Are high school sports one of the reasons our high schools are struggling academically?

M

Mr Clif

New member
I have heard that American high schools are not on par with high schools around the world compared to those in developed nations. I must admit that yes our students are not on par with those in Germany, Japan, France, Italy, England, Korea, China (which is still a developing country) etc.

I have observed that more emphasis is put on high school sports than academics. More high school spend money on football stadiums and basketball courts instead of money on books. A lot of kids basically attend high school to play sports and teachers give them good grades because teachers want their high school to have a good football team, so the top football player at a high school can get a 100 on a test where he missed more than half of the questions just so he can go to college and play football.

WORST THING is that colleges actually contribute to this atrocity (not small colleges but good colleges like Stanford), why in the world do colleges recruit for football and basketball? Why can't we just have college sports where students must FIRST get accepted into the college and THEN try out for the team, the best players getting selected. Why should a football player with a 2.9 GPA have a better shot at getting into Stanford than an ALL A student who has been academically active and done a lot of extra curricular things?

Would you support the idea of government banning high school sports and making students get into college if they want to play sports, yes or no? (also, explain why)

**P.S: This is impartial coming from me since I made it into the colleges I made it to due to me playing high school football (it was not a catalyst but it certainly helped me on my application).
lol Kittyhawk:

NAW SISTA DEM WYTE PEOPLE COLLEGES DONE WASHED ME, THEY BE WATCHIN MAH EVURAY MOVE, BUT YA KNOW I BE DAT TRU BROTHA.
**2nd paragraph

More high schools, not high "school"
Feng: Don't worry, most Asian kids will have autism effecting them severely since most Asian girls worship White guys.
ED: Harvard rejected more than 10 students with a perfect SAT score, you know that?

SAT scores and GPAs do not cut it, you have to do some extra curricular stuff as well.
Also ED:

Maybe you meant students who do extra curricular activities do better at school but not athletes, a lot of them do not get the high grades.

Eliminating high school sports will put more focus on education, and Germany is starting to get diverse as well.
 
I do not think it has anything to do with the sports at all. Here in NZ they do the exact same thing for our 'jocks' RUGBY boys.

Sport is also big in NZ schools BUT they seem to go well hand in hand with academic work.

Sadly, it all comes down to the atrocious and dumbed down US education system and what they teach you in class. You obviously have a really BAD curriculum and BAD teachers who are all about teaching the AMERICAN way and hiding the truth, rather than teaching the UNIVERSAL way and facts that most other countries outside the US know.

In most other countries like the NZ we have a British system of education which have VERY HIGH standards that are to be achieved Academically. Most are Single sex schools with uniforms, blazers, prefects/head girls and head boys structure etc.

We tend to notice here to that the Co-educational schools tend to be worse and really BAD and get the worst grades in the country. That may also have an effect on US schools being Co-ed.


Far too many distractions. Children in the US also watch far tooo much television and MTV crap then focusing on their schoolwork.

Really it has nothing do to with SPORTS, because most other countries VALUE sports as well. It is that it comes down to the education system more than anything else.

To be really HONEST. Most Americans could not give a PHUCK about the outside world and what goes on beyond their land. They are americans, everyone else educates themselves about other lands etc and things.

That is why americans are getting DUMBED down. It is the system in place and the focus on entertainment and TV.

One needs to turn off the TUBe and read and get the mind active rather than passive. TV is BAD, it works only ONE way most times.

Change the education system and the kids need to be stop being DUMB.
 
I thought you got an incredibly high SAT score, thus allowing you to get into any college you wanted to .
Comparing our educational system to others is like comparing apples and oranges.
Although I love running track, and playing b-ball, I do think that we focus too much on sports. Getting out of class just to go to a game, spending money on a stadium instead of new learning material, etc.
However, there is a way to solve this. Raise the bar. In order for someone to be eligible to play say football, or something, they must maintain at least say..an 80% in all of their classes. Since most high schools, including mine, only temporarily like suspend you from the team if you have a F, so basically all the jocks have/had to do was maintain a D, which isn't that hard and does't require much work really. So yeah, change eligiblity, and why not have practice before school starts? Cause practice can last for two hours each day after school, and plus some people have jobs, which makes it even harder to study/get homework done. If we had practive in the morning, then that would allow more time to do this, and hopefully help students do better academically.

Also, I think we should have some sort of limit on funding for sports. Like the money a school spends for educational purposes, has to at least outnumber the amount they spend for sports by say 40-%50%. I'm appaled when I learn a school is known for bad test scores, but has a near perfect football, basketball, track, or whatever team. By achieving this and the eligiblity thing, schools can shift focus from sports to academics, if it wasn't there already.
Then again, you gotta remember, not everyone plays sports, and it's been proven that students who take place in extra-curricular activities (isn't that what they call it) do better academically. So, kids who plays sports, do better in school. Most of the time, it seems to be the lazy asses who don't do jack who are the ones who really do crappy in school, not the jocks!

So some might think, sports are the reason our education system seems more jacked up than other countries. But like I said way up there, we're a diverse nation. Some parents value education, some don't. This isn't Germany, South Korea, or any other nation where most of the population seems to be just German or Korean so everyone shares the same morals, meaning education is a top priority for everyone. So we can't just assume that if we cancel/limit funding for sports, and encourage more kids to study instead of join a sport that we'll do better academically. It's a tough situation. I kinda want to blame sports, but at the same time you really can't blame them. I think the real reason for us lagging behind others is that either:
A) Parents just don't give a damn about their kid's education.
OR------
B) Hollywood showcases being smart as nerdy and unpopular, and that the only way to get popular is to ignore academics entirely.

Oh, and I think that sports really shouldn't be apart of big mainstream colleges. Like Ivy League schools, and say the top 25 schools in America.They're the best colleges we have to offer, academics should be the one of the few things they focus on, not sports. If they're just accepting students b/c they were the best football player in their state, then we have some serious problems. Not only is it not fair, but it's degrading to our educational system.

Does that make any sense? Catch my drift?

Edit: You got rejected by Harvard Clif? I heard scoring high on the SAT, and having a good GPA was all a student needed to get into a good school. I'm not saying that colleges should get rid of sports. I'm just saying accepting someone who has nothing to show but playing sports over someone with a high SAT and good GPA, does community service, etc. is unfair and wrong. Colleges should have sports, but a college like MIT shouldn't be pouring more than needed money into their sports programs. That's what I meant.

Edit: Really? Athletes do the worse in school? In my honors classes like 60% of the class was made up of athletes. I know some aren't that smart, I've met some who were complete dumb asses.
Oh and, we can't get rid of sporst! We sorta need them! Keep us in shape, especially for people who have poor diets at home, and besides, getting rid of high school sports gets rid of athletes that may make it big time one day. Like big time as representing America in the olympics big. We need good atheletes, so we win more medals, specifically gold and silver.
 
n*gg@ why u always be talking white?
"academically" "emphasis"
wat up wit all dose white azz words? did yo azz get kicked by black kidz?
poor thangs i feel bad for u hun
 
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