Poll: Homework Elimination: yea or nay?

[Anonymous]

I'm with you on this, OP. My daughter is in a Montgomery County public middle school and has three hours a night this year, leaving room for little else, except one extra curricular activity on weeknights. In fact, I've had to take over her chore of putting the dishes away so she has more time to get the work done. It's crazy, and it sounds like high school will be even worse.

[Anonymous]

Wow

They say time management is the key to successful homework, before you go making a fool of yourself try working on that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When my son has a paper due or mid-terms or finals, he's worked five hours a day in middle school. And he's fast. Not every day. OP, look at where the U.S. places in cross-country education rankings. Not at the top of the list!

Plus, the problem with homework limits is one child takes an hour to do something, another student needs two hours to do the same thing.

The problem is, the amount of homework assigned appears to have little correlation to the achievement of students.


"Many countries with the highest scoring students on achievement tests, such
as Japan, Denmark, and the Czech Republic, have teachers who assign little
homework. Meanwhile, countries such as Greece, Thailand, and Iran, where
students have some of the worst average scores, have teachers who assign a lot
of homework. American students do as much homework as their peers in
other countries—if not more—but still manage only to score around the
international average. [National Differences, Global Similarities: World Culture
and the Future of Schooling by David P. Baker and Gerald K. LeTendre, Stanford
University Press, 2005]"

[Anonymous]

I think that homework is important, but not ALL important in terms of getting a quality education. One concern that comes to mind is the opportunity cost of homework: what are students NOT doing because they are spending so much time on homework? Reading for pleasure? Visiting a museum? Becoming more involved in their faith communities? Playing games with their siblings? Doing volunteer work? Chores and other home responsibilities? Are they becoming so academically oriented that their growth is being stunted in other equally important dimensions? (or, depending on your value system, MORE important dimensions...or is nothing more important than the absolute highest academic achievement possible, regardless of cost?)

[Anonymous]

I think this documentary says it all. And the majority of responses from parents on this thread only confirm this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uem73imvn9Y

[Anonymous]

my child (a highly intelligent, but special ed student) has always had an extremely hard time with homework. Just keeping it together all day is exhausting for them so having to do a ton of homework after school is just too much. In third grade we made a deal (with the teachers), if he got a's or b's on all quizzes and tests, he would not have nightly homework (he would have occasional homework for projects or papers). If his grades lowered, he would have homework again. It was a great incentive. Homework is supposed to just reinforce what they are learning at school, right? Obviously he was getting the information.

[Anonymous]

I would totally support getting rid of it in lower grades. Can we all agree on k-2, and then have a discussion about 3-4, or even 5 and 6?

I'm not opposed to the occasional project, but the idea of homework for homework's sake in lower grades seems not only not helpful, but actually harmful.

[Anonymous]

My beef with homework is that I feel like it is taking away my ability to parent my child. I don't have the freedom anymore to decide what is best for my child from an academic, social or emotional POV. I feel like my home has been hijacked my my child's school. I don't have the right to look at my child's homework and decide whether or not this particular assignment is worth the time and effort he will spend on it. i.e practicing skills already mastered, practicing skills to excess, overly time consuming project assigned at the same time as other very time consuming assignments, etc. I know my child best. I am my child's first and most important teacher. And yet I have no veto power with regard to homework. I think homework should not be included in calculating grades. Either a child masters the material and skills necessary for the class to whatever degree or he doesn't. Let the grade for the class reflect the amount of material mastered as measured with whatever in-class tool the teacher or system chooses and at whatever interval they choose, not on whether or not the child practiced and drilled and wrote and researched ad nauseam at home. Additionally, by making homework contribute to final grades, students who need to work to help support their families or young children who have little or no support at home to help with homework are being unfairly disadvantaged.

[Anonymous]

OP, you really need to separate out elementary school from high school. The things people are considering (types of material being assigned, ability of students to be delf directed) are just completely different.

I have kids in elementary school. I don't mind some homework. I think homework is valuable for reinforcing skills that need to be learned. I would ask that teachers only assign homework that is geared to havng kids master concepts that they haven't already mastered. That means for example, you don't send a child home to copy her spelling words 5 times each, until you have pretested her on those spelling words, and found the words she doesn't know how to spell. If she aces the spelling test, she doesn't have to copy her spelling words 5 times each. If she misses 4 words, she just has to copy those words. (Hopefully she gets assigned a harder list, but that's a different story).

One type of homework I personally hate for elementary school students is the use of a mandatory, required reading log. As I see it the whole point of a reading log is to encourage students to read material of their own choosing, to help them read more and learn to love reading. My child already loves to read, he just hates to have to write it down, and he hates to have to read 20 minutes each night. He doesn't read anything for a wek, then stays up late finishing one book in four marathon hours. SOme teachers are OK with him not filling out his reading log on a daily basis, others haven't been -- I think that's silly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My beef with homework is that I feel like it is taking away my ability to parent my child. I don't have the freedom anymore to decide what is best for my child from an academic, social or emotional POV. I feel like my home has been hijacked my my child's school. I don't have the right to look at my child's homework and decide whether or not this particular assignment is worth the time and effort he will spend on it. i.e practicing skills already mastered, practicing skills to excess, overly time consuming project assigned at the same time as other very time consuming assignments, etc. I know my child best. I am my child's first and most important teacher. And yet I have no veto power with regard to homework. I think homework should not be included in calculating grades. Either a child masters the material and skills necessary for the class to whatever degree or he doesn't. Let the grade for the class reflect the amount of material mastered as measured with whatever in-class tool the teacher or system chooses and at whatever interval they choose, not on whether or not the child practiced and drilled and wrote and researched ad nauseam at home. Additionally, by making homework contribute to final grades, students who need to work to help support their families or young children who have little or no support at home to help with homework are being unfairly disadvantaged.

I totally agree with the above.

I also do not think skills homework should be assessed for a progress grade in elementary school. It should be looked at (spot check) to see if the child has understood the material, and it can be assessed for an effort grade or study skills grade. But for a progress grade, I think the only assessment should be what is done in school. If the homework is useful, then doing the homework will help the student master the material, and that should show up on an in-class assessment.

What you don't want to see is a chil who makes all As on homework in math, but then sits down for a test and doesn't actually know the information. You shouldn't use the A she got on her homework to average out her failing garsdes on the test. While that might seem fair, the end result is that her final grade doesn't actually indicate her level of maserty of the material -- and that is very misleading.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

One type of homework I personally hate for elementary school students is the use of a mandatory, required reading log. As I see it the whole point of a reading log is to encourage students to read material of their own choosing, to help them read more and learn to love reading. My child already loves to read, he just hates to have to write it down, and he hates to have to read 20 minutes each night. He doesn't read anything for a wek, then stays up late finishing one book in four marathon hours.

Ditto this. And I think elementary school homework just sucks the joy of learning right out of them. Habit? Give me a break. Kids don't need years of "practice" to get into the "habit" of doing homework anymore than they need years of "practice" doing anything that older children are expected to do but that is inappropriate for younger kids. When they need to do it, they will develop the habit then. The habit excuse is so lame.

[Anonymous]

For every person who hates a reading log, someone loves it. For every parent who thinks homework sucks the joy of learning out of children, there's a parent, including me, who watched her child blossom academically through homework.

For most parents, the most challenging homework years are in elementary school. Then at some point, your child becomes self-reliant. No homework would be extreme, but less might be fine. Though there, students do their homework at a different pace. My child's fast, he'd do his homework in an hour but some parents said it took their child 2.5 or more hours.

[Anonymous]

Homework sucks!! It has destroyed our family life!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For every person who hates a reading log, someone loves it. For every parent who thinks homework sucks the joy of learning out of children, there's a parent, including me, who watched her child blossom academically through homework.

For most parents, the most challenging homework years are in elementary school. Then at some point, your child becomes self-reliant. No homework would be extreme, but less might be fine. Though there, students do their homework at a different pace. My child's fast, he'd do his homework in an hour but some parents said it took their child 2.5 or more hours.

Why can't homework be optional for the those who feel that it is helpful? For many kids, especially in ES, homework does much more damage than good. If your kid loves homework, then go for it. Just don't torture my kids!

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous
I think elementary school homework just sucks the joy of learning right out of them. Habit? Give me a break. Kids don't need years of "practice" to get into the "habit" of doing homework anymore than they need years of "practice" doing anything that older children are expected to do but that is inappropriate for younger kids. When they need to do it, they will develop the habit then. The habit excuse is so lame.


I agree. (The only "habit" that gets instilled is having parents be responsible for making sure it's done-- how does that help anyone?)