ABSTRACT
I was incredulous when my friend Susan, the principal of a middle school in the southwestern United States, told me that she was being forced by the district to cut her art and music programs. “Test scores,” she lamented. “Our scores are not where we want them to be, and certainly not where the district wants them to be.” As a result, the district insisted that Susan share her music and art teachers with two other middle schools. “It should work out,” she told me, “because more than half of our students will be spending an extra hour each day in math and writing instruction. We’re trading art and music for math and writing, like almost every other school on this side of the district.”
