Why do the urban public school students who want to learn about science, math, history and literature have to go to school with jocks and cheerleaders? What to the nerds get besides being put down for being "unpopular"?
What would happen if public schools were separated by those who wanted to actually learn and those who wanted to play sports and be popular? One thing hat would happen is that the nerd schools could pay for computers and math and history instructors instead of high-priced football coaches (who in Texas get paid more than the Principle) and the money wasted on football stadiums and equipment would instead be spent on computers and math, history and literature instructors.
Not that physical ed instruction should be not given to nerds. Instead, the Phys ed instructors at nerd schools would focus on actually training nerds in how to deal with their physical needs instead of being forced to compete with sports enthusiasts. I was a nerd, and found the coaches ignored me because I was not going to win the next sports prize. I lucked out because I also threw newspapers from a bicycle, morning and evening, on a route that was over seven miles long. But we had no bicycle competitions so the coaches didn't give a damn about my physical condition. What if the physical ed department was focused on training intellectuals about how to deal with their physical needs?
How many minority families would send their children to schools focused on sports instead of academics?
Students who failed in the schools for nerds could be transferred to the schools for jocks. Then given a chance to switch back the next semester.
This would focus the physical ed departments on training students how to deal with their bodies, instead of how to compete in games. It would also, more importantly, give parents a chance to express to their children what really matters ion life - education or sports.
But would this make the sports oriented schools into second rate schools for losers?
I should hope so. When was the last time the American schools systems were castigated for turning out too few world class athletes and too many math, science and history nerds? While sports are important, they are secondary to academics!
A similar approach could be taken to arts and music.
Have high schools specialize in either sports, math science history and literature, or arts and music. Each school would have to offer all subjects, of course, but specialize in one of the three. Students and their parents would be given their choice regarding which the students would attend, and support for transportation would be provided.
Most important, each school would focus the majority of their awards on their preferred students. Students in each school would know what they were there to do. The students themselves would be coopted into supporting each other to achieve success.
Rural and smaller community schools don't have the resources available to specialize entire schools in this manner, but they could set up specific tracks in each school to match the specialized urban schools.
That would be an approach to getting the best education possible from public schools. The drawback is that the schools in high concentrations of poverty and racial minority districts would still have problems offering high quality education to students unable to accept it. But this approach would isolate those schools and make it clear what their essential problems were, so that those key problems could be addressed - assuming that public school boards would permit the diversion of funds needed by the lowest performing schools, something they currently prevent.
Religious schools, of course, would continue to offer their religious education without government subsidy.
The sports pages of local newspapers might become confused, as they find themselves relegated to reporting on less than a third of the high schools since the rest would be either sharing stadiums or closing them down as funds were redirected to more important educational goals. But maybe the newspapers would start reporting on academics and the arts and music.
God only knows what the local TV news people would do. Report on Nerds? Could retired jocks actually be induced to do that? And how much time could they actually be forced to give to the local math, history, literature or chess champion? They only have at most about 12 minutes every night anyway. And what kind of visually interesting videos can you get - every night at 5:15 PM or 10:15 PM - from a math, history, Literature or science wonks?
But who really matters in the next generation? The nerds, artists or the jocks?
In my opinion, the ranking by importance is nerds, artists, and a long way below them, the jocks.
So why don't our public schools recognize and encourage this ranking? Probably because of elected school boards. Educator professionalism is something that simply is ignored. That seems to be a very typical and widespread American attitude.
But that's a subject for a later post.
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