ball and left alone.
"A lot of kids are being socialized by TV and video games," Lacey said. "They're not being socialized by peer interaction. You'll have people say, 'It's only P.E.' As a P.E. instructor, I hear that a lot. But kids learn fair play, respect for authority, work ethic, putting a plan into action, the merits of regular practice, these life lessons and socialization that, without physical education, is a lost art because kids don't do those things on their own."
As someone who was more traumatized than helped by gym, I can't say that I'd assume all the "socialization" is necessarily good. I just didn't like most people I went to school with, and I was a clutz at anything involving a ball, a net, or a target; it didn't do much for my vaunted self-esteem to fail at those things five days a week. On the other hand, I'd have been perfectly happy in gym if there had been accommodations for those who wanted to work hard and practice regularly in a more solitary practice, such as in yoga or aerobics. Maybe schools would have more success getting kids interested if they'd focus on the positive aspects of exercise that don't require kids to spend more time with people who drive them nuts.
Regardless, it's hard to feel sorry for a principal who is (as one quoted in the article says), under intense pressure "to keep math scores high and reading scores high" at the expense of PE. Yes, teenage obesity and lack of exercise is a problem, but something tells me literacy and numeracy are more important still.
Posted by kswygert at December 6, 2004 07:29 PM