Exercising Some Federal Influence

There is no shortage of coverage of Secretary-Designate Arne Duncan’s confirmation hearing yesterday. Most articles agree that few details emerged regarding the President-elect’s upcoming education agenda. Regardless, there was one thing that caught our attention – Senator Harkin’s mention of growing childhood obesity rates coupled with the decline of physical education in America’s schools.

Current federal support for physical education programs comes from the Carol M. White Physical Education Program (PEP). This competitive grant program aims to “initiate, expand, or enhance physical education programs, including after-school programs, for students in kindergarten through 12th grade.” While grant funds can’t be used for facilities, many programs use them to purchase new equipment, hire physical education teachers, and expand existing physical education programs.

In FY 2008, PEP was appropriated $75.7 million. That year, the program granted $34 million in new grants (103 grants) and $40.7 million in continuing grants (199 grants). The average grant size was $237,000. In FY 2007 and FY 2006, appropriations and total grant awards hovered around $72 million. In the grand scheme, PEP is just a drop in the bucket of the nearly $60 billion in federal education discretionary spending.

In 2005, PEP was assessed by the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) and was given a rating of “Results Not Demonstrated.” The assessment found that while PEP is well managed and has strong goals, it does not do a good job of collecting comparable performance and efficiency measures and has not undergone a rigorous evaluation. Since the evaluation, PEP has reevaluated its performance measures and posts grantee-level performance data on its website. Although President Bush’s past budget requests recommended the elimination of PEP funding, Congress continued to fund it.

The current Administration recommended these cuts at a time when child health is in decline. According to the American Heart Association (AHA), over 10 million students between the age of six and 19 are considered overweight and the number of overweight preschoolers has increased 36 percent since 2000. And yet, “only 3.8% of elementary schools, 7.9% of middle schools and 2.1% of high schools provide daily physical education or its equivalent for the entire school year.”

Some members of Congress, groups like the AHA, and even Richard Simmons think the federal government has a responsibility to do more to promote physical education in public schools. In 2007 Representatives Ron Kind (D-WI), Zach Wamp (R-TN) and Jay Inslee (D-WA), and Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) introduced the Fitness Integrated with Teaching Kids Act (FIT Kids Act).

This legislation would amend No Child Left Behind (NCLB) to require schools and school districts to report the quantity and quality of physical education students receive in the annual accountability “report card” sent to parents. It would also ensure that students receive information and support to make healthy choices and live active lifestyles. Due to increased focus on childhood obesity and the importance of physical education, the FIT Kids Act is expected to reappear for consideration in the 111^th Congress.

We expect childhood obesity, and legislation addressing it, to be an important issue in the coming year. During the confirmation hearing, Secretary-Designate Duncan voiced his commitment to physical education as both a former professional athlete in Australia and as the husband of a physical education teacher. Although the federal government’s role in promoting physical education is undefined and the PEP program just a drop in the bucket, Congress seems poised to address it – particularly as other child health related legislation, like the Child Nutrition Act, are reauthorized.