Maybe I've been out in the "real world" for too long. I don't have kids, so it's a bit hard for me to make real critical observations on education these days... but I do have quite a few memories from my days in school... long ago as it may have been.  That's why I found this story kind of surprising:

As the start of the school year approaches, schools are going back to the basics with a vengeance. Many Milwaukee students, and some suburban ones, will arguably spend more time on reading and math than during any time in recent memory, although some educators argue that the trend is to the detriment of other subject areas, such as science and social studies.
...
A report this spring by the Center on Education Policy found that 71% of districts surveyed reported during the last school year that they had reduced the amount of time they spent on at least one other subject to make more time for reading and math. The report found that social studies was the biggest loser, followed by science, and then art and music.

While reading this, I had to go back into my memory... and I remembered how much reading I had to do during Social Studies classes, and how much math I had to do during Science class.  In fact, it isn't until you get way to the bottom of the article that you get the one common sense sentence in the whole article:

Administrators say the best way to promote literacy is to spend some time teaching reading through social studies, and social studies through reading, so topics such as history and civics are explored during time that might officially be designated as a reading block. But they admit that not every teacher or school is able to find the right balance.

Gee... yah think?!  And maybe they could do mathematics problems involving science, you know... during science class.  Which when you think about it, is one of the most important things to teach about math... real world uses.  The only adults who do strange theoretical mathematics are mathematicians.  Everyone else uses math, as applied to something broader, like science, or finance, or engineering.  Not only that, but teaching reading through Social Studies is just as important, because it teaches critical reading and understanding of text.

But I'm sure all that takes away from time talking about Darwinism vs. Creationism in Science class, and those thoughtful discussions of how George Bush is similar to Hitler during Social Studies.