1. www.cdc.gov/HealthyYouth/health_ and_ academics/pdf/pa-pe_paper.pdf
Increasing or maintaining time for PE does not appear to adversely impact academic performance
Substantial evidence that school-based physical activity can:
help improve academic achievement (including grades and standardized test scores)
have a positive impact on cognitive skills and academic behaviors
and_ academics/pdf/pa-pe_paper.pdf

2. Criteria for Selecting Strategic Priorities
Extent of problem
Extent of disparities
Causal effects on educational outcomes
Feasibility of school-based programs and policies

3. Critical Educationally Relevant
Health Factors
Vision
Asthma
Teen Pregnancy
Aggression & Violence
Physical Activity
Breakfast
Inattention/ Hyperactivity

4. What Can Schools Do?
Make health a fundamental part of elementary and secondary education
Create effective and efficient school health programs
High quality, evidence- based
Strategically planned
Effectively coordinated

5. Health is Academic Because…
School health programs can help improve students’ educational outcomes
Helping young people stay healthy is a fundamental part of the mission of our schools

6. Pennsylvania should establish a public school that places as much emphasis on physical as on intellectual fitness because “exercise invigorates the soul as well as the body.”
- Benjamin Franklin

7. “In the great work of education, our physical condition, if not the first step in point of importance, is the first in order of time. On the broad and firm foundation of health alone can the loftiest and most enduring structures of the intellect be reared.”
-Horace Mann

8. “The more we instill in our children early in life these physical activity habits that will last them a lifetime, the better they're going to do. And so we'll try to do what we can to expand those opportunities before school, during the school day, after school.…this is going to help a lot academically… This doesn't take away from our core mission. This is central to that core mission.”
Arne Duncan
U.S. Secretary of Education

9. National Association of State Boards of Education
“Health and success in school are interrelated. Schools cannot achieve their primary mission of education if students and staff are not healthy and fit physically, mentally, and socially.”

10. Council of Chief State School Officers
“No educational tool is more essential than good health…Policies and practices that address the health and developmental needs of young people must be included in any comprehensive strategy for improving academic performance.”