As John Gerdy argues in his book, Sports in School, "our sports programs are elitist and exclusionary, neither designed nor conducted with the health benefits of participants in mind." Gerdy contends that "If we were interested in deriving the greatest health return on dollars spent on athletics, more resources would be spent on broad-based, participatory intramural, club and physical education programs than on the current programs designed to cater to a small population of elite athletes."
The Women Sports Foundation's 2008 survey, Go Out and Play: Youth Sports in America, documents a variety of ways that reduced economic resources in communities and families negatively erode children’s chances to develop personal and social well-being through sport, including the steady growth of what it calls “pay to play” sports programs which, in many schools and communities, "threatens to further reduce participation among children from poorer families—the very children for whom athletic participation rates are already lower than their more economically privileged peers."
Fundamentally altering the outmoded model that most schools follow for interscholastic sports will be a monumental undertaking. It will require the effort of a large and vocal group of committed parents. But it can be done.
First, try to eliminate cutting at levels below high school varsity.
Second, accommodate the interests of those students not playing competitive team sports but who want to continue to engage in some form of physical exercise or sports in a non-competitive setting, by reforming and expanding school-based physical education programs and by developing and funding after-school programs offering aerobics, dance, exercise walking, self-defense, yoga, pilates, strength training, flag/touch football, and Ultimate Frisbee.
The Women Sports Foundation's 2008 survey, Go Out and Play: Youth Sports in America, supports this recommendation. It reports that many of the nation's schools "have cut back on physical education offerings or stopped requiring 'gym classes' entirely. One in five U.S. schools does not offer physical education (PE) at all, and despite Centers for Disease Control recommendations, only handfuls of elementary, middle and high schools offer daily PE classes (i.e., 4%, 8% and 2%, respectively)."
The Women Sports Foundation report contains a number of important recommendations:
- Nationally and regionally scaled steps should be taken to counteract the downturn in physical education attendance among high school girls.
- Local, state, and federal health planners need to further invest in physical education and youth sports as key elements of preventive health policy. Guidelines and practices should be developed to close the gap in physical education between girls and boys, girls of color and Caucasians, and schools in poor communities and more affluent communities.
- School boards can reverse the cuts in PE offerings, make PE mandatory, and broaden the curriculum to appeal to the wide range of girls' interests in exercise and physical activities. Increasing opportunities for exercise in PE classes are also likely to be a highly effective mechanism for infusing exercise into the lives of children who do not like sports.
- School officials can seek grants to initiate, expand, and improve their physical education programs for K-12 students through the Carol M. White Physical Education Program (PEP). For information on how to apply, click here.
- Schools and communities can seek information and resources in order to enhance their existing health and physical education programs.
I am so torn with this...
As a physical educator with 29 years of experience who believes in equal opportunity for all, it is tough to admit the following to be true:
"A study of South Carolina middle and high school girls reported in the September 2005 issue of the American Journal of Public Health found that girls taking girls-only PE exercised substantially more than girls in co-ed programs. As for boys, those who support the current shift in the physical education curriculum away from traditional competitive sports, often involving an aggressive component, towards aerobic activities such as riding a stationary bicycle or jogging, argues Dr. Leonard Sax, are ignoring the fact "that many boys need the aggressive element found in sports such as basketball and soccer" and that the result "is that boys who aren't athletic enough to make the team now have no socially acceptable outlet for their aggressive impulses."
There are so many other "social" aspects, especially in junior high and high school, that come into play when students are in coed classes, that the goal of improving student fitness levels, teaching practical concepts for life-long fitness habits, and just exercising or playing games at higher intensity levels because they are fun, gets lost. It is my observation again and again, and year after year (especially with those that need it most), that the social interplay and concerns tend to take priority over effort with many in a coed class.
It is an issue when a great concept like "equal opportunity" is turned into an absolute of "everything must be the same." We can give equal opportunity to girls and boys in physical education and not necessarily have to have same sex classes with everything we do. Of course, there is a percentage of female students who not only relesh the challenge that the coed classes provide but excel in these classes.
Kirk Mango
Becoming a True Champion