D.C. schools fitness plan fine if class time remains intact

Sometimes it is the smartest, most concerned policymakers who do the most harm to schools. My favorite recent example is the Healthy Schools Act, a bill introduced two weeks ago by D.C. Council member Mary M. Cheh and Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray.

Cheh (D-Ward 3) and Gray (D) are good people trying to address a national and local epidemic of childhood obesity and insufficient physical activity. Cheh's news release says that 18 percent of D.C. high school students are obese, 70 percent fail to meet the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's recommended levels of physical activity and 84 percent do not attend physical education classes daily.

It is their solution that troubles me. I am unqualified to comment on the food parts of the bill. I have never written about nutrition. I would be embarrassed to reveal the amount of crackers, cookies and ice cream I eat each day. I can only wonder how the District will pay for the required fresh produce from local growers in all schools and how they will get students to eat it.

The bill's physical education requirement is its worst part: a nifty-sounding reform that many of the District's best principals and teachers will declare one of the dumbest ideas they have ever heard of.

At the moment, D.C. students from kindergarten through eighth grade have two 45-minute P.E. periods a week. High-schoolers need just a semester and a half of a similar P.E. regime to graduate. The new bill would require every public school student in kindergarten through fifth grade to have 150 minutes of P.E. (30 minutes a day). Sixth- through eighth-graders would be required to have 225 minutes (45 a day).

Why shouldn't kids get more exercise? In a perfect world, that would be lovely. But the D.C. schools are in crisis. They no longer have, the latest federal figures show, children with the lowest test scores in urban America. But even with recent gains, they are still far below average and not that far ahead of Detroit, which has supplanted the District at the bottom of the list.

Nowhere in her news release does Cheh address the key issue: that the D.C. schools need to do a better job using the limited time they have, about 6 1/2 hours a day, to address students' weaknesses in reading, writing, math, science and social studies. She and Gray are telling teachers trying to turn around those poor performances that they would have even less time to do it.

I know we haven't finished that chapter yet, kids, but hey, it's time for push-ups.

If Cheh were saying schools should add an hour to the day of every child, and use half of that new time for more exercise, I would cheer. Many of the city's most successful public schools are charters that have used their independence from district rules to give children eight or nine hours of learning each day.

The Healthy Schools Act says nothing about longer school days. It goes one bad step further by depriving those charters of their freedom to make decisions. If the bill passes, they also will have to adhere to the rule that mandates 30 to 45 minutes of P.E. a day. (The bill includes a possible exemption for charter schools that don't have space for P.E., but that's not the issue.)

Cheh says she is open to changes. The D.C. schools that work best are run by principals who have the power to teach their students any way they and their teachers think best, as long as achievement improves. Many of them might find a 45-minute daily P.E. period just what they need to energize their students.

But telling them they have to do it whether it works for them or not is a bad idea, one of many from politicians who thought they were doing the right thing but never considered the consequences.