Should Sports Be On the Chopping Block?

Education is a topic that I occasionally touch on in my blog.  In the interest of full disclosure, I don’t have my kids in public school.  It’s not for religious reasons or anything like that, but because at least where we live it’s a bit of a circus (google Wake County public school board).    You can read more about my views on education in other posts if you are interested.

It seems that every day I read some news article about a public school system that is being forced to cut their budget because of state and federal budget cuts.  Last night there was another article about a school system going to four days a week to save money, primarily on gas and utilities.  This is at a time when most people believe that school days and years should be getting longer, not shorter, to compete globally.

What I have not read in any of these articles is a proposal to cut inter-scholastic sports from the budget.  I guess I find that a bit strange.  I can only guess what it costs a school to, for instance, field a full football team.  I can’t imagine that football makes money for the school system as a general rule.  Maybe in some states like Texas it does, but here in Raleigh football games are not that well attended.

I get that sports are important.  I played sports in high school, three of them to be exact.  I still love playing sports.  However, if the budget crunch is really this severe, shouldn’t sports be on the block before academics?

What do you think?  Is there a better way to be handling the budget issues than slashing classroom time?