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As different initiatives, priorities, and efforts to change teaching and learning in schools come and go, one challenge remains constant: Time is a finite resource.

In elementary schools, especially, where subjects aren't typically cordoned off in separate periods with different teachers, devoting more time to one topic inherently means spending less time on others.

Now, new trends and anxieties may further affect this balance, experts say.

Study after study demonstrated that young students lost ground in reading, and even more so in math, during the pandemic. New research shows that kids are making academic gains in these subjects, albeit unevenly across wealthy and poor communities, as schools pour time and resources into intensive tutoring and other efforts aimed at reading and math recovery.

At the same time, a "science of reading" movement has swept through state legislatures, with lawmakers mandating that schools use evidence-based approaches to teaching young students how to read and provide additional help to students who struggle.

"We haven't seen explicit language about how time is used in schools in the legislation," said Esther Quintero, a senior fellow at the Shanker Institute who co-authored a recent report analyzing states' science of reading laws. "But I think that with all of this focus on science of reading and assessment and intervention, there are messages that are being signaled as to what is important and what is worth prioritizing."

In this explainer, Education Week breaks down the role social studies and science play in the elementary school classroom, why time is allocated the way it is, and how current policy debates may-or may not-shift the status quo.

Why do social studies and science matter for elementary schoolers?

It's a well-worn cliche that elementary schools are tasked with teaching kids the three "Rs"-Reading, wRiting, and aRithmetic. But researchers argue that social studies and science are crucial early on, too.

Not only can learning more about the world around them enhance young students' reading skills, elementary lessons in these subjects develop foundational methods of analyzing information that students will need to use in later grades, experts say.

Deprioritizing science and other topics can be counterproductive to raising student-achievement test scores in reading and math in the long run, said Christine Royce, a professor of science education at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania.

"Allowing students to explore, and engage, and investigate is going to give them a lot of prior experiences that they can connect to reading," Royce said.

They found that students who received an additional 30 minutes of social studies instruction per day in grades 1-5 outperformed students who received less social studies instruction on ELA tests-even when controlling for the students' kindergarten reading ability and other demographic and school factors.

Beyond that, the subject has intrinsic value in elementary school, said Paul Fitchett, a professor of curriculum and teaching at Auburn University's College of Education, who studies social science education.

Early-elementary social studies is usually focused on kids' families, local communities, and maybe their towns and states.

"Understanding who you are and your place in society, that's not something that just teenagers are thinking about," he said. "You can't be a good citizen without reading or math. Those things matter. And it also matters that people have a sense of self, and social studies provides those opportunities."

Early science instruction fosters its own set of skills, said Royce, such as investigating, reasoning, and weighing evidence.

The more time devoted to social studies and science practices, the more likely students are to master them, Fitchett said. Lack of early exposure could have "ripple effects" into later grades, leaving students less prepared to take on more complex topics, he said.

How much time is enough? The National Science Teaching Association recommends at least 60 minutes per day in elementary schools, to put science on par with other core subjects-but also notes that there is not a research basis for this recommendation. (There's not much research in general on the optimal time dosage for different subjects or skills that children need to learn.)

Why is more time given to ELA and math than social studies and science? When did this start?

Different national surveys of elementary-teacher-time use all show similar findings: Minutes spent on social studies and science instruction have declined since the 1990s, while time for reading and math has increased.

NCLB, the 2002 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, required states to test students annually in reading and math in grades 3-8, as a condition of receiving federal Title I funding for low-income students. The law also required science testing, but only in three grades.

"These tested subjects, reading and math, have been perceived to be crowding out these other nontested subjects," said Quintero of the Shanker Institute.

It's not just classroom time-studies show the infrastructure for social studies and science instruction lags, too.

Other factors have also been shown in research to influence time for social studies, he said, including whether a state has testing policy in the subject.

Could the 'science of reading' movement affect this balance?

But some researchers and advocates have also emphasized that research-informed instruction necessitates including social studies and science topics, too-and they've cautioned against a narrow approach to the curriculum that prioritizes developing isolated reading skills at the expense of building student knowledge in these other subjects. These new laws typically don't explicitly reference science or social studies.

The report's authors found that new laws require instruction in different components of reading: phonics, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. But the legislation rarely explains how these components should be integrated, and only six states mention building background knowledge as a foundation for reading comprehension.

Sean Morrisey, a 5th grade teacher in western New York, regularly teaches social studies themes in the novel studies he does with students in his reading classes. Still, there are 5th grade New York social studies standards his ELA program doesn't cover, such as economics or basic geography. "Some of those things, it's hard to embed in an ELA core curriculum," Morrisey said.

Students also need time to learn discipline-specific practices-not just content, said Royce.
Science class doesn't just introduce science topics, it also teaches how to do science, developing skills such as hypothesizing and designing experiments, she pointed out.

"If we only read about that, students aren't constructing their own thinking," Royce said. "They're being given information."

Did the pandemic shift how much time elementary teachers spent on social studies and science?

It's hard to know-in large part because there's not much quantitative research on the question.

"It's a black box in terms of data and studies," said Robin Lake, the director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, a research group housed at Arizona State University that has tracked districts' responses to the pandemic and recovery plans.

The vast majority of data on student achievement during COVID was collected in reading and math, and reports so far on elementary students' academic recovery have focused on those subjects as well.

Competing forces affected social studies instruction during the same time period. Anecdotally, some elementary teachers reported setting aside time to talk with students about issues unfolding in the world around them-the murder of George Floyd by police in the summer of 2020 and the presidential election later that year.

But as state legislators began to pass bans the next year on discussing so-called controversial issues in the classroom, these policies shaped teachers' actions in lasting ways. A RAND survey from this year found that two-thirds of K-12 teachers have decided to limit instruction about political and social issues in the classroom. More than 80 percent said they were subject to local restrictions that limited discussion on such topics.

In school systems' COVID-recovery plans, most leaders prioritize what they see as foundational subjects, said Lake.

"The districts that we speak to as part of our studies generally are pretty well focused on reading and math, and social-emotional learning, mental health, chronic absenteeism," she said. Science isn't usually discussed. It's an approach that could have consequences down the road, she said.

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Social Studies and Science Get Short Shrift in Elementary Schools. Why That Matters

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Learn why the subjects play a key role in elementary classrooms-and how new policy debates may shift the status quo.

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The overwhelming majority of teachers, principals, and district leaders in the United States believe that students should learn how artificial intelligence works at some point in their K-12 education, according to recently released survey data from the EdWeek Research Center.

Nearly 9 in 10 educators feel that students should be taught how AI works in a developmentally appropriate manner sometime before they graduate from high school, according to the survey.

These survey findings illustrate how quickly AI has gained prominence as a need-to-know subject in K-12 education circles.

But at what age should K-12 students begin to learn about AI? Opinions among educators vary, often depending on what grade level they are teaching and whether they are a classroom teacher or administrator.

Six percent of educators say that the topic shouldn't be taught until the postsecondary levels and another 6 percent say that AI should never be taught. Most-65 percent-say it should be introduced to students in middle or high school.

That's a reassuring finding, said Pat Yongpradit, the chief academic officer for code.org and lead of TeachAI, an initiative to support schools in using and teaching about AI, given how artificial intelligence is poised to transform both K-12 education and the workforce.

For the most part, teachers' views align with administrators' when the survey responses are broken out by job title, with some notable exceptions, said Alex Harwin, a research analyst with the EdWeek Research Center.

"If you look at district leaders and school leaders, a quarter of them are really gung-ho about introducing artificial intelligence in grades 3through 5," she said. "However, only 14 percent of teachers agree."

But, interestingly, the survey shows different perspectives among teachers, depending on what age group they teach.

For instance, while administrators were more likely to say that students should start learning about AI in elementary school than teachers overall, elementary teachers were just as likely as school and district leaders to say that students in grades 3-5 should learn about AI.

Twenty-six percent of elementary teachers said students should start learning about AI in grades 3-5, compared with 11 percent of middle school teachers, and 8 percent of high school teachers.

That is something Yongpradit said he sees among elementary teachers all the time: outsized enthusiasm for teaching about computer science and technology, even though most educators-and people in general-may think these are more middle and high school level topics.

"Here's the thing: What's the role of an elementary school teacher? Providing the foundation-they are always thinking about foundational skills," said Yongpradit. "So, in the same way, these data show that elementary school teachers are way more excited about introducing and teaching students about how AI works early on because of their role in the education system. They understand that this needs to be taught early."

But the survey also reveals that some of the different perspectives between administrators and teachers overall may be due to teachers feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of adding yet another task to their plates, according to the survey data.

"There's also a really small but statistically significant percentage of 8 percent of teachers who think that AI should be taught in college/postsecondary, meaning, they don't want to teach it, compared to only 1 percent of district leaders and 4 percent of school leaders," said Harwin.

Is teacher fatigue driving opinions about when to introduce kids to AI?

Some of these perspectives about when to introduce AI to K-12 students could be driven, in part, by teachers feeling overwhelmed with their current job responsibilities, according to the survey.

The EdWeek Research Center asked educators if they or the teachers in their schools have the time or bandwidth to teach students how to think about and use artificial intelligence.

Seventy-eight percent replied that no, they and their teachers don't have the bandwidth because their plates are overloaded with academic challenges, social-emotional-learning priorities, safety issues, and more. Among teachers alone, the share was even higher at 82 percent.

"People said: 'Our plates are full, we can't make space for AI,'" said Harwin. "That's why some teachers are like, 'We have enough on our plates, let's let the higher ed. folks deal with it.'"

So, what can be done about teacher AI fatigue?

New AI tools should look at solving the actual instructional challenges that teachers face day to day, said Yongpradit, to help relieve the pressure that makes teachers feel like they don't have the time to teach students how artificial intelligence works.

"These survey results are just a reminder that curriculum providers, professional development providers, and tool developers need to start with teachers' pain points and goals," he said, "rather than trying to start with new and innovative things that can be done with AI that don't necessarily align with teachers' everyday realities."

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How Young Is Too Young to Teach Students About AI? Survey Reveals Differing Opinions

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Educators overwhelmingly agree that students need to learn how AI works, but at what age, exactly, is a source of debate.