CLAIM: As states and districts continue to slash education budgets, as more kids play on traveling teams outside of school, and as the globalized economy demands that children learn higher‐order skills so they can compete down the line, it’s worth reevaluating the American sporting tradition.
EVIDENCE:
1. nine out of 10 foreign students who had lived in the U.S. said that kids here cared more about sports than their peers back home did.”
2. Americans 8th graders spend twice the amount of time playing sports than their counterparts in South Korea.
3. Students in other countries, such as Finland and Germany, play sports through their hometowns, not through the school system.
4. Premont Case
5. “When Marguerite Roza, the author of Educational Economics, analyzed the finances of one public high school in the Pacific Northwest, she and her colleagues found that the school was spending $328 a student for math instruction and more than four times that much for cheerleading—$1,348 a cheerleader.”
6. Football is expensive, especially stadiums, bleachers, turf, and gear upkeep. Ticket and concession sales cannot bring in enough money to pay for all of that.
7. When coaches travel for game days, schools have to hire substitute teachers and pay for buses. Schools also cover the costs of field maintenance.
8. During sports seasons, student athletes and other students with associations to sports spend much of their extra time practicing and in meetings and activities focused on sports
9. Principals are forced to hire lower quality teachers in order to get a coach.
10. Sports programs are not always the first to be cut when districts are under budget. Counterclaims and Rebuttals
COUNTERCLAIMS
1. Sports keep students out of trouble. Simply keeping students out of trouble isn’t good enough anymore and does nothing to increase academic performance and keep up with the rest of the world.
2. Sports do more good than harm, leading to higher college attendance and employment rates among women and improved college graduation rates overall. But there is still 60% of students who don’t play sports, and those who are athletes say that the more they win, they more they party.
3. Sports keep people healthy. Again, they don’t help the majority of students. Spelman College eliminated sports programs and instituted a campus‐wide sports and recreation program.
4. Focusing on academics could make us become just like Korea with inordinate pressure on students. But
sports arguably already does this, and Korea graduates 93% of students whereas the US only graduates 77% of its students
HOPE THIS HELPS
HAVE A WONDERFUL DAY!
Answered by - ItsAudrey
Question by - Adriannnv
