You are right you are in school to learn,however sports taught my kids things they never could of learned in the classroom,and today they are better individuals because of the sports,it affects them in all areas of their lives that they did not even comprehend at the time.To have to pay for sports would leave in alot of areas alot of kids not participating quite simply because their families could not afford it.At least where My kids went to school at we the parents still had to pay for alot of things,shoes,warm up gear,not to mention raising money for team meals etc...we still had to put out some money to let them play.Some rurual areas have a hard time with numbers for their sports anyway,to make the kids pay to play would surely result in a loss of competition for them.Education should be at the top of the list in Kansas and should be the last thing our congressman should consider cutting.