In every high school, sports hold extremely high value within the community and are a huge aspect to the students. Every year the number of students involved in high school sports increases and has yet to stop growing. Per the annual High School Athletics Participation Survey by the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS), the number of students involved in sports has grown immensely and currently shows that over 55.5% of all students participate in sports in some way during their high school career. All together being about 7.6 million students (Koebler, US News). While these numbers are impressive, many students also participate in clubs, academic groups, and social sports. Most commonly they are involved in both during
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Accomplishments made by Mock Trials, Academic Decathlons, etc. bring recognition and praise to the school and often attract more students and potential donners to help such programs. The problem, however, lies in the fact that while these do bring up the reputation of the school, academic achievements barely bring in revenue. Therefore, this often leads boards to limit funding and begin picking and choosing which organizations to keep running. Another reason for a lack of funding into academics may be because many of these organizations are headed by a single teacher or two. The reason this becomes an issue is due to the fact that money is not put into the program directly each year, but rather must be requested first by the teacher or coordinator to then be used. This becomes much more difficult to get funding for because rather than the school overseeing the program, the teachers are in charge and therefore it is more of a …show more content…
Throughout the state over 23,000 teachers were pink slipped as a result of state funding being about $18 billion less than what was estimated only 2 years before. With the state not even having enough money to pay their teachers, it would seem like a long shot when teachers asked for funding towards academic activities. Even though cuts had to be made, what was continued to be funded was sports. Like previously stated, there could be a variety of explanations to explain why the school did this. However, even after the crisis resolved itself, you could still see the uneven correlation between how money was distributed between sports and extracurricular academics in my school. While my high school was one of the top in education, it focused heavily on sports and funding usually was prioritized into athletics. This trend developed even greater after our school became Football State Champions and Soccer State Champions. The amount of funding they received for new gear, equipment, etc. increased immensely after both victories, however after our school academic team’s won major events very little funding went to
Accomplishments made by Mock Trials, Academic Decathlons, etc. bring recognition and praise to the school and often attract more students and potential donners to help such programs. The problem, however, lies in the fact that while these do bring up the reputation of the school, academic achievements barely bring in revenue. Therefore, this often leads boards to limit funding and begin picking and choosing which organizations to keep running. Another reason for a lack of funding into academics may be because many of these organizations are headed by a single teacher or two. The reason this becomes an issue is due to the fact that money is not put into the program directly each year, but rather must be requested first by the teacher or coordinator to then be used. This becomes much more difficult to get funding for because rather than the school overseeing the program, the teachers are in charge and therefore it is more of a …show more content…
Throughout the state over 23,000 teachers were pink slipped as a result of state funding being about $18 billion less than what was estimated only 2 years before. With the state not even having enough money to pay their teachers, it would seem like a long shot when teachers asked for funding towards academic activities. Even though cuts had to be made, what was continued to be funded was sports. Like previously stated, there could be a variety of explanations to explain why the school did this. However, even after the crisis resolved itself, you could still see the uneven correlation between how money was distributed between sports and extracurricular academics in my school. While my high school was one of the top in education, it focused heavily on sports and funding usually was prioritized into athletics. This trend developed even greater after our school became Football State Champions and Soccer State Champions. The amount of funding they received for new gear, equipment, etc. increased immensely after both victories, however after our school academic team’s won major events very little funding went to