Light shine off the helmets of the players as they prepare to snap the play. The tension, in the field and in the crowd, is felt as they all prepare for the rush that is to come. This is what students look forward to seeing since the start of that very day, the school is restless. School sports are a thing of American education, but is it really needed? Sports programs should be cut students are failing to focus on academics, the expensive are too much, and the schools budgets should be focused on academics and ways to keep the students happy DURING school.
To begin with, students are failing to focus on academics. "America should learn from South Korea and Finland and every other country in the top tier of international test scores, all of whom emphasize athletics far less in school. “Even in eighth grade, American kids spend more than twice the time Korean kids spend playing sports," Amanda Ripley writes, citing a 2010 study published in the Journal of Advanced Academics. Students are playing sports more than studying academics, compared to the higher placed countries of academic scoring. (Daniel Bowen and Colin Hitt, The Atlantic) American schools put too much importance and emphasis on Sports. Students have the resources to excel yet they are choosing to play sports instead. "Nearly all of Jenny’s classmates at Shawnee are white, and 95 percent come from middle- or upper-income homes. But in 2012, only 17 percent of the school’s juniors and seniors took at least one