Time Spent Teaching Core Academic Subjects in Elementary Schools

Book excerpt: This report describes the number of hours and the percentage of school time spent on core academic subjects during the elementary school week around the country. It addresses three central issues about using class time to teach core academic subjects. The first issue is the actual number of hours and the percentage of school time the nation's elementary school teachers spend on instruction in the core subject areas of English/reading/language arts, mathematics, social studies, and science. The second issue involves an analysis of how this time varies by characteristics of the local community, school, teacher, classroom, and students. Finally, trends over time are examined to see how the amount and percentage of time spent on the four core subjects has changed from 1987-88 to 1993-94.