The math team finally raises enough money to compete without the help of their school and wins gold. Little to no recognition. Schools provide little support to these types of teams, yet spend outrageous money for athletics.
In Texas high school football seems to be a pretty big deal, and costs the the state a pretty penny. Texas along with other states reflects a growing taste for fancy scoreboard and video systems costing up to $750,000. Also more and more high school coaches are drawing better than $80,000 salaries with a select few hitting six figures, yet teachers pay is cut year to year or even month to month in some districts? What is really going on here? Teachers are fighting for their jobs. Some schools might be losing essential programs, yet Northside District from Texas athletic's budget last year was $11,104,937. Denton and Round Rock High Schools, found themselves finishing stadiums that cost more than $20 million per stadium in 2004. That doesn't matter right? Texas is alot of miles from here.
A local story from Pendleton High a few years back: there were going to be cuts from school programs, supposedly affecting ALL programs equally. If this is true then why did the school cave when cheerleaders protested against poorer quality uniforms, yet the school could not afford anatomy textbooks and decided to place a technology assistant from the schools library as an anatomy teacher? Who I must include had been a teacher, but had also been out of a teaching classroom for almost twenty years. Why wasn't money budgeted more towards textbooks and decent teacher rather than cheerleadering skirts?
Dont get me wrong, I along with many others realize that students need programs to interact and acheive things other than good grades and yes sports do count for something, but should they really count for everything? Sports and activities improve development, social skills, and health for students, but these are not reasons to push academics to the sidelines.
How far is that field goal going to get the school jock? He may have a great arm, he could be a very great guy, and that arm could get him into college, but so could a perfect GPA. What happens if he becomes injured and can no longer play? What if by the accidental influence of coaches, parents, and even fans the pressure of school and football is just too much? What if this player made the decision that football has become more important than his grades? He loses everything, he unfortunately finds himself with no education, job, or trade. Did you know in men’s basketball, there is only a .03% chance of a pro career. This means that of the all the male, high school senior basketball players in the US, only 44 will be drafted to play in the NBA after college, and only 32 women (.02%) out of just over 127,000 female, high school senior players will eventually be drafted. In football the odds are slightly better, with .08% or 250 of all high school senior football players will be drafted.
Students learn from the adults around them. Go to a high school Monday morning and listen to the announcements they provide for their students everyday. I can almost guarentee if there was a game the previous Friday it will most likely take 75% of the announcement space up, while there may be a 30 second announcement that also covers the weekend, a student entered a science fair and took home a gold metal. Where do you assume the importance of this announcement?
And no, every school is not the same, but every school has the capability to alter the values of its students' lives. Every school has the capability to look good on the local news through the scoreboard, or know the lifelong lessons taught by caring teachers will follow their students for the rest of their lives. There is so much time, effort, and money put into extra curricular activities and not enough being put into academics. Its great that your kid can dunk a basketball from a ball court away, and its great that your daughter is so athletic and in shape but should you push your child to think that is all that matters? In 15 years when your daughter is looking for an accountant job the fact that she can scream loud and do backflips and strenuous positions in the air is not going to help her very much, remember that when you're placing your child in tumbling before you think about preschool. Extra-curricular, being outside the usual job, profession, or curriculum, by no means should they be cut but thats what sports are, extra.
Til my next soapbox: Signed DiligentDaisy
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