Some 40 percent of U.S. schools (particularly schools with large numbers of low-income students of color) have eliminated recess or combined it with lunch.10 With futures on the line, the thinking goes, schools can’t afford the frivolity of playtime. For example, in 2016 the New Jersey legislature passed a bipartisan bill requiring merely twenty minutes of recess each day for grades kindergarten to 5 in the state’s schools. But Governor Chris Christie vetoed it, explaining in language reminiscent of a schoolyard, “That was a stupid bill.”11
