From www.post-Gazzette.com

Schools pushing phys ed to the side

Wednesday, March 17, 2004

Back in the day, you had to pass gym class in order to graduate.

Now in some Pennsylvania schools, you can flunk physical education and still get a high school diploma. Last week the health and physical education adviser for the state Department of Education, Shirley A. Black, told a state House committee that the lack of specific guidelines is allowing health and physical education in the state's schools to continue to erode even as childhood obesity is reaching epidemic proportions.

Many schools, for reasons that include budget shortfalls, scheduling problems, and more focus on math and reading so that students can do well on standardized testing, are cutting back on gym and health classes.

Black, who taught health and physical education for 21 1/2 years in the Clarion Area schools, said that at the time she left Clarion in 1995, most students in Pennsylvania had regular gym classes throughout their school years. In 1999, Pennsylvania switched to a "standard-based" system, in which the state established standards and schools could devise their own programs to meet those standards.

The catch is that the standards are vague -- for example, an entry in the ninth-grade category reads "Analyze and engage in physical activities that are developmentally/individually appropriate and support achievement of personal fitness and activity goals." That means schools can create a program with a very low bar and design proficiency tests that won't require many hours of class time to pass.

Though the state guidelines cover many important areas and address concerns about obesity and health, Black said, "issues such as how many minutes per class, how many times per week, whether the class is one grading period, one semester, a full year or every year at the middle- and high-school levels are all under local control."

The result is that many middle-school students might have a quarter of gym classes and then no physical education whatsoever the rest of the year. At the high-school level, students might have no physical education classes at all for a year or more of their career.

There is great variation across districts, but few require gym every semester through high school. In the Pittsburgh Public Schools, one "unit" -- the equivalent of a school year's worth of classes -- of health and one unit of gym are required to graduate. Students take a semester of health in ninth and 11th grade, and at least a "quarter unit" of gym each year.

At South Fayette, physical education is an elective during the junior and senior years, with offerings that include team sports, individual fitness and strength training. In Bethel Park and North Hills, high school students take physical education five days a week one semester per year.

A 2000 survey of Pennsylvania schools indicated that only 16 percent of the respondents had daily physical education. The National Association for Sport and Physical Education recommends 150 minutes per week for elementary students and 225 minutes per week for middle and high school students.

The Pennsylvania State Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance survey found that 59 percent of elementary students got 30 to 45 minutes per week, less than a third of the recommended time. At the secondary level, 42 percent of the students got 46 to 90 minutes per week, again well below the recommended time.

"If you look at many schools' mission statements, they will say that their programs look at the whole child," said George Graham, president of the National Association for Sport and Physical Education and a Penn State professor of kinesiology. "But in reality they focus primarily on heads."

The trend is nationwide. In 1991, 40 percent of high school students took daily gym classes; 10 years later, barely a third did. Only Illinois mandates daily physical education from kindergarten through 12th grade.

Many educators say that the federal emphasis on meeting academic standards has played a role.

"Since health and physical education were not classified as 'core disciplines' by No Child Left Behind' and neither is involved in state assessment, some administrators and school boards believe these disciplines are less important and therefore should be de-emphasized within the schools," Black testified.

To Gerry Cernicky, that's wrongheaded. Cernicky taught physical education for 35 years in Kiski Area and continues to work as a consultant.

"Local districts are making all the decisions, and many are turning away from it," he said. "But the whole child has to be considered. We believe that the motto should be, 'No child left on his or her behind.' "

HOME