NCLB Makes Children Fat

Or so says Cnn.com, which as of 3:00PM EST today is leading with a story titled "P.E. shrinks, waistlines bulge," complete with this picture of President Bush:

Just to make sure the point is clear, the teaser paragraph is as follows:

School-age children are growing fatter, but most states are failing to provide them with enough physical education, according to a report by the American Heart Association and the National Association for Sport and Physical Education. Critics contend the legislation meant to bolster academic standards -- President Bush's No Child Left Behind program -- may be a culprit.

The article recites the standard-issue "narrowing" critique of NCLB: because it focuses more attention on the core skills of math and reading, it focuses less attention on everything else, like, for example, phys-ed. It's a reasonable problem to worry about, and on some level probably an unavoidable consequence of working harder on basic skills. But as is often the case, there's less here than meets the eye.

The article quotes the report's citation of this statistic: "The percentage of students who attend a daily physical education class has dropped from 42 percent in 1991 to 28 percent in 2003." But this isn't an original finding, the report cites a previous study published by the Centers for Disease Control in 2004. You can see that study here. It found the following:

1) the proportion of students attending PE class daily declined significantly during 1991--1995 and did not change during 1995--2003 and 2) the proportion of students exercising or playing sports for >20 minutes during PE class 3--5 days per week did not change significantly during 1991--2003.

In other words, the decline in daily PE class attendance that Cnn.com is prominently hanging on NCLB concluded seven years before NCLB was enacted. And by another measure PE hasn't declined at all.