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Interesting new paper by @analisapackham and @brittanyrstreet finds that requiring daily phys ed (PE) classes in middle school has no health or education benefits. Requiring daily PE does have unintended costs: more disciplinary actions and absences.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/17ficAXW-C8PoHRLLpbRy50ptnM04gOV4/view …pic.twitter.com/LGgWendNhz
In several places, the authors note that their findings differ from the previous literature on this topic, which was mostly correlational. The current paper uses an RD design based on schools’ eligibility for a Texas program to identify causal effects.
I remember young Brittany well from either you or @causalinf bringing her up. Very creative young economist.
PE in middle school probably gave me early-onset high BP. I detested the fact that for girls it was, "we just want everyone to participate, it's not about competition."
Yes indeed, @brittanyrstreet is on the job market this year and she has lots of great stuff in the pipeline!
https://sites.google.com/site/brittanyrstreet/home …
Why is suggestive evidence of misbehavior in the abstract (Table 4, a few coeff. positive at 10%) but stronger evidence of decreased obesity put in an appendix? (Table A3, look <0 @ 5%)? Results counter to discussion: PE helps kids most at risk (obese), doesn't affect much else!
We discuss this in the paper! The main point is that, unlike studies that find large, positive benefits for elementary-aged students, we find little/no positive benefits for middle-school students. We do see 
for obese but this doesn't translate to academic benefits, on average
This is very different from how people are discussing your paper (or abstract). You say PE doesn’t work miracles on average, people are posting as “PE is worthless, even bad”, but you show it helps obese kids. Including that up front would ensure nuance.
But the paper also finds a reduction (if anything) in the share of kids with a healthy BMI, right?
Table 2 shows zero effect on average for test scores and mostly zero effect on BMI (one specification is marginally significant). Looked like the most precise estimates are on attendance and BMI changes for obese kids.
Framed a little differently: The way PE is taught in Texas is so poor that requiring more of it not only doesn’t improve kids’ health, it discourages them from attending school at all.
(And I doubt Texas differs from almost anywhere else in the US.)
Armchair theory of one (difficult-to-measure) benefit: it probably increases humility among students who are great in academic classes? :)
Kids who are great in academic classes are already stigmatized. It’s not cool. Being bad at sports just intensified the humiliation.
Having grown up in Illinois, we had required PE every day all the way K-12...
Still one of my worst subjects in school! Interesting findings
It seems like many have been stigmatized by PE. Maybe PE in its current form just took the wrong approach? That’s not to say it isn’t useful or should be ditched. Maybe just reformed?
Pretty obvious to anyone who has ever attended PE.
@manubelda deberías leerte esto
De momento solo he visto el abstract así que no puedo decir mucho (a priori ni me mola ni me cuadra la verdad
). Gracias por la mención chef
Jajajajajaja que no te cuadre no sé porque no lo he leído, pero entiendo que no te mole 
(de hecho, de ser verdad, a mí tampoco me gustaría, pero hay que tragar con ello...). Y no tienes que agradecérmelo tío 
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