A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece which raised the idea of separating sports from school. Many of you agreed that uncoupling the two would be beneficial in boosting academic performance.

According to a new poll from Education Next, Intellectual Takeout’s readers are not alone in wanting to see less emphasis on sports in their local schools. Twenty-two percent of the American general public believes that local schools place a large emphasis on athletics, but only 15% of them believe the emphasis on sports should be that large.

By contrast, many Americans believe that there is a deficiency of character education in the schools. Only 7% of the general public believed their local schools placed a large emphasis on character education (figure 1). When asked how much schools should emphasize character education, 29% of the general public responded with an answer of “a lot” (figure 2).

Would you like to see a greater emphasis on character education in today’s schools?

Figure 1

Figure 2

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