A blog turning into a game

When learning about the state of the education system from some of my classmates in business school who were former teachers, I was briefed on, among other things, No Child Left Behind. Briefly, the act has placed a strong emphasis on creating and meeting academic standards at the state-level in math and reading. Schools are judged based on how well their students are doing relative to those standards.

As a result, the education community has been monitoring how schools have adjusted their curriculum to mold to this new policy. Someone recently pointed me to a report released a few months ago by the Center on Education Policy (CEP). The main conclusion of the report was that schools generally are shifting their attention to math and reading, at the expense of other areas, including social studies and the arts. Specifically,

“In its earlier report, CEP found that a majority of school districts—62 percent— had increased time for English language arts (ELA) and/or math in elementary schools since school year 2001-02. Meanwhile, 44 percent had increased time for ELA and/or math at the elementary level, while simultaneously cutting time from one or more areas including science, social studies, art and music, physical education, recess, and lunch.”

In many cases, the report concludes, school districts have increased the amount of instruction time devoted to language arts and math by more than 75 minutes a week.

If the CEP’s conclusions are accurate, and at a first-order they appear to be true and validated by other similar reports, a major question is how students will learn the material that is being less emphasized in schools.