Academic success is always compared to our peers around us, but if we took a broader look and compared it to those countries around the world, the word competition would be far from our reach. So the question arises: what is it that we lack? When it comes to American schools, we end up putting academic and sports success together, resulting in this defect on the academic side. Sports should be eliminated because when comparing to different schools from all over the world the highest scores are seen from those who put academics first and sports last, the result of this change from sport to no sports could result in lots of schools across the world to gain more high scores that would end up becoming an average. When we think of the combination …show more content…
So the capability of those who do sports is only so much. In “School Should Be About Learning, Not Sports,” Amanda Ripley makes the central claim that American schools have focused their news reports as well as devotions toward kids who do well in sports and less on academic success like other countries. In this report she makes the point “Competitive sports is not about exercise”. If it were, we'd have the fittest kids in the world. It's a fantasy with a short shelf life. If you want to build school spirit and teach kids about grit, hold a pep rally for the debate team. Those kids are training to rule the real world.” She makes this point of showing how the world needs more kids who are able …show more content…
The U.S. ended up ranking 13th in reading and last in math, which can also be seen side by side with Amanda Ripley's report where she has gotten personal opinions that say, “The biggest difference was definitely the school spirit," one student from Finland noted. It was amazing to see how school wasn't just about the grades. In my home country, school is just for learning." As well as "Doing well at sports in the U.S. is just as important as having good grades," observed one German student. With these two students being from different countries, it can be seen how they view school differently than it is expected of America. The difference is clearly seen when students who are in sports end up focusing less on academics, where those in countries like China, Singapore, and Finland experience higher scores academically due to their view in knowing that school expectations are set for only studying and not