After reading “The Case Against High School Sports” by Amanda Ripley, it started to get me thinking. Many strong points were made that sports priorities are starting to be more important to students than their education. Another interesting point is that funding and budget are unfairly distributed among school districts and are spent more on sports and clubs and not enough on classes. And I believe that schools should place some restrictions on spending and promoting school sports and clubs due to the significant decline in national and global comparisons. Teachers who double as coaches often split their commitments between coaching and teaching, such as when schools need to find replacements for days when teachers are gone with their team. Referring to Ripleys article, sports are integrated into American schools in a way that they are almost nowhere else. Yet this difference almost never appears in national debates about America's international mediocrity in education (Ripley, 2). Reading an article comparing European schools to American schools showed that Europe focuses more on the academic side and offers extracurricular clubs and sports, not in-school sports and athletics clubs . (Loh,1). In Asia, although there are some clubs and sports at school, such as a math club and honor society, the majority of activities take place outside of school. Stevenson stated in his article on Asian Success, that teachers need the proper training and time to be able to help students understand the course material and be able to excel in academic subjects, this which is often lost when teachers also double as coaches and is becoming more and more common in school districts (Stevenson, 4). These are just a few of the di...... middle of paper...... school sports and clubs so they don't conflict with the academics we need to deliver the American school at the top. Works Cited Katherine, Paige. Personal interview. March 19, 2014.Loh, Stefanie. “Clubs are kings in Europe.” Web log publication. Penn News Live. The PatriotsNews, May 19, 2011. Web. March 27, 2014. McG, Robert. "Playing sports doesn't increase grades, study finds." The New York Times. The New York Times, August 15, 1989. Web. March 30, 2014. Parker, Suzi. "Boom! US falls again in global education rankings but could learn a lesson or two." Participate. Np, December 4, 2013. Web. March 27, 2014. Ripley, Amanda. “The Case Against High School Sports.” The Atlantic. Np, September 18, 2013. Internet. March 20, 2014. Ross, Gary. Interview with a panel. March 11, 2014. Stevenson, Harold W. “Why Asian Students Still Outrun Americans.” Educational leadership. ASCD and Web. March 23. 2014.