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The Importance Of Physical Education

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Across the country schools have been cutting out gym or recess from their daily schedules. Teachers and school districts desire better test scores from their students. Therefore, they want to have their students study and practice more. But in fact, studies suggest that adding a physical activity program or increasing the amount of time students have physical activity may be more beneficial to students and their test scores. There have been thousands of studies on this topic. Some involve recess, others gym, and new studies are centered around taking breaks in class. All this research has shown that activity can help kids with their test scores. In most studies, more than 50% of students’ test scores were positively impacted by increasing the amount of activity during the school day (“Association” 6).
Many of these studies evaluate standardized test scores. Some studies compare standardized tests scores of hundreds of students before and after extra physical activity time is added. Since these standardized tests are similar and reputable, we can compare the students scores from when they had only 1 physical education (PE) class per week versus when they had PE class daily (MacFarlane 3).
In a research study conducted by the CDC about activity and academic achievement, 11 of 14 studies found one or more significant relationships between physical education and academic achievement. Increasing the time spent in physical education programs has a positive or no effect on

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