Pennsylvania Teachers Balk At Plans To "Merge" Social Studies, English

The Allentown (PA) Morning Call (4/20, Esack, 95K) reports that teachers in Allentown, Pennsylvania, are expressing concerns about "the administration's plan to drop social studies as a free-standing course to create more time for mathematics," and to "merge social studies with English language arts" for sixth graders. Noting that the school board is scheduled to take up the issue, the Morning Call reports that "under the plan, the 45-minute classes of social studies and English would be rolled into one 45-minute class where 'students will learn social studies content through reading and writing.' That would increase math from 45 minutes to 90 minutes to try to raise math test scores, which fall far after fifth grade."