yep. and i was a 3 sport star. well, 2 sport star and one i was ok at.

A public highschool near me just spent $600k+ remodeling their basketball locker rooms.

People take sports pretty seriously.



Cost to the school was "only" $225k though. Private money made up the rest.

I'd rather see nothing cut. Sports, music, art, debate, PE - all that stuff is important for kids. They should be as required as the core curriculum. I'm pretty sure the wealthiest country on earth can find a way to deliver them.

And again, why are these things being cut? Sometimes when you look under the covers it's because of some terrible contract and ridiculous pension obligations negotiated into teacher's union contracts. How would you feel if you had a kid in the Buffalo school district where the district is paying $5.4 million towards covered plastic surgery despite running a massive deficit. You'd feel like your kid was getting screwed right?

Like I said I grew up in inner-city schools. My first debate here on 2p2 I basically went back and forth with Riverman about how those teachers are heroes and deserve everything that's coming to them. Then in the course of those debates I slowly became more educated and changed my mind.

I still think of the teachers as heroes. But I think urban school district teacher's unions often abuse tax payer dollars and don't seem to care a lick about what's best for the kids - just for their constituents. Which is what a union is supposed to do, fine. But that doesn't mean we, as average citizens, all have to put up with it. Sometimes public outrage seems to be the only thing holding them back.

Btw it's not at all controversial that stuff like sports, recess and PE is vitally important and helps combat childhood obesity.

Yeah this in no way is what I'm talking about. I'm just talking about having some kind of team sports and other extra-curricular options.

If you cut sports you'll lose a lot of high schoolers. There's definitely some bad programs but saying they are an overall negative is a huge leap.

i'd say one of the biggest issues is the fact that we have all of these school boards who do their own thing.

maybe a more centralized approach to standards and curriculum would improve things.

this is a complex argument for sure. but lets not act like if you got rid of unions and let everyone go to charter schools, anything would improve.

i'm sure you were like the best honorable mention all stater of all time.

without looking, i'd guess this school is doing just fine academically

Finland's so homogeneous?

Charter schools have been another huge force for good imo. Kids who really want to get out of the chaos usually can, there's pressure on the district to shape up, and middle-class/lower-middle-class suburban-transplant parents don't have to flee urban areas when their kid turns 5 anymore - which helps the district in the long-run by reclaiming areas from blight (yes, gentrification has its own set of problems). But I realize charter schools aren't really a sustainable replacement for an entire inner-city-district.

I think most inner-city kids would be better off if the big districts were shattered into dozens of smaller districts. Either that or move it up to the federal level like you said. Nothing could be worse than the toxic mix of crony corrupt city politics, super-powerful teachers unions, and stifling bureaucracy of the big-city districts.

second team guy. but i did win a state wrestling championship.

interesting argument. because i know this is true with me.

why aren't teachers unions in finland inherently evil?

and with your last point on the obesity. have you seen the **** we feed these kids? it's dog**** prison food.

until we crack down on madison avenue going after children, we're never going to solve the obesity problem. or we could at least act like we care about health and feed kids good food.

i played sports year around and was always overweight. i wrestled heavy weight even though i was only 240 because i wouldn't lose weight to go to 215

Sup bro.

There's a fairly significant heroin problem in the district, actually.

But Arrowhead isn't exactly struggling, academically.

c'mon man. bro-dudes aren't making these ****ing arguments.

lol exactly. I'm always baffled by people who, without any real prompt, brag about high school sports they didn't accomplish much in.

surely there was prompt. we were talking about sports i was taking an anti-sports stance. it's obv worth mentioning that i myself was an athlete.

no it isn't

You're right, the extra-curriculars are usually the first to get cut by boards trying to attempt to manipulate taxpayers into more funding.

At the same time, you cannot have a successful after-school athletics program or other electives without parent participation and cooperation. There's no way you're going to get the teachers to handle it all. Inner city districts have to deal with a really ****ty home-life in many cases.

98% of the work done for the sports at my kids' elementary school is handled by the parents.

We can't put the entirety of the blame for bad/non-existent extra curriculars on the inner city adminstration or unions.

I was referring to one of the funnier running gags on 2+2. No offense meant. http://archives1.twoplustwo.com/show...fpart=all&vc=1

****ing hilarious. sup bro had 15 tackles for loss. sup bro didn't accomplish this by taking ****. so funny.

More heart than anyone bro.

thank for linking that. hilarious. it's crazy how many funny threads there are that i don't know anything about.

i started a CTE thread in OOT and someone made a reference to this that now makes sense.

There has been really funny stuff on this forum over the years. Glad you enjoyed it.