Physical education tests in California may be paused for three years because of concerns of discrimination against non-binary and disabled students, as well as bullying.
California May Pause Student Fitness Tests Due To Bullying
By CUNEYT DIL Associated Press
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to pause physical education tests for students for three years due to concerns over bullying and the test discriminating against disabled and non-binary students. The move also comes after annual test results show a growing percentage of students scoring not healthy.
H.D. Palmer, spokesman for the Department of Finance, said the state has received complaints that the current examination's measurement of body mass index is discriminatory to non-binary students. A measurement calculated from weight and height, BMI screenings require students to select "male" or "female," he said.
Annual state reports of the fitness test since the 2014-2015 school year show a steady decline in the share of students scoring healthy, according to a review by The Associated Press. Students' scores have particularly dropped in the category of the fitness test that measures "aerobic capacity" -- which can be tested in a one-mile run or by other methods. Other categories also test for flexibility and exercises like push-ups.
In the last five years, the percentage of fifth graders scoring healthy in the aerobic category has dropped by 3.3 percentage points. In seventh and ninth grades, the drops are 4.4 percentage points and 3.8 percentage points, respectively. Meanwhile, the percentage of students identified as "needing improvement" and having a "health risk" went up: by 3.3 percentage points among fifth graders, 4.4 for seventh graders and 3.8 among ninth graders.
The Department of Education did not immediately comment on those results.
During the proposed physical fitness test program's suspension, the state would study whether the current test should be modified or redrawn anew, Palmer said. Initiated in 1998, the school tests can include a one-mile run, push-ups and other measurements.
Physical education classes would remain a requirement for graduation, however.
The proposal, first reported by Politico, was tucked inside Newsom's education budget bill for next year.
School districts nationwide use such tests, and the exercise can inform growing children about potential health problems, experts say. But the results from tests and BMI measurements should not be used to diagnose health risks, according to the Society of Health and Physical Educators.
"The issue of BMI screening plays a role in the issues of both body shaming and bullying," Palmer also wrote in an email.
Bodybuilder and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had several school fitness initiatives during his time in office. He said through a spokesman that physical education classes should be the top priority.
"Whether the state uses fitness tests or not, Governor Schwarzenegger believes that the most important thing is that our students have access to daily physical education classes to promote a healthy and fit lifestyle," said Daniel Ketchell, a spokesman for Schwarzenegger.
Ketchell agreed that BMI screenings are flawed. He said, for instance, that the 6-foot-2-inch and 240-pound Schwarzenegger would have been officially classified obese when he won the top bodybuilding title of Mr. Olympia in 1974.
In addition to bringing our readers stories about education issues in America, we here at Hispanic Outlook feature news articles on topics both related to and outside of the field of education on our website and in our social media.
Hispanic Outlook is an education magazine in the US available both in print and digital form. Visit https://www.hispanicoutlook.com/education-magazine for information about our latest issue.
Hispanic Outlook’s Job Board allows applicants to search for jobs by category, by city and by state. Both Featured and Latest Job Positions are available at https://hispanicoutlookjobs.com/
And for employers, Hispanic Outlook’s Job Board offers a wide variety of posting options. Further information is available at https://hispanicoutlookjobs.com/employer-products/
Other articles from Hispanic Outlook:
UND And NASA Partner To Colonize Mars
When the first international mission in the University of North Dakota’s (UND) Inflatable Mars/Lunar Habitat (IMLH) was launched last fall, four students from Argentina, Colombia, Mexico and Peru entered the facility to spend two weeks running experiments to help NASA and their program to explore the moon and Mars. After the successful completion of the mission, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, accompanied by U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND), visited the UND John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences, calling the work being done there “second to none.” At UND to also discuss future collaborations, Bridenstine explained the university’s importance to the Mars/Lunar program. “The University of North Dakota is delivering – on behalf of NASA – technology that is helping us understand the earth, helping us understand the earth’s atmosphere, helping us better predict weather events and the climate. Beyond that, the University of North Dakota is helping us with human space flight. What happens here enables us to do more than ever before.” He confirmed, “UND will be part of NASA’s future space exploration efforts.” According to Pablo de León…
Read full article here
The Peril And Promise Of AI
Editor’s Note: Lethal machines able to make decisions on their own are likely to become reality in the near future. But the ethics regarding such weapons are being considered now.
(AP)(THE CONVERSATION) Robotics is rapidly being transformed by advances in artificial intelligence. And the benefits are widespread: We are seeing safer vehicles with the ability to automatically brake in an emergency, robotic arms transforming factory lines that were once offshored and new robots that can do everything from shop for groceries to deliver prescription drugs to people who have trouble doing it themselves. But our ever-growing appetite for intelligent, autonomous machines poses a host of ethical challenges.
Ethical Dilemmas
Rapid advances have led ethical dilemmas.
These ideas and more were swirling as my colleagues and I met in early November at one of the world’s largest autonomous robotics-focused research conferences – the IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. There, academics, corporate…
Read full article here
Can Hate Speech Be Quarantined?
Editor’s Note: Is it possible to deal with online hate speech without using censorship? Two university researchers are proposing it can be done by using cyber security techniques.
The spread of hate speech via social media could be tackled using the same “quarantine” approach deployed to combat malicious software, according to University of Cambridge researchers. Definitions of hate speech vary depending on nation, law and platform, and just blocking keywords is ineffectual: graphic descriptions of violence need not contain obvious ethnic slurs to constitute racist death threats, for example. As such, hate speech is difficult to detect automatically. It has to be reported by those exposed to it, after the intended “psychological harm” is inflicted, with armies of moderators required to judge every case.
This is the new front line of an ancient debate: freedom of speech versus poisonous language. Now, an engineer and a linguist have published a proposal in the journal Ethics and Information Technology that harnesses cyber security techniques to give control to those targeted, without…
Read full article here
US Lags Behind Other Countries In Math
Editor’s Note: The latest PISA results have found that while the math performances of 15-year-olds in the U.S. are not declining, they are still behind their international peers.
American students may not be reading any better, but they’re moving up in rankings of educational achievement worldwide because many of their peers in other countries are performing worse. And while their math performance may not be declining, 15-year-olds in the United States still lag the scores of their peers in dozens of other countries. Overall, the latest global snapshot of achievement shows American students scoring above average in reading and science, but below average in math. The 2018 Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, shows several Asian school systems at the top. The best-performing across all three measures was a group of four Chinese provinces — Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang. PISA seeks to test not only what students know, but whether they can apply that knowledge to solve problems. About 600,000 15-year-old students in nearly 80 nations and educational systems took…
Read full article here
