Fitness Testing in the Schools: Once More around the Track

Fitness Testing in the Schools: Once More Around the Track It's the issue that just doesn't seem to want to go away-conducting standardized (even compulsory) physical fitness testing in the schools-and, as usual, there aren't many who are taking neutral positions. Boon or bane? Is this an effective means of creating awareness of exercise for health, stimulating interventions for improving fitness? Or is testing the antithesis to the promotion of improving activity in sedentary children, creating an image of competitiveness and discomfort of exercise? Is it pedagogically useful or a misguided endeavor with no good rationale? The debate continues. . . . Two recent articles have once again resurrected these issues. Geraldine Naughton and her colleagues in Australia, writing in the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, launched what was politely termed a "challenge" to fitness testing in primary schools but what, in reality, amounts to a full-scale land-sea assault (2). "What have decades of testing in schools contributed to the health of young people in Australia?" they demanded. The traditional concerns are enumerated: lack of validity of testing, meaningless standards, lack of relevance to health, and "turn-off" to those sedentary children most in need of encouragement for lifelong activity. "Large-scale fitness testing in schools appears to be the antithesis of population health promotion policies" they conclude. So, given all this, "why is fitness testing common place in primary schools today?"