School and Sports

Vox Day, in his weekly WND article, points out that in today's America sports is more important than education to many high-schoolers. He does not mention that it is also many parents who think that.

He gets somewhat off-course discussing home-schooling versus public-schooling, about who can be on the teams or use the tax paid facilities, etc., but he does bring up one critical point:

Says Vox:

"...-and in Europe nearly all sporting competition revolves around athletic clubs, not schools, which has likely helped Europe surpass the United States in both academic and athletic performance."

Amen to that. Get all this sports stuff out of our schools. School is for education... not bulking up, or running faster, or being one of the bimbos on the cheerleading squad. My school had one period for "gym", where we were required to exercise. That was it.

Athletic clubs... an idea that has found a home in Europe and paid off. Maybe we should try it here.

All the money now lavished onto school sports, the money for personnel, equipment, facilities, advertising and recruiting could be re-channeled into athletic clubs, so those parents and kids who live and eat sports could do so without interrupting the educational process.

We already have a successful model, Europe's athletic clubs.

And... their results are better.