In a July article, Newsweek magazine reported on research by Kyung Hee Kim of the College of William & Mary showing that scores for American children and adults are falling on the Torrance test—a 90-minute assessment designed to measure creative thinking. Kim found that the scores, which had been steadily rising in the decades preceding 1990, began inching downward in 1990 and have continued to drop since then. "It's very clear, and the decrease is very significant," Kim says, adding that the decline is most serious for the youngest children in the study—those in kindergarten through sixth grade. With a recent IBM poll of 1,500 CEOs showing that our nation's business leaders identify creativity as the No. 1 "leadership competency" of the future, declines in this area could, indeed, be viewed as a crisis.

Why the reversal? The Newsweek authors suggest, "One likely culprit is the number of hours kids now spend in front of the TV and playing videogames rather than engaging in creative activities. Another is the lack of creativity development in our schools." While problem-based learning, built around real-world inquiry, is gaining momentum in the U.K., the European Union and China, they say, it has taken a backseat to other priorities in the U.S. in recent years.

Take the K-12 Blueprint Poll to tell us whether you agree that we're in the midst of a creativity crisis and share your opinion on why the creativity scores might be dropping.

Source: Newsweek, July 2010, The Creativity Crisis