The need for a balanced curriculum
It wasn't surprising. Every one of us who's been in a classroom lately has seen it: reading and math squeezing out other subjects like social studies, music and art. And this week a national report by the Washington think tank Center on Education Policy confirmed those observations. Check out my story on the findings today. Researchers found that on average districts beefed up reading time by 141 minutes a week, and increased math time by 89 minutes a week. Meanwhile, some districts sliced time in social studies by 76 minutes a week and cut art and music time by 57 minutes. Now, I'm not saying reading and math are bad. I know they form the foundation for success in other subjects like science and history. But how can American public schoolchildren hope to compete globally if they're receiveing a streamlined curriculum that's not well rounded? Think about it in terms of nutrition -- sure, protein is good for you, but to be healthy and energetic, you also need the carbs from whole grains, vegetables and fruits. Like a balanced diet -- isn't it important to have a balanced curriculum?
Categories: Around the Nation, Around the Region, Teaching, Testing
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Comments
The other side effect to this, in addition to not "rounding out" the education, is that it becomes more difficult for schools to offer inclusion to their more severely disabled students. If a student needs intensive math and reading intervention in a self-contained classroom, including them in subjects such as social studies, music, art, etc. gives them an opportunity to spend time with their nondisabled peers.
In BCPSS the goal is to get students to spend as much time as possible in a regular class. If math is now a 90 minutes/day block and reading is 3 hours long, this means that these students could conceivably be out of the regular setting for 21-3/4 hours at a minimum, thus making it very unlikely that they will be able to spend enough time with their nondisabled peers for a given school (and therefore the city as a whole) to meet with the Consent Decree's Disengagement Outcome requiring that 58.8% of disabled students spend no more than 60% of the school day outside the regular environment (21.75 hours would be 65.31% of a typical elementary school week).
Posted by: Claude | February 21, 2008 1:25 PM