Summary Of The Case Against High School Sports Amanda Ripley

High School Sports Aren’t Detracting from Academics Amanda Ripley argues in her article, “The Case Against High-School Sports” that athletic programs and schooling should be independent of each other. She argues that school sponsored sports result in lower test scores, draw focus away from academics, and aren’t economically feasible. This infatuation with sports in American schools is harming our economy and our education system in Ripley’s opinion. Ripley offers an in depth explanation and research to back her claims, but she fails to address other factors and variables that are resulting in our nation’s academic mediocrity. Amanda Ripley compares the athletic attitude of America to other countries. Ripley talks to foreign exchange students

Premont suspended all of their athletic programs and Ripley argues that suspending sports allowed them to improve their facilities, teaching, and academic success (2). Ripley writes that Ernest Singleton, the superintendent of Premont Independent School District, defended his decision to suspend sports by arguing that “eliminating sports would save money and refocus everyone’s attention on academics” (2). This decision to suspend sports programs brought about major positives for the school district, as they were able to upgrade facilities and provide more training for their teachers, which helped to cause academic progress for their students. Ripley argues that the school district was able to develop a more balanced budget and able to provide a better learning environment for their students as a result of eliminating sports programs

Ripley’s article title implies that she is going to focus on all high school sports, when in actuality she uses the majority of the article to target football. This weakens her argument because she isn’t disproving that all high school sports have negative effects on education. In fact, this argument against football isn’t even entirely applicable to her primary example, Premont. The Caller Times, a newspaper in Corpus Christi, Texas, states that Premont has brought back football to both its high school and junior high (Garcia). This contradicts Ripley’s argument that sports are the primary cause of our academic mediocrity. Why would Premont bring back football if administrators felt it was negatively affecting learning? Ripley spends too much time focusing on football, which weakens her argument because she doesn’t prove that all sports, or even football, have a negative effect on