New curriculum has students multi-tasking

The Gaithersburg first-grade class was analyzing "Little Red Riding Hood," but instead of parsing the tale’s literary merits, it was safety time: Don’t tell strangers your address. Later, the topic turned to science. The students discussed how animals protect themselves, using the wolf and the young girl as examples.

Montgomery County schools say they have found a way to bring back history, science and art into daily classroom life, subjects that have been crowded out of schools in the decade since the No Child Left Behind law assigned a federal mandate to math and reading.

Their approach will soon spread across the country as part of a $2.25 million agreement with Pearson http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/08/AR2010060805379.html , the world’s largest education publisher, to develop and market a new elementary school curriculum.

By Michael Birnbaum

Full Story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/05/AR2010120503517.html?hpid=sec-education