The Case Against High School Sports

After reading " The Case Against High School Sports" by Amanda Ripley started to make me think. There were many strong points about how the priorities of the sports are beginning to be more important to students than their education. Another great point was that the financing and budgeting is unfairly distributed throughout school districts and is spent more on athletics and clubs and not enough on classes. And I Believe that schools should put certain restrictions on the spending and promoting or in school sports and clubs because of the major drop in national and world comparisons.

Sports are so glorified in some areas that schools will put athletics in front of academics. This is exactly what happened the book Friday Night Lights by H.G Bissinger. BIssinger explains that the town of Odessa houses the school Permian where everyone grows up on football. The school and the town give so much praise to the football team that some football players couldn 't care less about class and eventually the teachers don’t care how those players do in class. Mount Vernon is a place where the students are expected to do well in class first and everything else is second. The school has extracurriculars, but knows the school’s main job is to give students an education. Permian and Mount Vernon are opposites on the scale of sports and

Almost all student athletes get butterflies before that Friday night football game, before the fans get to watch them compete, or even the to get the ability to practice. Many argue that high school sports are a distraction in the classroom or even cause career ending injuries. There are many different scenarios that prove that high school sports do the exact opposite of those. When it comes to high school sports, it keeps students fit, boosts a student’s academic performance, and enhances a student’s self-esteem. High school sports are very beneficial and for anyone who is looking to take on a new challenge to take on.

The impact of preserving sports in high schools has been surrounded by much controversy as people suspect that it is the reason behind the poor academic achievement of students. Opponents to high school sports feel that allowing athletics to be a part of schools sidetracks the focus of the student body, which goes completely against the main purpose of schools. Indeed, this assertion is completely true and based upon plentiful evidence. High school sports undoubtedly come at the expense of student academic achievement since they divert the attention of students away from academics and they come with far too many financial costs, both of which incur negative impacts on the academics within a school. The bottomline is that sports are harming the education of students, so a school must make the decision between composing quality sports teams or providing high level academics; both of these choices simply cannot occur simultaneously.

Recently American test scores have been down but the first thing people blame for this epidemic is sports. Instead of looking at the infrastructure of our school system. Sports are ingrade in American culture and how we life so to just take them away would be dractace. Sports should stay in schools because the keep kids out of trouble, help kids get better grades, and it helps them later on in their life.

Everyone knows academics are the main point of school, but athletics have begun to take over and draw away from that focus. Many individuals believe school sports are more important than ever; however, cost is excessive and players often think about upcoming games or matches, detracting attention from homework. Therefore, districts should eliminate after-school sports because they cost tremendous amounts of money, cause academic failure, and are a major distraction.

After reading the two articles, "What's the Name of High School Football" and "Are High School Sports Good for Kids" and also watching the video "Kids and Sports" If the mayor or even the school board had a meeting about not keeping funding school sports, then that is not okay. My reasons are, Kids won't have fun, no academics for the college records if they want to get in an athletic college for sports, and kids won't interact that much to other kids. Do you want the school to be boring and no fun for kids?

In this article, Amanda Ripley discusses how sports are becoming increasingly important in high school. She shares the view from exchange students and what they see when they come to the United States. She gives an example of Premont, Texas, where the superintendent wanted to eliminate sports. His main reason for doing this was budget problems. They tried this in one school, and that school’s enrollment numbers dropped.

Imagine you’re a teenager in a high school who is involved in athletics, and sports are the one thing you love doing the most. Now imagine that one day out of nowhere your sports team was cut, and the one thing that you so deeply loved you are no longer able to do. A lot of people wonder if sports are too much of a priority in schools, and whether or not they should be cut. Students disagree that sports are too much of a priority, and claim athletics make them the person that they are, and that they wouldn’t be the same without sports. School districts should not cut sport programs because they benefit students, they bring in money and publicity to the school, and it gives the students a fit and healthy lifestyle.

Oh great. Another bad day at school. Good thing we have basketball practice, today, to ease my mind. This is how some people think about sports. However, some do not think the same. Therefore, middle schools are deciding on whether to keep sports the same way they have been or scale back some on sports. Principals and superintendents should not scale students back on sports because it helps them prosper in many ways.

Our founding fathers established this nation on the values that all men are created equal and should have an equal opportunity for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In most regards, these values are still hold true. However, if one had to chose a setting in which these were at the most risk, public high schools would be the obvious answer. The injustices occur throughout many aspects of the school, from classrooms to the lunchroom to the locker room, and the glaring example is that all high school sports are not created equal.

Sports are embedded in many American schools in a way they are not anywhere else. One element of our educational system consistently surprises them, “Sports are a huge deal in American schools,” says Earl Smith of the New York Times. The positives have always outweighed the negatives in the case against high school sports. As Sato Kai state, “The benefits of sports as part of the education process are abundant and sometimes beyond quantifications,” According to many academic specialists, sports offer formative and life long lessons such as: discipline, responsibility, self confidence, and accountability. These skills can furthermore excel your later life and give you a greater chance of being employed in a high level job. Participation in high school sports helps your later development as an adult and teaches you life long skills that can't be taught elsewhere.

The article explains that sports dictate when the school day should begin so there is more practice time for teams after school (Ripley 11). A former student from Premont states that “there was all this extra time” and “you never get behind on work” (Ripley 11). This shows that even the students from the high school agreed that with no athletic programs, they had more time to work on assignments. This is a significant change to what schools would be getting if they had school sports.

Another obstacle that public high schools face is their budget allocation. Many times schools are either under funded by their district, which is mainly found in low income communities, or they just do not manage their funds in a way that maximizes their efficiency. The latter of the two usually occurs in schools that have a large focus on their athletics, campus construction, or unnecessary field trips or extracurricular activities. This is where the situation gets tricky. There are many that see sports and extracurricular activities as being vital to a student’s experience and they argue that participating in sports can help improve a person’s ability to work together with others and to gain many other social skills. Even though they are not wrong, there has to be a limit to the amount of money and time schools spend on sports and other extracurricular activities. Again, the purpose of a high school is to prepare students for college and the best way to do that is to focus their resources on materials/people that will help them achieve that. So, for example, if a school wants to build a new track, they should first try to see if that money could be used in a way that directly affects their students’ academics first (new books, technology, better quality teachers, etc.). Even though that may seem to be an obvious thought process, many school districts out there don’t consider that. Districts still believe that, since athletics bring in more money and attention to their

High schools in the US have had successful and popular sports programs that date back past the 19 century and have been to this day. But in the US, high school sports are becoming too much of a necessity, students are more worried about how they will do playing their sport over how their grades are or if they are caught up in school. But has anyone ever considered, what might occur if these US high schools were to discontinue their sports teams? Would the schools benefit or become hinder? If high school sports were canceled in the US the students would be much more focused in school and would achieve better grades and tests scores. Also, teachers would have many more benefits such as higher pay, possibly fewer hours and easier students to teach.