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.

According to Ripley, test scores seem to be lower when looking at students who play sports. In South Korea 15 year olds place fourth in the world for math score, in which none of them play any sports. Sports are more emphasized in America than anywhere else. Other countries are receiving academic accomplishments while ours is for sports and it is leaving our teachers in poverty. American kids spend more than twice the time Korean kids spend playing sports, according to a 2010 study published in the Journal of Advanced Academics (Ripley).

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.

Also sports help kids with their grades.” According to a 2013 evaluation conducted by the Crime Lab at the University of Chicago, Becoming a Man--Sports Edition creates lasting improvements in the boys’ study habits and grade point averages. “ (“ Bowen & Hitt”). Sports are the number one reason for a kid who is thinking about dropping out to stay in school. Think about it if you need a 2.0 to stay in sports and you struggle in school but, you love sports and want to do it in college you will stay in school to achieve your dream. Also with sports that helps me is you don’t get time to procrastinate because if I know I have a game tomorrow and I have a big essay do the day after that I will do it tonight because I know I can’t do it after the game. Which is why most people who aren’t in sports struggle with procrastine. “Neish (1993) that found positive correlations between high, medium, or low levels of involvement in extracurricular activities and students’ GPAs and involved students attained higher GPAs than did students who were not involved.”(“ Lumpkin & Favor”). This proves again that sports truly do help are kids in school.

“Sports teaches you character, it teaches you to play by the rules, it teaches you to know what it feels like to win and lose-it teaches you about life.”(Billie Jean King) Most students from first grade to twelfth grade say that sports are a big part of their life and make them who they were meant to be in a positive way. Some people might argue that students in sports or extracurricular activities have lower grades than the other students, but it's the opposite way around. Sports improve your performance in school because they strengthen your concentration ability and leadership traits.

High School sports are safe havens for people all over America. Kids grow up and dream of bringing home state championships for the town they grew up in. However, more often than not they fall short. Public schools are at an extreme disadvantage in high school sports due to the simple fact that they draw from a set area of kids, while private schools can pick and choose. This leads to a question if whether public and private schools should be in a separate division for high school sports. Public and private schools should be in a separate division due to their ability to recruit, absolute dominance in sports and dwindling attendance of fans at sporting events.

The prompt has asked for an answer to the question, does every student in high school sports deserve a trophy? The obvious answer is no, for three reasons. The first reason is, if you give everybody a trophy, it decreases the value of the trophy that was given to the athlete that actually preformed with excellence. Reason number two is, it would be teaching kids that you don't actually have to work for these achievements. The final reason is, it could boast the ego's of the kid who didn't play a single minute of the competition, and make them think they should have.

Anyone who plays sports knows that occasionally students can’t focus on their grades with sports in the way of their academics. According to an article by Amanda Ripley, “sports do have many benefits providing exercise lessons in perseverance and just plain fun but the emphasis has gone too far”(10).

High schools in the US have had successful and popular sports programs that date back past the 19 century and have been a hit 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 play 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 schools would have much more money to spend on all of its students. Student-athletes would be much more focused in school and would achieve better grades and test scores. Also, teachers

I strongly believe that high-school sports program are not beneficial to students .Some of the reasons are is they can cause heart disease , concussion , suicide , and do bad in school .accordingly to source 1 it states " Again do not misunderstand me. I am not against athletics .The single greatest factor is preventing the nations number one killer - heart disease is regular and vigorous exercise.Another reason why any sport is dangerous for students is because there risking there life while playing the game because if they get hurt they might not be able to play another game.Also why sports are not beneficial to students is because the author states in source 1 "You cannot escape the news.The deaf could almost hear the cheerleaders." I disagree

The ability for high school sports to give athletes a break from the classroom allows them to clear their minds. Students have the chance to forget about the things that may be bothering them as well as allowing them to have fun for a bit. Research shows that the movement of the brain’s physiology has an effect on the way that a person does things throughout their life. In fact, a study shows that people who have been physically activity or have participated in sports when they were younger are happier because they have been releasing endorphins which releases stress. Stress is the leading cause of depression in the United States and by exercising, the rate of stress in which a person has can be lowered. High school sports does not just benefit a person's mental health but also a person's physical health.

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.

In 2014 over 7.8 million high school students were participating in an school sport. This report was in 2014 , this was three years ago by now the number has probably grown here many think we should band this. High school sport are the heart of the school, is what must high school and middle school student look forward every friday so they can support their school.

The problem is that there aren’t enough kids and teens participating in youth sports, and that is where they attain important skills and lessons that can be used later in life. There have been numerous observations and tests that suggest that student athletes have higher GPAs, better attendance, lower rate of dropouts, higher standardized testing scores, and a greater chance of going/ being accepted to college compared to students that don 't play sports (“Be Active Your Way Blog”). The qualities you receive from sports can be effective in all aspects of life. Sports and it 's stress only help you to stay calm and collected in other situations. (e.g. exams) You 'll be able to easily handle and overcome challenges in the workplace and at school. This issue is largely based in the developed countries due to the fact that they can afford to be work-shy; they can spend that money on other harmful habits. In each one of the 34 OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) nations, one in five children, ages five to 17, are obese or overweight (“These 10 Countries Lead the World in Childhood Obesity (Nope, the U.S. Isn 't No. 1”).

Do sports have a role in the lives of students? In an article posted by the Atlantic authored by Amanda Ripley on October of 2013 titled "The Case Against High-school Sports", Ripley questions the added value of sports to high schools and its students, outlining that the focus on sports has resulted in poor international test results. The article further used schools in various cities and countries, such as Shanghai, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Finland as exemplary examples, stating that at some institutions in these cities and countries have shifted or eliminated sports in the school system and are heavily focused on being purely academic institutions, which as stated in the article yielded higher rankings in international standardized test.