High School Football To Be Slashed By Fla. Budget Cuts

High school football is undeniably a focal point in many American communities. Friday nights find students, parents, teachers, alumni and other locals on the bleachers supporting their neighborhood school. But this treasured pastime could find its funding cut in Florida high schools.

As part of Governor Rick Scott's proposed budget cuts, after-school sports for middle school and high school may lose state funding. For many, eliminating high school football has raised the most concern.

The budget cuts are part of Florida Gov. Rick Scott's plan to reduce state spending by $4.6 billion from its current $71 billion budget, which was announced last month. A significant portion of the cuts appear in the education budget. The plan calls to eliminate all noncore programs in elementary school, all non-neighborhood transportation, after school sports and programs in middle and high schools and all staffing for after school activities.

The state is attempting to strip public schools of extracurricular activities while keeping the academic core of education intact.

It would be difficult to argue that band and sports should stay while math and science should be cut. But for some, extracurriculars are just as integral to a child's education as academics.

Earl Johnson, a Jacksonville parent, told a local reporter that he thought sports help students off the field as much as on the field. "It helps them to do things with their time, it keeps them from being idle," he said. "I believe it even helps to keep the crime rate down."

Deandre Johnson, an eighth-grader who plays for his middle school football team, said that sports can help students focus. "Some kids aren't mentally ready for school," he said.

At many schools, a minimum grade point average is required for students to be eligible to play sports. Students who otherwise might be failing courses can be motivated to improve in order to stay on their team's roster.

Sports have also traditionally been a method for underprivileged students to get admitted to colleges and universities. Scholarships are offered to student-athletes whose families can't afford to send them to a four-year university. Many students are offered the luxuries of an expensive education by virtue of their skills on the court or the field. Taking away school sports in public schools would eliminate this opportunity.

However, while the outcries of cutting after-school sports are mostly focused around football, in many ways this is the most logical first cut. Maintaining a football program is more expensive than maintaining other sports programs. Football is only played by boys, making the sport available to only half a school's students. And it's usually the most dangerous of school sports, leaving many players sidelined for concussions, breaks, sprains and tears every season.

But despite these arguments, high school is eponymous with football -- at least for some. And it seems unlikely that if football were sacrificed to preserve after-school music and theater programs all the athletes would be lining up to join the band.

Football has its place in school extra-curricular activities. Now those in charge of state budgets have to decide if it's worth the cost.

Comments

[ewb2001]

05:44 PM on 03/20/2011

About time this "Sacred Cow" be led to slaughter. That or let the football activities fully fund themselves, including the entire salaries for the coaches. Really, a high school with 1500 students really needs 15 PE teachers & 10 Drivers ed teachers? I say put the money to real education programs!

[ChicagoDMT]

02:10 PM on 03/19/2011

School districts should absolutely cut their sports programs. No doubt about it. Because you know what happens when schools cut their football programs? Parents get furious and finally get their asses of the couch and become interested in school funding.

The best way to restore education funding is cutting sports. If I were a school superintendent, I wouldn't even have to think twice about it.

[kel]

09:35 AM on 03/19/2011

I think cutting this sort of program is sad. I know many districts across the nation are facing cuts.
However let's pay to play. A minimum amount to pay a seasonal sport to cover the coaching.
Also a uniform fee, and people can have a booster club for other things.

Sports in schools has always been a way for the kid who couldn't afford youth sports in a town-ship to play something they may be gifted at.
A motivator, a sense of belonging. Perhaps a mentor (coach) to push them to care.
Keep them busy, out of trouble.

It's a sad state of affair our nation is facing such cuts. I believe our focus is in the class but sports off a lot more then a winning feeling.

[ewb2001]

05:49 PM on 03/20/2011

It is the cost of hiring all the Full time teachers to teach drivers ed,, PE, shop, health, basket weaving etc & they pay them extra to Coach football in the afternoons. If the parents & students want to fully fund all these activities, let them.

[GlennWatson]

08:35 AM on 03/19/2011

Keep the sports but make them less expensive. The amount spent on football is ridiculous. The uniforms are about $1000 each. The cost of referees and the huge sport bureaucracy that grow around it, get rid of that. The travel costs are ridiculous. Play local teams only . There is no need to travel across the state. Let the kids play without making it a grand production of it.

[Brett08]

03:00 AM on 03/19/2011

4) I think my argument against (3) covers this as well. Maybe if h.s. athletics funding were cut communities would care about schools for the fact that they are producing tomorrow's great thinkers...

5) I would argue exactly the opposite. Like I said before, sports seem to promote a sense of elitism, and though the students who play sports may feel a sense of belonging, that may be offset by the students who aren't good enough who feel as though they don't belong because the athletes are so much "cooler."

[Brett08]

02:57 AM on 03/19/2011

3) I agree that a lot of students are motivated to do better in school because they are on a sports team, but I don't think it has to be this way. I would say (and maybe I'm wrong) that this is more a product of our sports-crazed society than anything else. Students in the U.S. are motivated by the fact that sports figures are exalted as heroes, often times even at the high school level. Also, I would say many of them are motivated by the idea that they may someday be a professional athlete, which in most cases is completely unrealistic.
If h.s. athletics funding were cut, maybe that would cause students (and parents) to focus more of their attention on intelligent thinking and discussion, rather than on who's gonna win the super bowl, and maybe students will dream of being the next Einstein, rather than the next Michael Jordan. At least this way, if (or should I say, when) they fall short of their goal, they may have an
engineering career ahead of them, unlike if they fall short of their basketball aspirations...there's not a huge demand from society to see above average basketball players, you need to be fantastic to even think of going pro.
Anyway, I think the argument that it gives students a reason for staying active is reasonable, but again, there will be leagues available for students even if the government doesn't fund athletics.

[Brett08]

02:57 AM on 03/19/2011

2) Why exactly? In my opinion, not all extra-curriculars are created equal. I would assume that extra-curriculars exist to give students a chance to pursue their own particular interests beyond the required coursework. But I think it is reasonable for the taxpayer to want these extra-curriculars to foster students into potential careers, or at least for them to be intellectually stimulating. Also, among all extra-curriculars I can think of, athletics is the only one that seems to promote a sense of elitism, and it is the only one I can think of that consistently turns kids away (cuts them), while the cut student's parents continue to fund the team that they were told their kid cannot be a member of.

[Brett08]

02:56 AM on 03/19/2011

I have read 5 arguments against privatizing h.s. sports:
1) h.s. sports teach life skills that are important in one's overall education.
2) If we privatize h.s. sports, we will have to privatize drama, debate team, math club, etc.
3) h.s. sports give many students a reason to get reasonably good grades and not drop out, as well as giving them a reason to stay active.
4) h.s. sports give the community a reason to care about their schools.
5) h.s. sports give students a sense of belonging.

Here are my responses:
1) I would imagine that most people who argue this are referring to teamwork more than anything else. But don't you learn about teamwork in school, in e.g. science classes with your lab partners? Either way, just because you have to work together doesn't mean that the taxpayer needs to fund it. Shouldn't the teamwork be germane to a student's education?
People have to work together while they're playing video games on the same team...does that mean Joe Taxpayer needs to fund Suburbia H.S.'s Halo 3 team?
Not to mention, it is quite clear that students will and do have opportunities to play sports that are not publicly funded. There will certainly be plenty of leagues available to fill the void if funding is cut for h.s. sports. I do concede, however, that these leagues may cost too much for some students, even though their parents will have more of their income due to lowered taxes.

[farmilyman]

02:42 AM on 03/19/2011

The US is probably the only country that wastes so much educational money on sports.

[grammasher]

09:09 PM on 03/18/2011

Cut sports? Now that will get people's attention.

[MG Metiva]

03:29 PM on 03/18/2011

Sounds like Florida's going to have more HS dropouts. Makes other states look great,

[zakwouldhave]

03:26 PM on 03/18/2011

We have some tough choices to make. Short term thinking got us into this mess........looking into the crystal ball it is impossible to see funding for high school sports surviving the long term. What the kids are going to do after school (and during school for that matter) as we cut education programs left and right is beyond me.
Not enough jobs, too many people is our current reality and our certain future.

[bobtravis]

07:34 PM on 03/18/2011

We would not balance our state and federal budgets if funding for education were eliminated altogether. The real pork fat is in military spending. Trim the military budget and reinstate federal allocations to support education.

[zakwouldhave]

07:52 PM on 03/18/2011

I am with you 100%...but education is being cut across the board. We will pay a high price for cutting education spending...so much that military spending will be moot when there is nothing left worth defending.

[Roy Robson]

11:53 AM on 03/18/2011

I have seen alot of comments both good and bad for this.... Bad because football keeps some kids off the street and allows them an oportunity to get a college education, and how football pays for other sports in the school. Good because now the students will have more time for studying and ease the taxpayer burden..

I have seen programs that stressed the educational side as well as the sport side and the students do well and go to college, they maintain a balance.. I have also seen programs where the student was passed or just got by to boost the sports program into a winning season. And guess what the star player could not get accepted to college because of grades and in one case could only read on a third grade level... Last I remember he was on the run for armed robbery.. I don't know the solution but their needs to be a middle ground that holds the school accoutable for the players education, as well as giving the opportunity for some kids to go on to bigger and better things their families could not afford.

[kkcothi]

11:24 AM on 03/18/2011

Since football is a metaphor for war, I doubt the republicans will like this.
They will get rid of buses and books first.

[stuoverit]

12:01 PM on 03/18/2011

Football can be a metaphor for war or whatever you want it to be. It can be a metaphor for daily struggles of life, dealing with obstacles, dealing with life when you're not winning etc.