Publisher, The FlashReport
Jon Fleischman
What They Are Saying
"The FlashReport is a daily political must read; insightful and necessary to better understand...and too better...California."
- Tom C. Stickel, Former Chairman, California Chamber of Commerce 
More Testimonials
Send FlashReport to a Friend
Special Reports
HOW TO ENSURE PHYS ED ACCOUNTABILITY
An exclusive column penned by Lance Izumi and Scott MacKenzie.
May 10, 2007
[Publisher's Note: As part of an ongoing effort to bring original, thoughtful commentary to you here at the FlashReport, I am pleased to present this column from Lance Izumi, Director of Education Studies for the Pacific Research Institute.and Scott MacKenzie, the Executive Director of Sound Body Sound Mind.]If you are new to the FlashReport, please check out the main site and the acclaimed FlashReport Weblog on California politics.
Throughout his career as a bodybuilder, actor, and governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger has consistently focused on children’s fitness. For instance, last year he significantly increased funding for physical education. Yet, when it comes to bang for the buck, the governor might want take a look at a public-private physical education program in Southern California that emphasizes accountability and results.
There is no question that there is a children’s fitness crisis in California. Only 27.4 percent of ninth graders in California meet all six criteria for physical fitness in the statewide Fitnessgram statistics. California’s urban environment, with limited recreational space and unsafe neighborhoods, exacerbates children’s fitness deficiencies. In the Los Angeles Unified School District, only 17.7 percent of ninth graders passed all six tests. Poor physical fitness not only contributes to diabetes, heart disease, and obesity, but studies also suggest that fitter students tend to be more attentive and more responsive to learning in the classroom, which increases their chance of academic success.
Confronted by this fitness crisis, in the 2006-07 state budget, Gov. Schwarzenegger succeeded in adding $40 million annually to increase the number of K-8 physical-education teachers and $500 million in one-time funds to purchase arts, music, and physical education supplies. Though these funds will plug holes in schools’ physical education programs, the state Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) notes that the new funding contains virtually no reporting, evaluation, or accountability provisions. The result, says the LAO, will be that the state “would have virtually no data or assessment information to determine if the specified investments were worthwhile.” In contrast, the Sound Body Sound Mind program emphasizes the use of data to determine whether students are improving their fitness performance.
Sound Body Sound Mind (SBSM) is a comprehensive physical fitness program established to promote self-confidence and healthy lifestyle choices among high school students in the greater Los Angeles area. Founded in 1999 by the Cynthia L. and William E. Simon, Jr. Foundation, SBSM is geared toward teens that do not regularly participate in organized activities, and strives to address the scarcity of physical activity in high schools today. In partnership with the Los Angeles Unified School District, SBSM provides each participating high school with $50,000 of state of the art exercise equipment, funding for professional development, and the necessary tools to monitor student progress at each facility. SBSM has been successfully integrated into 36 Los Angeles high schools, with funding for 14 additional schools by the end of the year.
Students at schools that have received a fitness center are performing better compared to other schools in the district. Data collected by SBSM show that the number of students in schools with the fitness centers passing all six parts of the state’s physical education assessment increased by more than 64 percent over the year before the center was installed. In contrast, a statistical analysis showed a lesser 50 percent increase in the number of students passing all six parts at Los Angeles Unified schools not participating in the program. Also even more convincing, there was a greater reduction in the number of students failing all six parts at Sound Body Sound Mind schools.
P.E. teachers at Sound Body Sound Mind schools say that the new fitness centers have made a real difference in how students view fitness education. Christine Berni-Ramos, a P.E. teacher at the Elizabeth Learning Center near Long Beach, says that when her students enter the fitness center, “They’re focused, they have a workout pad, they have cards [to record their results], they understand how to assess their own fitness because we teach them that.”
The contracts signed between schools and Sound Body Sound Mind require the schools to provide annual progress on students using the fitness centers. The program is considering creating a standard reporting form to make collection of the data easier for schools.
Too many California children are leading unhealthy lives that make them very unhealthy adults. Physical education is a necessary component of any strategy to turn around the lives of these children. However, physical education programs must focus on results, not just on spending more tax dollars. Policymakers should, therefore, examine outcomes-based programs like Sound Body Sound Mind when developing future strategies to improve the health of our kids.
__________________________________________________
You can write to Lance Izumi and Scott MacKenzie via the FR here.
Scott D. MacKenzie is executive director of Sound Body Sound Mind.
Biography for Lance Izumi
Lance T. Izumi is Senior Fellow in California Studies and Director of Education Studies at the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy (PRI), California’s premier free-market public-policy think tank based in San Francisco. He is the co-author of the book Free to Learn: Lessons from Model Charter Schools (Pacific Research Institute, 2005). He is the author of several major PRI studies, including the "California Education Report Card: Index of Leading Education Indicators" (1997, 2000 and 2003 editions), "Developing and Implementing Academic Standards" (1999), "Facing the Classroom Challenge: Teacher Quality and Teacher Training in California’s Schools of Education" (2001), and “They Have Overcome: High-Poverty, High-Performing Schools in California” (2002) and “Putting Education to the Test: A Value-Added Model for California” (2004).
In 2004, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed Mr. Izumi as a member of the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges. In 2005, the California State Senate confirmed Mr. Izumi to this position by unanimous 34-0 vote. Mr. Izumi serves as the chair of the Board’s economic development and vocational education committee. He is also the Board’s representative to the California Post-secondary Education Commission. In 2003, United States secretary of education Rod Paige appointed Mr. Izumi to the Teacher Assistance Corps, a task force of experts assigned to review state teacher quality plans as they relate to the federal No Child Left Behind Act. He also served as a member of the Professional Development Working Group of the California Legislature's Joint Committee to Develop a Master Plan for Education.
Mr. Izumi is the co-editor of two books: Teacher Quality (Hoover Institution Press and Pacific Research Institute, 2002) and School Reform: The Critical Issues (Hoover Institution Press and Pacific Research Institute, 2001). He is the chapter co-author of “Fixing Failing Schools in California” in Within Our Reach (Rowman and Littlefield, 2005) and “State Accountability Systems” in School Accountability (Hoover Institution Press, 2002).
Mr. Izumi is a former visiting fellow in education studies at the London-based Institute for Economic Affairs. He has also served as a consultant on welfare reform to the California Department of Social Services, a consultant on juvenile crime to the Governor's Office of Criminal Justice Planning, and as co-chair of the governor's competitiveness task force on juvenile justice education reform.
For ten years, Mr. Izumi was a regular contributor to the "Perspectives" opinion series on KQED-FM, the National Public Radio affiliate in San Francisco. His articles have been published in the Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics and Public Policy, Harvard Asian American Policy Review, National Review, Wall Street Journal Europe, Sunday Times (of London), Los Angeles Times, Investor's Business Daily, San Francisco Chronicle, California Journal, Los Angeles Daily News, San Diego Union-Tribune, Los Angeles Daily Journal, Orange County Register, Sacramento Bee, San Francisco Daily Journal, and many other publications
Prior to going into the think-tank world, Mr. Izumi served as chief speechwriter and director of writing and research for California Governor George Deukmejian. He also served in the Reagan administration as speechwriter to United States Attorney General Edwin Meese III.
Mr. Izumi received his juris doctorate from the University of Southern California School of Law and his master of arts in political science from the University of California at Davis. He received his bachelor of arts in economics and history from the University of California at Los Angeles.