Schools Cut Back Subjects to Push Reading and Math

Published in
3/25/2006

Thousands of schools across the nation are responding to the reading and math testing requirements laid out in No Child Left Behind, President Bush's signature education law, by reducing class time spent on other subjects and, for some low-proficiency students, eliminating it.

The changes appear to principally affect schools and students who test below grade level.

"Only two subjects? What a sadness," said Thomas Sobol, an education professor at Columbia Teachers College and a former New York State education commissioner. "That's like a violin student who's only permitted to play scales, nothing else, day after day, scales, scales, scales. They'd lose their zest for music."

This article, written by Sam Dillon, appeared in the March 26th, 2006 publication of The New York Times.

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