Issue #1 - Poor teaching practices – This was a problem when I was a student, teacher, and administrator. Yes, physical education teachers still “roll out the ball” and this practice continues daily across the country. Teachers use exercise as punishment, have their kids “walk the track” for class, and grade on students dressing out or wear correct shoes. Thanks to social media, we not only see the brilliance of the physical education world, but also the complete and utter disregard for quality physical education using best practices. One recent post bemoaned a principal asking the teacher to no longer play “pin ball” or “battleship” and the teacher complained that eliminating these two activities cost her “half of my curriculum”. I’m thinking there are bigger issues than that in that gym.
Fix #1 – Educate administrators on what a quality physical education learning environment looks like. I’m talking a full-scale educational assault. A few years back, SHAPE America began to present at Principals’ Conferences in some states and districts showing their Administrator’s Checklist. I utilized this as an HPE District Administrator to educate new principals in how to evaluate physical education teachers. Astonishingly, they really had no idea how to effectively evaluate teachers in a dynamic classroom setting. Additionally, they were thankful for receiving a tool that could help with teacher evaluations. Through educating these administrators, the potential outcome is for them to eliminate the sub-par teachers from the work force.
Issue #2 – Lack of Funding – Lack of funding and budgets continue to be a major problem for physical education programs nationwide. A typical school physical education budget is about $750 according to some data. Thus, we have a limited amount of resources to purchase equipment and other teaching and learning tools. Think about it in this regard…many of our schools get less than $1 per student for physical education budgets. The state of Georgia spends over $10,000 per student according to census data and they are only ranked 34th in spending. How can our programs receive less than $1 per student? I was excited as anyone to be included in ESSA funding. However, this funding has not been the “magic bullet” to infusing resources for physical education. The Title funds, particularly Title IV, is not reaching the physical education classrooms and teachers that it is meant to assist. Instead, these funds have been spent on special projects for board members or other administrators. The “needs assessment” portion of ESSA funding has been virtually absent according to the teachers I speak with across the nation.
Fix #2 – The first step is to make sure teachers are teaching to their standards. Poor teaching methods, lack of curriculum, and ineffective planning cannot be prevalent. When these are solved (see Fix #1), physical education teachers can be more vocal about budgets at the district level. Rather than bickering amongst ourselves, it is time to go to principals and school board meetings to layout the facts about our lack of resources. Furthermore, I feel SHAPE America should address the lack of targeted Title IV funds for health and physical education at the 2020 SPEAK Out Day. We have no idea if we need more Title IV until our programs get access to funding. It seems many of the processes are not being followed to disperse the funds to the variety of programs it is meant to serve. Creating targeted funding will ensure that we can address needs in our content areas.
Issue #3 – Lack of Professional Development – Physical education teachers are starving for professional development. While there are many great options for school districts, there are many poor ones, too. “60 Games in 60 Minutes” and similar options don’t seem to really integrate best practices and professional learning. At face value, they simply throw a bunch of games at teachers without connecting to standards or research-based teaching tools. However, many districts, continue to bring in presenters to deliver this type of session. In my opinion, it’s probably since there is a lack of true health and physical education coordinators across the country. Since the masses don’t have the proper background in our content fields and have physical education added on to other duties, they don’t understand that we have standards to teach and should not simply play “busy, happy, good” activities with our students. Another part of this is providing adequate funding and leave for teachers to attend conferences at the state and national levels.
Fix #3 – Once again, a precise and well-thought campaign to administrators can be one venue to raise the bar for professional development. Information needs to be communicated regarding our standards and the mission to help students gain more physical literacy. Additionally, guidelines for what quality physical education professional development should provide can be helpful to administrators not familiar with our physical education classrooms.
For the last 30 years, physical education has remained virtually stagnant with these three issues. (And these are just the tip of the iceberg as I didn’t even broach the issues of grading on dressing out or participation, emphasizing coaching over teaching, or using exercise as punishment in class!) At this point, I think WE as the physical education community are incapable of fixing ourselves. We’ve had 30 years and have not really dented the issues. In my opinion, it is time to reach outside our community to solicit assistance to “fix” ourselves. Perhaps administrators cracking down on poor teaching practices is the answer to creating quality physical education in schools. Maybe it is more or targeted Title IV funding. However, it is clear we haven’t been successful at cleaning up our own mess and need to look for a new strategy.