I plop down into the hard,cold seat for first period. A survey is instantly set in front of me and I lookit over. All the words have one thing in common:

Basketball, softball,golf, wrestling ...

Great! I think. Another survey to see if my athleticneeds are being met!

I am completely neutral on the issues of athletics inmy school. I know sports can be both glorifying and degrading. I do, however,think that schools need to take a step back and think about the reason they werefirst created ... education.

Due to waning student enrollment, my school'sfunding has greatly decreased. Many older teachers have accepted earlyretirement, so we are losing experienced teachers because our school cannotafford their salaries.

The electives now offered are embarrassing, whichis why the survey bothered me so much. Not only was it about sports (academicsurveys are seldom given), it was about what new sports should be added. I can'tunderstand how our budget can be too small for good teachers, but big enough toadd more sports!

Many teachers in my school are absolute jokes. There isreally no nice way to put it - they are simply awful at teaching. After sittingthrough their classes for a whole year, I could write everything I learned onhalf a sheet of paper. These same teachers devote much of their time to thesports teams they coach, and they actually do a pretty good job at that! Why didthese people become teachers when it's obvious that all they really want to do iscoach?

I am not saying that sports shouldn't be in high schools, butthat schools are created so people can get an education. The focus of many of ourteachers and the money in our school's budget should reflect this. In 30 years, aperson who actually got an education in high school is going to be a lot moreuseful to the world than one who threw a football.