I'm not sure why the Chronicle thinks they have a hot, hot story in reporting that public schools in California may not be meeting minute mandates for science, social studies, PE, and art.  Don't we already know that?  Indeed, aren't there active lawsuits over the PE requirement right now?  Isn't there a documentary about PE in San Francisco being screened right now?  Doesn't it cover the lack of support for meeting PE mandates?

That said, I think it is HILARIOUS that the District is trying to insist that massive testing mandates and "literacy blocks" and whatnot have not led to curricular narrowing on their watch.  Or that providing PE specialists to a few schools and allowing a few others to use their site budget to buy Playworks somehow means all students are receiving physical education.  Or that science is completely supported even though you can't get live animal cards for certain units anymore, and woe betide you if all the "non-consumable" plastic bins have cracked in the last six years.

I do feel badly for the teachers who apparently have high-level district administrators pouring over their lesson plans to make sure science, art, and PE are happening, though.  The pressure to short students in these topics comes from far above the classroom teacher, but it is apparently the classroom teacher who will be blamed for not choosing correctly between competing mandates.

I do eagerly await the day when District leadership is held to the same standards District teachers hold for themselves.