Teachers have plenty on their plate these days. Among other things, they have to "map" their curriculum, teach the class, grade papers, act as role models, try to mold their students' character and play classroom cop.
The last thing they need to have added to their duties is to put them in charge of periodic student weigh-ins. But a bill is under consideration at the state General Assembly that would do just that.
The Senate passed such a measure on Feb. 29 by a 37-13 vote and sent it on to the House. Its aim is admirable - an attempt to do something about the rising obesity rate among Georgians, and especially young Georgians.
If made into law, schools would determine the body-mass index of each student, and then provide it in aggregate form to the state Board of Education. The individual data would ostensibly be shared only with the child's parents or guardian, while the cumulative information would be posted on the Web site of each school district in the state. Thus, if considering buying a house or opening a business in a given location, you could quickly determine not only the school system's average SAT score, the percentage of students on the school lunch program and which school has the best football team, but you also could figure out which school had the heaviest students.
But frankly, we don't see quite what the latter item (or the next-to-last one, for that matter) has to do with the quality of education offered in a given district. Nor would all the manpower and teacher time that would go into that effort contribute one iota toward raising student achievement.
Opponents of the bill also have criticized it as a shot in the arm for the "nanny state" and warn that it would establish a financial incentive for school systems to stigmatize overweight children.
Advocates of the bill say school systems with an inordinate number of overweight students could use the data as justification for altering their physical education curriculum. But the fact is that a student's weight (just like the weight of anyone else) has as much or more to do with caloric intake and quality of diet as it does with exercise. We'll further stipulate that we think school P.E. classes should be as rigorous (within reason) as any academic class - regardless of whether a school district's students tend to be disproportionately overweight.
Taking time away from academics, or even from P.E., for that matter, to weigh students, record the data - and then "massage" it - makes little sense.
This is one bill that should never cross the Legislature's finish line.
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This is a parental and health issue, not a government issue. Stick to looking at the important matters, like making government efficient by cutting some of the excess weight that is in every single state office right now.
Exactly right, RW. The nanny-state marches forward. Their position will be because the government spends so much money (which they consider to be their money) on health care, government should be in charge of ensuring better health. Garbage. Incrementally, we are becoming socialist, thanks to all the "sheeple".
This is just one more case of looking around and seeing if you can tend to someone else's business. The school teacher's are overloaded with too much to do and too much paperwork and children with terrible behavior. Why not work on their behavior instead of their weight? Aw, heck, just build a dormitory at every school and the teachers can live there for the school term and monitor the childrens' behavior and weight.
As a teacher in California, for years we weighed our students at the beginning and again at the end of the year. Ideally, it was to see if children were growing "properly". However, no one ever followed up due to lack of school nurses, etc. With test scores the primary objective of public schools now, weighing children should be left to the medical doctors, not teachers.