Report: Public School Students Not Getting Enough P.E.

Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum announced findings of a new report that reveal public school students are getting much, much less physical education than they should be. Based on data from 100 randomly selected schools, only 4% of third graders and only 12% of fourth graders participated in daily mandated P.E. classes.

Gotbaum said, "Many schools are breaking the law by not complying with state mandates, and that’s a big problem because kids are not getting the exercise they need." She and City Comptroller William Thompson accused the Department of Education of failing students as childhood obesity is rising at an alarming rate.

The state's requirements for P.E. are interesting. Per the Sun, it's "once a day up to the third grade; three times a week for fourth- through sixth-graders, and twice a week one semester and three times a week the other for seventh- through 12th-graders."

The Department of Education tells the Sun it created the Office of Fitness and Health Education and has hired a director to help bring more physical fitness progreams ot schools, even ones without gyms (like having students do yoga and Pilates).

Photograph of Queens playground by Alarmist on Flickr

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By Jen Chung in News on May 5, 2008 2:18 PM

Comments [rss]

SleepyM

Wow once a week! Growing up we had gym every day (and yes I am a product of the NYC public school system). I realize it's been 12 years since I have been a student here but when did they start cutting back on gym class?

sonyactivision

Running away from the psychopath in the trenchcoat with two sawed-off shotguns in the hallway IS P.E.

rukii

My high school used to take us to gym at the local Y because of scheduling conflicts at the school's gym (namely, that two other schools are sharing it and there isn't any room in the schedule for us). The Y was great, especially for the less sports-inclined among us. Yes, we had "team sports," but we also had swimming, yoga, cardio, track, spinning (a stationary bike class), and even self-defense.

Over the summer, however, the Y decided they couldn't take any more schools and kicked us out. Now we have "gym class" at the H.G. Eliot center, a community center in a housing project. While it is newly renovated, it is completely inadequate for the number of students that are brought there every day. They gave us no sports or activity instructors, and the three options now are to cower in the corner of the undersized gym as you get hit by stray basketballs and dodgeballs, go upstairs and do homework, or sign up for yoga classes back at the school building, which are sometimes not held because the room for which they are used gets locked or is used for a teacher seminar.

My classmates (16 and 17 years old) have gotten so accustomed to a sedentary existence that they have no desire to go back to the Y because they don't want to learn how to swim. What a delightful circumvention of the state mandate!

JacqueMehoff

I'm glad there's no such thing as gym class when one reaches adulthood.

robingee

Picking teams in the worst. I hope they've done away with that.

Think2wice

They just need to teach kids how to stay in shape. Get them swimming, use gym equipment, karate, yoga, whatever it takes. Not fucking dodgeball or that humiliating ritual of picking team members.

Mags

Oh, and recess was 20 minutes after lunch and involved filling the auditorium with kids and playing parts of movies.

Mags

In the elementary school where I worked, students were "supposed" to have PE once a week. It was taught by their normal classroom teacher (so many teachers just weren't interested or prepared) and two classes (50-60 students) shared the small gym.

That was what we "should" have had. One year though, my students never had the gym even once because of scheduling problems.

It's a real problem. But the again, there are many problems in the public schools.

Rocknrope

Once a DAY? WTF, I remember having gym once a week in grade school. I remember distinctly because we had to wear our "gym outfit" those days to school. The rest of the week exercise was playing in the schoolyard.

But maybe that's how I got fat.

adamadam

proofread this.

jaja007

Its good to see Betsy Gotbaum got over her crazy daughter in law who got herself killed in that airport.

As for the kids, if you sit on your ass all day, you'll be fat. It's obvious. Let them chase a ball for a few minutes a day. What's the harm?