Jenni’s 5 Minute Rant Against Public School Sports – ROPE Report Live 10/27/23

Several years ago, I posted this meme to my Facebook page to watch it viewed and shared numerous times.

At the time, I don’t think I had begun to believe this, but I do now; sports should be removed from public schools.

Please, send your hate mail directly to my email box here (jenni@rope2.org) and feel free to comment on this piece about how I’ve now become so ‘fringe’ that I might as well be run out of town as a researcher and writer on all things education – but it won’t change my mind and here’s why:

Every year, against their own self-interest – citizens go to the polls and vote for school bonds for their district schools. These, the voting public is told via emails from schools (illegal actually) and via other means often at taxpayer expense, are requirements for the schools – they must have a GYM, or a new CAFETERIA, or a new football STADIUM/SOCCER FIELD/BASEBALL FIELD – or the students in the system will perish from the earth.

One of the ways in which we’re not free as Americans today is that the state owns our property and not ourselves. Every single person who owns any property, must pay a tax on that property to the state. That property tax – or Ad Valorum, to which our overlords refer deliberately to confuse the populace and keep them believing they own the address where they lay their head – goes, in part, to fund the public schools in the district. So, on top of property taxes – much of which go to public schools – the property of citizens are also endebted to pay out for the bonds the district has created because the new football stadium was a necessity to insure that children were properly learning.

Now, here’s the real rub – THE MAJORITY OF STUDENTS IN OKLAHOMA CANNOT DO MATH OR ENGLISH PROFICIENTLY. Yes, the majority of students graduated by our Oklahoma public schools can’t “read to learn”, or read to perform higher order skills, or do math well enough even to count change back at a retail job. This should horify ever single Oklahoma citizen, yet nearly every public school parent would have a complete freakout if their school discontinued sports to concentrate on EDUCATION.

It used to be – years ago now – that kids weren’t rewarded with any kind of fun if they hadn’t kept up their studies, yet, no such luck today. Today, we’re more concerned about being able to sit out under those Friday Night lights and have our school be the next 2A champs, than we are that Johnny can’t do math OR read properly for his age.

See, if education of state children were of the UPMOST importance, public schools would get rid of their sports programs and allow private organizations – many of which already exist today to serve homeschooling families – to provide that service for parents who wish their kids to be involved in sports.

One would think CONSERVATIVES would LOVE that idea! Let the FREE MARKET take over! Why should taxpayers not only pay for an horrificly poor education, but the sports programs sucking up the time students could be studying?

Enjoy the rant.