Pass rates for the California Physical Fitness test have dropped in schools across Orange County; only two in every five students in Orange County now have passed the assessment.
A student’s level of physical fitness is measured at Fountain Valley High School when the student performs six exercises: the mile run, curl-ups, push-ups, the sit and reach, the trunk lift, and the measurement of body mass. Within Orange County, about thirty nine percent of students in fifth through ninth grade have managed to clear all six assessments. As for the entire state of California, the number is slightly lower: thirty- one percent. These numbers have dropped two percent from last year’s results. Most students struggle to pass the push-up and mile run tests. Some were found to have a high body fat composition.
So why have this year’s numbers dropped? Budget cuts made to California education have affected physical education programs as well; schools have made cuts to funding for PE classes. Furthermore, within today’s society of technology, junk food, and motor transportation, such distractions have been detrimental not only to students’ attention spans but also to their health. Although efforts such as the California for Healthy Kids program, which utilizes encouragement from leaders and athletes to urge students to concern themselves more about their health, have been made to inspire students to exercise more, idleness simply has a greater pull to teenagers.
The decrease in the California Physical Fitness Test pass rate may have also had a domino effect. Similar to a rapidly spreading epidemic, the indifference to success in physical education may have spread to others once they saw that their peers were failing as well, causing failure to be more often condoned and accepted than it once was.
“Seeing other kids fail the test inspires people not to try,” says PE student Ryan Erwin (’14). “If they’re not doing it, why should we do it?”
