Podcast: Ma’Net, Los Angeles
In this podcast, Ma’Net, a Los Angeles-based Youth Media Forward participant, speaks with high school senior Natalie. Natalie has competed in multiple school sports and has captained the girls’ volleyball and soccer teams. They discuss bias within the high school sports ecosystem.
Many Title 1 schools in the United States (schools with a high proportion of students qualifying for free lunch, based on household income) have under-funded sports departments. This leads to some sports such as basketball getting favored over others. When these sports’ teams do well, the schools dedicate further resources to them, leading to a cycle of disinvestment in other sports.
Natalie describes the unfairness of this system, from her firsthand experience - and how it can affect student athletes in sports that either do or don’t get the love. Their conversation comes during a time when multiple schools are experiencing funding cuts under the current administration.
Natalie also has advice for students who want to reduce this bias in their own school sports communities, including reaching school leaders and administrators who can start to address the problem.
Ma’Net is is a Los Angeles-based participant in Youth Media Forward: meet the Los Angeles participants here
