No Surprises in New Report

Today the Center on Education Policy will release the most encompassing survey to date on the effects of the No Child Left Behind legislation. To no surprise to those of us who deal daily with the law's narrow minded focus on test scores, the survey shows that many schools are reducing or eliminating time spent on subjects other than reading and math. As the New York Times reported in Sunday's front page story: ". . . 71 percent of the nation's 15,000 school districts had reduced the hours of instructional time spent on history, music, and other subjects to open up more time for reading and math." (To read the entire story, click here.)

What is especially disheartening about the survey's findings is such narrowing of the curriculum is most prevalent in schools serving low-income students. Even within schools it is students who have the lowest test scores, often poor and minority students, who are channeled into the most narrow curriculum track. (If you have first-hand stories to share of narrowing the curriculum in your school or community, please click here to link to our email and share it.)

Our friend Tom Sobol, formerly New York State Education Commissioner, when told of this phenomenon, summed up our feelings in response to this news: "Only two subjects? What a sadness. That's like a violin student who is only permitted to play scales, nothing else, day after day, scales, scales, scales. They'd lose their zest for music."

Of course there are those who celebrate this single-minded focus on math and reading. Why not limit schooling to "the basics" until students can perform on the tests? We can think of several reasons.

Let's begin with the fact that many of those other areas (history, music, art, languages, science, internships, etc.) are what motivate many students to stay in school. In fact, it is through these areas that students sharpen reading and math skills, through putting them to use. One recent study of dropouts cited student boredom as a leading cause for leaving school. One wonders how narrowing the curriculum will engage already disengaged students.

Second, the reading and math skills for which so much effort is being devoted are only those measured on quickly-scored standardized tests. There is scant evidence that scoring well on these tests leads to successful use of these skills in real life. In fact, it is often the narrowest and most basic math and reading skills that are tested. In this way, by teaching to a test, we may be dumbing down even reading and math skills, as a recent report by Thomas Toch points out. "Many of the tests that states are introducing under NCLB contain questions that require students to merely recall and restate facts," writes Toch, "rather than do more demanding tasks like applying or evaluating information." (Read Mike Winerip's New York Times column from March 22, 2006, "Standardized Tests Face a Crisis Over Standards."

Third, and perhaps most important, is the fact that such a narrowing of the curriculum comes at the expense of the most important mission of our public schools — the preparation of our young for democratic life. A recent piece by Walter Parker put it this way, ". . . schools can help children enter the public consciousness needed for citizenship, or what the ancient Greeks called puberty . . . The opposite is what the Greeks called idiocy — absorption in one's private affairs." (Click here to read a short version of Parker's essay, here to read the complete piece.) To be incubators of democratic life requires that our young not only read and do math, they must also acquire an entire range of skills that are required of democratic citizens. This is why we have public schools, to serve the public good of making democracy possible.

We agree that math and reading skills are important for citizens. So is the study of history, the ability to create a reasoned argument, the arts, research skills, the list goes on. An education system, a system of public schools, must not narrow itself to the lowest common denominator of improving test scores in the so-called basics if it is to be worthy of the democracy it serves. Rather, it must cultivate in all our children the habits of heart and mind that make democratic life possible. Anything less is a betrayal of our commitment to be a nation of, for, and by the people.