According to Peter Drucker, “What gets measured gets done.”
The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation in its report, The Silent Epidemic” found that the main reason children drop out of school. But politicians and the people behind the No Child Left Behind legislation have ignored this. By insisting that high stakes tests focus on language arts and mathematics, schools are increasingly reducing time for art, music, social studies and science. Preparation for increasingly high-stakes tests has reduced time for social studies and science. state and federal budget cuts are decimating already hobbled music, art, library and physical education budgets.
A 2007 Center on Education Policy study found that 44 percent of elementary schools had decreased instructional time spent on non-tested subjects since the 2002 implementation of No Child Left Behind, on average reducing time spent teaching the scorned subjects by 32 percent.
I believe in the theory of “unintended consequences”. But I am not sure if this emphasis on high stakes testing of math and english is one of “unintended consequences”. Some students come to school because of art, music, science, social studies and physical education. By eliminating these subjects, students become increasingly bored, and cannot relieve the pressure of instruction. It is as if these politicians have asked and answered the question, ‘how do we make school more boring and even less interesting’?