Richard Whitmire was a former editorial writer at USA Today and past board president of the National Education Writers Association, and a frequent opinion commentator on national education issues.
Emphasizing Sports Over Academics Sets Up Black Boys to Lose By Richard Whitmire A little-noticed controversy played out in the District of Columbia schools recently that highlights a rarely discussed reason African-American boys lag so far behind in academics: sports. That sounds wrongheaded, doesn't it? After all, conventional wisdom holds that sports are supposed to keep at-risk boys interested in school and out of trouble. But in fact, sports can have just the opposite effect. The controversy involved Ballou High School Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader , academically one of the worst high schools in one of the country's worst urban school districts. The Ballou Knights, it turns out, used an ineligible player to win a football game that qualified the team for a coveted spot in the annual Turkey Bowl championship game--a Thanksgiving Day tradition...
The opinions expressed in Why Boys Fail are strictly those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.
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