Schools Urged to Push Beyond Math, Reading To Broader Curriculum

Washington

Reading and math may be getting their due attention under the No Child Left Behind Act, but a lineup of education experts met here last week to argue that the focus of the federal law is not enough to ensure students are receiving a “21st-century education.”

Some 200 leaders of influential organizations, educators, and policy analysts debated in a Dec. 12 symposium the need for more history, social studies, arts, literature, and character lessons in the curriculum. Those subjects, many educators say, have been relegated to the margins of the school day as schools expand reading and mathematics lessons to help students gain proficiency in the two disciplines that are at the center of NCLB accountability.

“Education must aim for far more than mastery of the basics, far more than the possession of tools for economic competitiveness,” said Diane Ravitch, an education historian. “Certainly, it should aim for enough [content] for an examined life, enough for civic virtue, and enough for those mental habits that incline one to think, to read, to listen, to discuss, to feel just a bit uncertain about one’s opinions,...