May 2007

It’s 4 p.m. in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, a neighborhood with some of New York’s lowest incomes and highest crime rates.  But inside a gymnasium shared by four schools, spirits and heart rates are high among sixth-graders from the KIPP: AMP Academy charter middle school as they sweat their way through a mandatory training session in Capoeira, an African-Brazilian martial art and dance.

In an era in which the news is filled with reports of how Americans are less fit than ever, pre-teen ethnic minorities living in poverty are among the groups at highest risk of insufficient physical activity, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. But as charter schools in New York City struggle to educate students who often enter with math and reading skills two or three grade levels behind schedule, finding sufficient time for physical education is a challenge requiring novel solutions.

“In their founding years, most charter schools are focused on academics,” said Ky Adderley, principal and founder of KIPP: AMP. The two-year-old school serves a primarily African-American and Hispanic population of fifth- and sixth-graders.

In West Harlem, at the four-year-old KIPP: STAR Academy, physical education scarcely existed in the first year, said the principal, Maggie Runyan-Shefa. Fifth-grade English, by contrast, currently consumes three hours of the school day.

Schools like the KIPP (Knowledge is Power Prorgram) academies were founded with the mission of closing the “achievement gap” that separates minority and otherwise disadvantaged children from their white peers.  It is, according to the National Governors Association “one of the most pressing issues that states currently face.”  New York City currently hosts 58 mostly middle and elementary level charter schools.  Following the state legislature’s April decision to lift the charter cap from 100 to 200 schools, that number is set to expand.

Methods that high-achieving charter schools often employ in this battle include extended school days — 7:25 a.m. to 5 p.m. at KIPP: AMP and KIPP: STAR — and doubled-up hours in classes that build core numeracy and literacy skills.  These packed schedules can leave little time for gym, art and music.

The reduced emphasis on physical education comes at a time when 15 percent of American youth are overweight or obese, and 80 percent of those children will carry obesity into adulthood, according to the 1999-2000 National Health and Nutrition Examination. In its policy statement on “Active Healthy Living,” the American Academy of Pediatrics says that the “availability of regular physical activity” in schools is of critical importance.

When Adderley, a former track star at Georgetown University, planned the theme and curriculum of KIPP: AMP, he knew he wanted to do things differently.

“I wanted a school where kids are physically fit,” Adderley said.

That goal attracted a lot of questions from other school leaders. Under the weight of academic priorities, Adderley said, when it comes to gym, “a lot of charter schools don’t do it well.”

Adderley sought a way to make physical education a central part of KIPP: AMP’s programming without distracting from its core academic mission. He felt an attraction to the martial arts because he recalled the words of his father, who often said, “The discipline and dedication that you learn in martial arts is what you’ll need to succeed.”

Although Adderley believed that a core physical education program focused on the martial arts would bring both health and academic benefits to KIPP: AMP students, he was concerned that arts like karate and tai chi might not be the best fit for the school’s predominantly African-American and Hispanic population.

“You can’t do anything that doesn’t make sense to the constituents,” Adderly said. “There was no real connection to them or their history in any martial art that I was aware of.”

In the end, Adderly found Capoeira, which began as a martial art but was disguised as a dance by enslaved Angolans in the 16th century. With the help of instructor Nicole Smith, KIPP: AMP’s fifth- and sixth-grade students get two hours a week of strenuous training.

Nearly a decade after New York City’s first charter schools began appearing with the passage of the State Charter Schools Act in 1988, the movement is maturing.

The trend now, Adderly said, is for more schools to hire coaches, build gyms and generally expand their physical education offerings.

Options have grown at KIPP: STAR, which did not offer gym in its inaugural year. The school’s seventh-graders now have gym twice a week, with a 45-minute recess on two other days. The fifth-, sixth- and eighth-graders now get recess each day, and the eighth graders also have optional dance classes in the afternoon. During KIPP: STAR’s four-hour mandatory Saturday session, students can choose activities like basketball and yoga.

Whether these offerings are sufficient to stem the rise of obesity remains an open debate. The National Association of State Boards of Education suggests that middle school-aged students participate in a full 225 minutes of physical education a week, and the American Academy of Pediatrics maintains that “the prevalence of pediatric obesity has reached epidemic proportions.”

The ability of charter schools to provide a sufficient quantity of physical education each week is often limited by facilities, said Glenn Liebeck, director of school leadership and development for the New York Center for Charter School Excellence.

Capoeira time at KIPP: AMP is limited in part by the fact that the school’s gymnasium is in a building shared by three other schools, teacher Amirah Johnson said.

KIPP: STAR depends on good weather for access to the courts and fields at neighboring Morningside Park. While the Bronx Preparatory Academy and Harlem Children’s Zone do have gyms, Liebeck said, others such as the Bronx Charter School for Children have gone through the creative step of converting classrooms into gyms.

Charter schools have the freedom to create unconventional physical education programming because they are permitted to operate without adherence to many general public school regulations for academic programming, staffing and budgetary policy.

But that independence has a cost — their charters can be revoked or not renewed if the schools do not succeed in achieving student performance benchmarks.  The need to produce high test scores on city and statewide proficiency exams is another factor pushing schools to reserve as much time as possible for academics.

“The pressure comes from wanting the kids to continue to have this opportunity,” said Rai Bolden, an eighth-grade English teacher at KIPP: STAR. “Hopefully the system will change to where the emphasis is on creating well-rounded, happy, positive individuals, but, you know, grades are important.”