No funds for P.E. puts kids in fat city
In a battle of educational priorities, kick ball will never win out over grammar or American history. I am not saying it should. Our test scores in California warrant all reasonable efforts at stuffing as much knowledge as possible into our kids’ brains.
But those brains don’t sit on desks like laptops, absorbing information as free-standing entities. They come with arms and legs and bellies and backs. But you’d never know it to visit elementary schools.
In many urban grade schools, you don’t see kids playing basketball or soccer. You don’t see them running laps or learning how to serve a volleyball. Formal physical education classes in many elementary schools have gone the way of the book bag.
In San Francisco Unified School District, for example, there are no physical education teachers in grades K-5 unless parents sell enough gift wrap and scrip to cover the salary. So the classroom teachers, some with little aptitude for sports and exercise, have to fulfill the state-required 200 minutes of physical education.
“I honestly don’t know how teachers get all the things in they’re supposed to,’ said Chris Loughran, who is paid by her school’s PTA to coach teachers in youth fitness.
The answer is: Many don’t. Some teach their students yoga or tai chi, or they do stretching exercises, rope-jumping or jumping jacks. Some stay in the classroom and teach about the food pyramid, which also counts toward P.E. time. No one outside the individual school is ensuring that children get exercise: The San Francisco district’s physical education coordinator was laid off last spring because of budget cuts.
This is not a philosophical decision for most superintendents. It’s about money. Which means superintendents and political leaders and parents have to work harder to push physical exercise higher on the priority list. The obesity crisis is real.
The number of overweight kids is growing, bringing with them new cases of diabetes and heart problems. Poor nutrition and physical inactivity account for more preventable deaths in the United States than anything other than tobacco. For young people ages 6 to 19 years old, the national rate of obesity has skyrocketed so dramatically (up to 15 percent) that the surgeon general declared childhood obesity a national epidemic. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the past 30 years have seen the number of obese 6 to 11-year-olds more than double. About half of American youths ages 12-21 aren’t vigorously active on a consistent basis, reports the CDC.
California has taken the unusual step of passing a law this summer that will ban sodas and certain junk foods on elementary school campuses. San Francisco has gone a step farther: It has implemented arguably the healthiest food regimen of any school district in the nation. Students will be able to buy fresh deli sandwiches, soups, salads and sushi. Portions will be downsized.
Restoring physical education is the next step, and not just because our kids need to be more fit. Studies show physical activity helps the brain. One 1998 study in Canada showed that when physical education time went up, so did academic scores.
Kids who are trying to be more active are being hit from all sides. Not only are there no funds for P.E. in elementary schools, but in many cash-strapped cities recreation funds are drying up. The San Francisco Recreation and Parks’ budget was cut by $9.7 million this year. That means streamlining programs and laying off rec directors and custodians.
And with so many school districts struggling just to pay teachers, they’re looking for revenue wherever they can get it. So some are, for the first time, charging youth sports organizations thousands of dollars to use school facilities after school and on weekends.
We were once a nation that recognized that strengthening the body was integral to strengthening the mind. Where did that wisdom go?
(Joan Ryan is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. Her e-mail is joanryan@sfchronicle.com.)