Imagine an elementary school without crayons, school plays or lessons about the American Revolution. For many students around the country, this scenario may soon be the reality, thanks to President Bush's No Child Left Behind plan.

NCLB is an education law that imposes certain state exam requirements, thus leading schools to promote reading and math skills while in turn eliminating other subjects. For those students especially behind in reading and math, other subjects could be eliminated from their schedules entirely.

A front-page article in The New York Times March 26 entitled "Schools Cut Back Subjects to Push Reading and Math" addressed the issues inherent in NCLB. According to author Sam Dillon, thousands of schools around the country are reacting to NCLB, and the results are not pretty. Schools that had previously prided themselves on offering varied courses to students are now cutting elective programs to make room for additional reading and math drills. Mr. Dillon refers to worrisome statistics found by a Center on Education Policy survey scheduled to be published this week.

Mr. Dillon reported that "71 percent of the nation's 15,000 school districts had reduced the hours of instructional time spent on history, music and other subjects to open up more time for reading and math."

In other words, Mr. Bush's education plan is quickly sweeping the creativity out of public schools nationwide, only to replace it with repetitive and overwhelming amounts of class work on reading and math.

It is no secret that every student has different strengths and weaknesses. Just as my gift is not math or science, other students may feel the same way about reading and writing. It is for this reason that NCLB is a devastating plan that will eventually lead to an unhappy, unmotivated and, perhaps worst of all, uninspired generation of students.

It is already common that students often dread going to school, especially to math classes where they are drilled on trigonometry or in classes where they are required to read lengthy novels. NCLB only exacerbates the problem of students hating school.

Thomas Sobol, an education professor at Columbia Teachers College and a former New York State education commissioner summed up this issue perfectly in Mr. Dillon's article: "Only two subjects? What a sadness. 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."

It seems as though Mr. Bush's plan is to mold young Americans into students who can do little else but pass standardized tests. Forget about the artists, the actors and the writers.

University of Wisconsin professor Andrew Reschovsky, an expert on education policy, says he respects the government's attempt at "mandating high academic standards and holding schools accountable for student performance." In our brief exchange, Mr. Reschovsky posed an interesting question: would it not be possible to integrate increased amount of math and reading into other subjects, such as social studies and sciences?

It seems as though that might be the best way to appease both sides of this conflict. Mr. Bush and his supporters will increase the time students spend preparing for state exams and will, it is hoped, improve their math and reading skills. On the other hand, those students with interests in the creative arts and social sciences will not be shut out by the curriculum. An art class, for example, could involve activities like drawing a picture that represented a recent reading assignment. History classes could focus on the backgrounds of the plots that appear in novels. Math problems could be illustrated through science experiments.

A change in curriculum is nothing new, as Mr. Dillon points out in his article. When our parents attended school, women were enrolled in home-economics courses, something rarely offered in today's schools. The strides we have taken in providing students with courses that interest them, inspire them and excite them are impressive and must not be lost.

Emily Friedman ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in journalism and legal studies.