Tow #3: Article: "The Case Against High School Sports" by Amanda Ripley

Amanda Ripley, the author of The Smartest Kids in the World- and How They Got That Way, wrote "The Case Against High School Sports" for The Atlantic because she firmly believes that high school sports are ruining academic opportunities for students. She establishes her credibility by stating that she played and enjoyed sports throughout her high school experience and it is evident that she did an extensive amount of research before writing this article. However, I do not think she will successfully achieve her purpose of convincing American principals and school districts and to ban sports, especially football, in their schools. In the article, Ripley makes the argument that schools are spending too much money paying for their football teams and coaches. Also she uses many examples to strengthen this argument. There is a school district in Texas that would have had to close down completely if they hadn't gotten rid of all sports. I agree with Ripley in the sense that too much money is being spent on sports, but getting rid of sports in high schools across the country is a bit extreme. There needs to be a balance in the amount of money that goes towards sports and academics. Rather than giving a football team new uniforms and spending a fortune on artificial turf in the same year, the school could pay for one of those things in that year and spend the rest of the money on buying new books or hiring better math teachers that may not double as coaches. I do not think it was smart for Ripley to mention that in the school in Texas, many sports were put back into their school, such as tennis, track, basketball, and cross country. I believe the sports were put back in because it is part of American culture to have sports in our schools. Ripley also makes the argument that American schools are not testing in math as Korea, China or Finland. She uses statistics that are difficult to argue with such as the fact that 93 percent of South Korean students graduate high school as opposed to 77 percent of American students. However I do not believe that these numbers are directly related to sports. Also, 77 percent of our high school population is still a lot of people considering the size of the country, so why does it matter if there are a few bad apples. They made the choice to not go to college because they have the right to live life how they want to. Overall I do not believe that Ripley accomplished her purpose in writing the article because America is still producing enough intelligent, innovative minds that there is no need to take extreme measures to change anything.