Television and school scores: Is there a connection?

A 1990 National Assessment of Educational Progress study showed 69% of fourth-graders and 71% of eighth-graders averaged well over three hours of television a day. 

It stands to reason, if the bulk of your free time is spent watching other people do things and little or no time is spent doing things yourself, it is impossible to grow smarter.

In and of itself, television probably hasn't made American school children any less intelligent but its time-consuming nature may have prevented them from becoming more intelligent by interrupting the largest and most instructive class in childhood: Life Experience.

Paul Copperman, author of The Literacy Hoax, saw the interruption in these terms: "Consider what a child misses during the 15,000 hours (from birth to age 17) he spends in front of the TV screen. He is not working in the garage with his father, or in the garden with his mother. He is not doing homework, or reading, or collecting stamps. He is not cleaning his room, washing the supper dishes or cutting the lawn. He is not listening to a discussion about community politics among his parents and their friends. He is not playing baseball or going fishing or painting pictures. Exactly what does television offer that is so valuable it can replace these activities that transform an impulsive, self- absorbed child into a critically-thinking adult?"

The price we pay for too much TV

• In 1991, when 13 year-olds from 15 different nations were tested in science and mathematics, students who watched the most television had the lowest scores.
• When similar (NAEP) tests were given for math in the 1990 to eighth-graders in 37 US states and territories, the same pattern persisted: The more they watched, the lower the scores. Conversely, the same research found that reading helps not just its own subject but the entire curriculum: Students who read the most outside school had significantly higher math scores. And the more types of reading material found in the home, the higher the student's math scores. In effect, controlling television time in the home may be as important as controlling lead paint in the home.
• The 1992 National Writing Report Card showed the lowest scores were achieved by children who watched the most TV and/or read the fewest pages outside school.