Ohio Lawmakers Still Can't Get It Right

I'm not sure if I've gone off about the lack of good physical education in today's schools as much as I have other topics, but I'm going to do it now. First, the article (since it may disappear from the Dispatch after a week):

Ohio Core bill lets athletes skip gym

Senator hates idea, hopes to change provision next year

Saturday, December 23, 2006

Dan Weist

OHIO NEWS NETWORK

Gov. Bob Taft has yet to sign the Ohio Core high-school curriculum overhaul, but the legislation’s primary sponsor already is planning to seek the reversal of one provision.

Sen. Randall Gardner, a Republican from Bowling Green, said the provision, added late in the lame-duck session, would dramatically weaken physical education in Ohio’s high schools by changing gym-class requirements.

Gardner said the amendment offered by Rep. John Schlichter, allows school districts to excuse from gym class any students involved in sports, cheerleading or the marching band.

Gardner said that although the provision didn’t get much attention during last week’s floor debates, it prompted an intraparty dispute that slowed passage of the Ohio Core legislative package.

The curriculum plan, which Taft proposed in January in his final State of the State address, has been touted as a way to prepare young Ohioans for success in college. The legislation mandates tougher high school course work, including an additional year of math instruction and at least three lab-based science classes.

Students may opt out of the plan under certain conditions, at least initially, but doing so will make them ineligible to attend most of Ohio’s four-year public universities without first taking additional college-level courses.

"I didn’t want to hold up the bill for just this," Gardner said of the physical-education amendment. "But I do plan to try and change it in the next session."

Schlichter, of Washington Court House, defends the idea of letting student-athletes bypass traditional gym classes.

"To me, it’s just the right thing to do, to be able to allow kids to expand their course work when they have already done physical activity," said Schlichter.

Now, high-school students in Ohio must earn a half-credit in physical education to graduate.

Because of Schlichter’s amendment, the Ohio Core legislation on Taft’s desk gives school districts the option of maintaining that requirement or allowing students to receive the half-credit through participation, for a minimum of two seasons, in a designated extracurricular activity.

The change is likely to appeal to student-athletes, who will be able to graduate without taking a gym class.

"I think that since band is a period and a half long, we should have that count as a credit for gym," said Katie Lewis, a member of the color guard at Pickerington Central High School.

One of the school’s band teachers, Dan Joy, also likes the idea. Not having to take a gym class might enable students to concentrate on other subjects and perhaps take more math and science courses, he said.

"I think that is an excellent option for students," he said.

Not everyone at Pickerington Central, however, supports the change. Principal Chuck Kemper, a former coach and physical-education teacher, said he worries about the long-term ramifications for today’s young people.

"If we allow children to be excluded from physical education and these activities, later in life what are they going to do to be active? " Kemper asked.

I have to agree with Kemper. Gym class should be a daily class with an emphasis on lifetime sports and personal fitness. I'm partially in favor of exempting student-athletes from it, and heck, I'll even throw in the cheerleaders for programs that do lots of tumbling/pyramid/dance stuff. That sort of exercise is great for all-over fitness and flexibility, and despite the cheesiness of their performances and their instistence that cheerleading is a sport, it's hard work and they are definitely have the tools for keeping in shape.

On the other hand, many of these student-athletes could use instruction on health and fitness outside of their sport. Hence my reluctance to completely agree with this move.

However, the concept of exempting band members is the wrong path. At the risk of sounding elitist and steretyping band members, I think band members who are not athletes should not be exempt because they need the health and fitness instruction as much as anyone else in the school who is not an athlete.

It used to be that fitness and health were considered just as important in education as knowledge. Schools in the renaissance and even earlier are well-documented as finding such activities as fencing, wrestling, etc. just as important for developing a complete individual as their academic studies.

And with today's culture of video games, television and touchy-feely school administrators who don't wish to hurt anyone's feelings in school, kids aren't learning the benefits of being in shape and how to get that way. Obviously, I could go into how the pharmaceutical market loves this situation as they can market more drugs to people who don't know how to be healthy, but that's a topic for another time. Suffice to say that our legislators have an opportunity here to make a statement about the state of health in this State, but instead they're exempting kids from Phys Ed so they can make time for other pursuits. And my response: if these kids aren't healthy when they get out of school, what good are they going to be to anyone?