I will protect your pensions. Nothing about your pension is going to change when I am governor. - Chris Christie, "An Open Letter to the Teachers of NJ" October, 2009

Friday, September 3, 2010

Pitchfork's Priorities

"Pitchfork" Bob Ingle wants those damn kids to get off of his lawn and take their football with them!
It has to do with priorities. If you have to choose between ice hockey and algebra, you know what gets cuts. We’ve come to accept sports as a part of the school program like English or history. But in lots of countries young athletes compere in games not affiliated with schools. And kids in some of those countries do better academically than kids from the U.S. We do that some too. Think Little League. Maybe it’s time we started looking at ways to support teams outside the school system.
In Pitchfork's world, the choice is between academics and athletics. In the real world, the choice should be between maintaining the tradition of sports in school - a tradition that's literally hundreds of years old - and giving away tax gifts to corporations and millionaires.

It amazes me that some people are willing give up the rich traditions of this country because they think they can save a few pennies. But that, of course, is the false choice the middle-class has been sold by the Pitchforks of the nation for over 30 years.

3 comments:

thinker said...

Amen.

I've been patiently waiting for days to hear Bob mention the rttt debacle and other than saying let's have hearings, he has been silent. Interesting.

Unknown said...

Amen again. Why don't we add child obesity to the discussion? It's approaching epidemic proportions, and given the complications that will plague these kids for life, I'd wager the actual cost to taxpayers will INCREASE if we cut sports from school. So why would we cut these programs??

Duke said...

Thinker, he's the main source for my contention that Jim Gearhart, radio DJ, was the one who made Christie do a 180 on RTTT. I'm not sure he wants that distinction, or Gearhart for that matter.

Liza, the obesity epidemic is obvious to anyone in a classroom. It's so sad - even wealthy districts are cutting back on PE. I'll bet you sometime in the next few years the NJDOE will try to pull back on the mandated 150 minutes/week (I think it's 150) of PE/recess kids are supposed to get.

Thanks to you both for stopping by.