Gym Class Struggle

?Only about 26% of U.S. high school students get daily phys ed. Illinois is the only state that requires it.

?Forty percent of high school students are not enrolled in gym class of any kind; for high school seniors the number is a staggering 75%.

?Three states—Colorado, Mississippi and South Dakota—have no phys-ed requirement.

?Only seven states require elementary schools to have certified phys-ed instructors, meaning that classroom teachers are often responsible for teaching gym.

?In a 1997 Phi Delta Kappa Gallup poll, 54% of adults said that public school curricula should be improved but only 2% mentioned health-related education as one of the focus areas; math and English, by contrast, drew 90% and 84%, respectively.

The saddest thing about the decline in physical education is that we now know so much about the benefits of physical fitness and the perils of a sedentary lifestyle. Principals and school-board members who themselves may be in fitness programs are often the ones who slash budgets and resources for gym class; they do so even as they are inundated with reports about the obesity crisis in our Twinkie-eating, TV-watching, video-game-playing younger generation.

Take the small Udall ( Kans.) School District. In 1997 the superintendent at the time transferred the phys-ed responsibilities at the elementary school to the principal, reduced P.E. to one nine-week .stretch per year in the middle school and, at the high school level, made it mandatory only for ninth-graders. (One optional weightlifting class remains available to sophomores, juniors and seniors.) Why? Cutting back phys ed enabled the district to eliminate the job of one teacher and thereby save money. "But they also cut a lot of spirit out of that district when they cut phys ed," says Brad Haas, the teacher whose job was eliminated. If that sounds like sour grapes from a former employee—Haas now works in the Belle Plaine ( Kans.) School District—Udall's current superintendent, Roger Robinson, a phys-ed major who has coached and refereed for 25 years, feels much the same way. "Yes, I think we need more phys ed, particularly at the elementary level, because you need to get kids active early," says Robinson, who has increased the amount of time that elementary school kids spend in gym class. "But once something is gone, it's hard to get it back. The money isn't there." What happened at Udall has happened somewhere in every state in the nation.

At the school my sons attended, Liberty High in Bethlehem, Pa., I recently watched four gym teachers put about 130 kids through their paces; some of the kids lifted weights, some played kickball, some engaged in a good old-fashioned game of bombardment. These kids have gym five days a week, 90 minutes a day. However—like students in Udall—they have it on a nine-week cycle once a school year. That means that some students have it early in their sophomore year but not again until late in their junior year. "Missing gym class for more than an entire calendar year does not exactly provide the 'regular physical activity' that's supposed to be our goal," says Bill Ruth, a Liberty gym teacher.

Now, the good news. The decline in the quality of phys ed has sounded an alarm among many gym teachers. A 1996 Surgeon General's report that pointed to the deficiencies of physical education has given concerned educators a smoking gun, something to take to state and local boards of education. The Physical Education for Progress bill, sponsored by Ted Stevens (R, Alaska), has been introduced in the Senate; it would authorize the Secretary of Education to make grants or work with school districts to improve phys-ed programs.

Over the past few months I've seen some terrific elementary, middle school and high school gym classes. In Michael Cosgrove's phys-ed class at Oak Brook Elementary in suburban St. Louis, I learned how to juggle from Jared Barbee, an earnest fifth-grader. "Mr. Cos said to start you with scarves," said Jared. "See, they float, so you can see what you're doing easier." All around me, fifth-graders were juggling. Some, like Jared, were adept enough to juggle balls, rings and pins. Others could toss up only two scarves and barely catch them. At least one young man had draped a scarf across his face as if he were going to hold up a bank, thereby restoring my faith that things haven't changed completely.