Texas drops health education requirement

[Renew Deal]

AUSTIN — Health class will no longer be a state requirement for high school students this fall, making Texas one of the few states in the country with no required health education, officials said.

Education Commissioner Robert Scott announced the move in a recent letter to school districts, causing some to worry Texas students will miss out on critical topics like alcohol awareness, sex education and basic nutrition.

“It was very surprising to a lot of people,” said Diana Everett, executive director of the Texas Association for Health Physical Education, Health, Recreation and Dance. “We’ve all been in shock.”

Individual school districts still can require students to take health classes, but Scott eliminated the state requirement to comply with a new law that bumps up the number electives required to graduate. Starting this fall, students must take six elective courses, instead of the currently mandated three-and-a-half.
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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6518304.html

[rwheeler31]

1. God forbid the cut sports or anything violent.

Health they just don't care.

[Believing Is Art]

2. Overfed, pregnant, and ignorant

Just the way the Republicans like 'em.

[texastoast]

3. They dropped fine arts for high school as well

SOOO glad I went to school before the nutters took over.

[sakabatou]

4. Texas gets stupider and stupider and stupider...

[texastoast]

7. Wrong

Our State Board of Education gets stupider.

And we are working on that just fine and making progress, thank you.

[sakabatou]

9. Eheh... no prob.

Hopefully they'll find competent people for the board.

[burning rain]

5. If Texas dropped education requirement, period, I'd be mildly surprised.

,

[getting older]

6. Why is this a surprise?

I can't imagine that the "health classes" were accurate, helpful, kind, or informative when they were required. Are there any decent health classes available in U.S. public schools, anywhere? I don't think so.

And what is this "high school" nonsense? At the latest, the classes need to begin in the 5th grade.

Ignorant, scared teachers + willfully ignorant, irresponsible parents who think that sex is dirty while they give their kids alcohol = a national disaster throughout the U.S.

Since I lived the longest two years of my life in Fort Worth in the early 90s, I do agree that Texas is an extremely unpleasant place to live for anyone with half a brain, conservatives included.

[texastoast]

8. I guess I'll need to mention the screen door

And an ass.

On edit, I must apologize. I used to really be one of those people who were a model for our Texas motto: the "Friendly State." Then all these people came here from places where they couldn't get jobs and they are sprawling all over this once-beautiful land, polluting the air, getting into the SUV mode, and destroying the forests and worse, salivating over Barton Springs.

And now that I'm old, I haven't much friendly patience anymore with people who take all this and then diss this state. It is my home and has been for four generations. I wish there were jobs in Michigan, Florida, Mississippi, California, Oregon, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Illinois, Ohio, Nevada, Tennessee, Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, and in all the other states for which I saw license plates last week, so everyone could just stay home and diss their own state.

[goddess40]

10. no health class = no sex ed

with Obama HOPEFULLY striking down the abstinence only crap. Texas is just getting out in front of the issue. Keep 'em ignorant, barefoot and pregnant. People that are poor, overwhelmed and poorly educated don't vote or are easily scared into voting to "protect" themselves or susceptible to the hype of nationalistic patriotism.

[lk9550]

11. Texan idiots

But what more can you expect from them?

[PassingTimeHere]

12. New here, and this isn't what I expected my first post to be about

Hmm...maybe I thought my first post would be more profound or something. :)

Anyway, here's the course requirements for graduation from Texas schools:

http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/student.assessment/resources/grad/2008-09_GradBro.pdf

Having four kids going through Texas schools, I can say that it is harder and harder to participate in any kind of extracurricular activities that require taking classes in those subjects if you want to graduate with the Distinguished Achievement Diploma. (I think it was called something else just a few years ago when my first two graduated.)

I happen to be one of those folks that think music, art, theater, athletics, etc., should be an integral part of a student's education, but those things are getting shoved out. Something has to give, imo, and right now it appears to be health class. I'm just not too upset about that because my kids have gotten plenty of instruction in middle school - at least at their middle school. If the kids are in a wacko school district forcing them to do health in high school won't change that.