School Sports Benefits
June 14, 2016
The May 2016 issue of Kappan features an article by an assistant professor at Texas A & M and a doctoral academy fellow at the University of Arkansas who argue in favor of school-sponsored sports. They cite benefits to students, schools and communities:
“Student-athletes generally do better in school than other students – not worse. Opening high school sports to girls in the 1970s led to a significant and meaningful improvement in female college-going and workforce participation. Tougher academic eligibility requirements that schools place on athletes have decreased dropout rates among at-risk students.
“Schools that cut sports will likely lose the benefits that school-sponsored sports bestow. Removing these activities from K-12 education would likely have negative effects on historically underserved school communities. As was the case with the Great Depression, less-privileged families would be less able to afford the expense of having their children participate in organized sports due to the cost of travel and registration fees of club organizations.
“We do not contend that school-sponsored athletics are perfect and should be preserved exactly as they are, even in the face of financial constraints. In tough financial times, everything should be scrutinized. Sports are no exception. But when we look at the larger body of evidence, we find that sports are a tradition in U.S. education that has genuinely benefited students and their school communities.”
One by one the article (with the unfortunate title “History and evidence show school sports help students win”) disposes of typical arguments against school sports:
-
That sports participation has no role in academic development and may undermine it.
-
That European-style club programs would enable adolescents to participate in sports while eliminating negative influences that school sports have on academics.
-
That eliminating school-sponsored sports will increase student participation in other extracurricular activities.
The evidence, according to the authors, does not support those arguments. Click here to read the article.
Weaving Policy
February 10, 2017
My wife weaves. She weaves scarves and placemats and napkins and table runners and rugs. And while she weaves, I watch, looking for the metaphors.
One of the most obvious comes from looking at both sides of her work. In its simplest form, one side of the woven project is the result of careful planning and preparation; the other side just sort of happens. In weaving, except for the "plain weave" where the bottom of the item mirrors the top, the underside of a weaving project is usually unimportant.
In leadership, however, that's rarely the case. Leaders have to be concerned with two or more sides to most issues. They have to consider in advance both the seen and unseen aspects of the project.
So when people advocate for expansion or contraction of cooperative programs or football playoffs, or for tougher or more liberal transfer rules, or for more or different tournament classifications, or for seeding of tournaments, leaders of the Michigan High School Athletic Association need to look at both sides of any plan and the multiple angles of the issues raised.
This leadership will try to explain to proponents what opponents see in a proposal, and vice versa. This leadership will try to speak for and report to those who are underrepresented in the discussion.
This leadership is entitled to its own opinion but responsible for seeing that sincere and studied opinions of others are both well heard and thoroughly vetted.