As school corporations scramble to trim $300 million from their budgets to meet cuts ordered by Gov. Mitch Daniels, it’s important that they remember there’s more to education than reading, writing and arithmetic.
The Monroe County Community School Corp. voted to eliminate its elementary strings program. The Tippecanoe School Corp. cut half of its elementary art, music and physical education teachers.
Our hope is that local schools will not follow that lead.
In an opinion piece distributed last week, the Indiana High School Athletic Association points to a three-year study in North Carolina that showed athletes with a grade point average of 2.86 compared to non-athletes with an average of 1.96. Athletes also had half as many absences, 6.5 as compared to 12.6, and they had a lower number of discipline referrals, 30.5 percent as compared to 40.3.
They had a dropout rate of less than 1 percent as compared to a rate of almost 9 percent for non-athletes, and they had a graduation rate of 99.6 percent, as compared to 94.7 percent for non-athletes.
In its publication, “No Child Left Behind: The Facts About 21st Century Learning,” the U.S. Department of Education reported that students who spent no time in extracurricular activities were 49 percent more likely to use drugs and 37 percent more likely to become teenage parents.
The job of our public schools is to engage the minds of Indiana’s young people, and study after study has found that the best way to engage those minds is through more than just academics.
A student who is active in the band or in running track or on the speech team generally will perform better in math and English than a student who simply goes to class and heads home.
Maybe it’s because kids have to maintain a solid grade point average in order to remain eligible for those extracurricular activities. Or maybe it’s because those who do well in academics are more likely to have broader interests.
Regardless of the reason, activities beyond the classroom are an important part of the educational experience.
Stretching the available dollars in these difficult economic times won’t be easy, but let’s resist any easy fixes. Let’s do our best to find ways to continue offering our kids a well-rounded educational experience.
