Child-obesity bill stuck in House - Teachers unions fight exercise requirement

[The Straight Story]

Child-obesity bill stuck in House
Teachers unions fight exercise requirement

A bill aimed at getting schools more engaged in the battle against childhood obesity has stalled in the Ohio House because of objections from education groups that do not want a daily exercise requirement in state law, even if schools can easily opt out.

The bipartisan bill passed the Senate 24-7 this month, but a scheduled House committee vote was delayed last week when school groups, including teachers unions, continued to hammer the bill, particularly a requirement of 30minutes of exercise per day beyond recess.

"We don't want this provision in permanent law because it puts pressure on districts to do that instead of other things," said Barbara Shaner of the Ohio Association of School Business Officials, stressing that lawmakers are not providing the money to pay for it.

But the bill's lead sponsors, Sen. Kevin J. Coughlin, R-Cuyahoga Falls, and Rep. John Patrick Carney, D-Columbus, are insisting on the 30-minute requirement.

http://www.dispatchpolitics.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2010/05/30/copy/child-obesity-bill-stuck-in-house.html?adsec=politics&sid=101

[msongs]

1. teachers have to much test ing crap on their plates already to cram PE into the day nt

[SheilaT]

2. I see the real problem

is legislatures trying to micro-manage the school day.

[sandnsea]

4. California required daily PE in the 60s and 70s

I don't know, is the rest of the country really that fucking nuts? A state PhysEd mandate should be no big deal at all, except to the question of who pays for the PE teacher.

[Codeine]

13. Still had it all through the 80s as well.

I was in the class of 88, and somehow we managed to learn and be active at the same time.

[Mojorabbit]

21. I had outdoor activities

from kindergarten thru 10th or 11th grade in the 70s. I don't get what the deal is. It was nice to use up some energy after sitting inside much of the day. I sucked at sports and was totally uncoordinated but there was such a variety of things to do in PE I had a blast.

[sandnsea]

3. My kids had elementary PE 3 days a week

The other two days were music and art, and then they alternated I think. Something like that. I think we may have lost our PE teacher in my current town, endless budget cuts despite passing a levy. If the state wants to fund it, the teachers should jump at the chance. Use the half hour for class prep or grading.

[Imajika]

5. I agree with the teachers unions here...

I am skeptical that we need government spending a whole lot of time combating child-obesity. We are barely succeeding in teaching kids the basic skills. Parents are just going to have to be responsible for getting their kids outside to play. The teachers can't do everything. Seems to me we are expecting schools to act more like babysitting sessions instead of places of education.

[sandnsea]

7. Did you not have PE in school?

I can't believe this thread.

[Imajika]

14. Yes, we milled around and did nothing...

I got more exercise running through the halls or walking home.

PE was just time away from actual learning.

I am not very sympathetic to the whole "anti-obesity" campaign. I think that, considering how much we have to deal with as a nation, we have a lot more important priorities.

[Chulanowa]

25. I did.

I mostly sat in the bleachers and played Magic with my buddies. When it was outdoors, we walked the track and talked about girls.

I got more exercise from lugging my 60 pounds of books everywhere

[theHandpuppet]

18. Haven't you heard?

It's the teachers' job to be parents. It's the teachers' job to make sure kids eat right, get regular exercise, are taught the basics of human decency so they don't turn into bullies and bigots, to counsel, mentor, and babysit. Then and only when these expectations are satisfied should they turn their attention to that extracurricular activity called teaching... you know, instruction in those pesky subjects like reading, writing and mathematics. And if the kids fail at those, it's got to be the teachers' fault.

[SocialistLez]

6. I'm torn.

I think all kids should have an opportunity to exercise at school BUT I know that cuts into other things.

I'd rather we go back to less testing and find other ways to measure learning.

A much better fix would be to change our cities into more pedestrian friendly places so that kids can get their exercise on the way to school and after school.

30 minutes BEYOND recess seems excessive but I know plenty of kids who don't even have a recess.

[Starry Messenger]

8. It was going to cost $4 million and there was no money in the bill.

Why bother? It sounds good on paper, but if it also takes away from time in core classes which are necessary to make the almighty test scores go up then it's kind of a catch-22. There should be more PE but if the state wants this stuff, they need to find funding.

[sandnsea]

9. That I agree with n/t

[Kat45]

10. When I was in school, we had PE, but not daily.

I think it was a couple of times a week.

[femmocrat]

11. I support this provision:

"It also would set new nutrition standards for vending-machine beverages and a la carte food offerings."

If they are so serious about childhood obesity, take a close look at what is being served in the cafeterias. Many children get 2/3 of their daily food intake from the school meal program which is loaded with fat, salt and sugar.

I'm assuming that "a la carte" means "snacks" (corn chips, cookies, ice cream, etc.) that the kids can buy at lunchtime. There are no other a la carte items that I know of.

[Codeine]

12. I grew up with PE five days a week.

Fat kids were fairly rare even as recently as the 80s. I can't see any rational reason to oppose making the little buggers run a little.

[tammywammy]

16. I had it 5 days a week until high school

Then in high school you just had to do a year and a half of PE.

Edited to add: I graduated high school in 1999.

[cherokeeprogressive]

24. 5 days a week in elementary school, intermediate, and high school. REQUIRED until 10th grade.

Maybe it was just my school district, I can't say. I went to school in southeast L.A. County.

There were fat kids then, but guess what? No one asked for or gave them any special dispensation for being fat, and they played and competed just like everyone else. Sometimes they were BETTER than everyone else.

[Brickbat]

15. I'm guessing the objection is that this is going to require 30 more minutes of exercise WITHOUT

hiring another PE teacher. If I were a classroom teacher suddenly being asked to drop everything and get my kids to do situps and pushups for 30 minutes, I would object, too.

[tammywammy]

17. Agree, if the state wants it they better fund it n/t

[Bonobo]

19. One of the problems with America, as I see it...

Is that everyone thinks they should be able to "have their own way". As if what is god for you may not be good for me. Well, some things are good for everyone and there is no need to reinvent the wheel every time you want to go for a ride.

Kids need exercise, so the teacher's union should just STFU and do it.

Not everyone is so special that they need to all have an opinion in everything.

Kids need exercise. Anyone disagree? Good then just stfu and make it a common law for al school systems in the USO(besity).

[depakid]

20. This is the sort of thing that makes teacher's unions look bad to ordinary folks

[noamnety]

22. Where is the money going to come from?

We don't have a full time PE teacher. We have a part time one right now, because the high school kids are required to have 1 PE credit during high school. If they were required to each have PE daily we would need 2-3 full time instructors instead of one part time one. And so we would have to cut 2-3 other teachers to pay for it. What do we cut? We have the core required academics, we have art classes because we are an art school. That's it.

Maybe we're supposed to cut our freshman english teacher to part time and cram 50 kids in that room at once?

Aside from that, we haven't got the facilities to make this happen. We have one gym, and it's not that large. Unless they were going to give us a construction grant of a few hundred thousand dollars, I don't see how it's even workable from a logistics standpoint.

When the teachers unions oppose things like this, it's not because they are bad people who want kids to be fat. It's because they are working with a finite amount of resources. The WH has unrealistic expectations of what it takes to suddenly implement something like this, as if facilities and salary money will materialize out of thin air.

[sam sarrha]

23. the bill will become Obese itself when they get thru packing it with Pork...

[liberalhistorian]

26. At some point, we simply must stop making

everything the responsibility of schools and start putting it where it belongs, on the parents and family. Teachers and schools have more than enough on their plates nowadays, especially with the NCLB requirements; where and how the hell do you you expect them to fit this in? Many districts have had to reduce their PE classes or cut them altogether because there simply isn't the budget for it anymore and most have trouble fitting in all of the requirements and unfunded mandates that they are currently dealing with.

Not everything is or should be the responsibility of teachers and schools. Parents need to start stepping up to the damn plate and making their children turn off the fucking computer, tv and video games, get off the damned couch and get outside for some movement and fresh air instead of constantly using technology as a babysitter. And not feeding them fast food, junk and soda all the damned time would certainly help, too. But, no. It's so much easier just to put it all on the schools and teachers, like they do everything else.