Every Child Left Behind

From yesterday's New York Times:

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...

...with many schools that once offered rich curriculums now systematically trimming courses like [history and science].

Such a move would be detrimental to the future of the United States. While I agree that reading and math abilities need to increase drastically, to take any focus off science and history would be devestating. America's children will only be able to compete with the Bangalores of the world if they excel in science and history, as well as reading and math.

Rather than trim these courses, perhaps school districts around the country should make changes to their calendar, adding another hour or two to the school day and another month and a half to the school year. (Offering incentives to young professionals to teach for a couple of years before joining the private sector wouldn't be a bad idea either, but that's a subject for another day.)