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Should public school parents be allowed to opt their child out of homework?
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Anonymous
Parents should be able to opt their kids out of meaningless homeschool busy work too, if they want! Sure! ('Course that'll be pretty easy to arrange.) |
Anonymous
| No one has taken away a parent's ability to opt out of doing homework. In most instances, given the much lower weight to final grade (if any), kids may still take in class tests and do well in school. Why are you so concerned about someone depriving you of the right to restrict your kid from doing any homework? No one has taken those rights away from you. If you choose to attend a school where homework is issued and graded or given credit for, you may refuse to do the homework. No one will put you in jail or take your child away. You clearly have no right to deprive other students that dutifully turn in their assigned homework for credit. Their parents have opted to have their child participate in the homework for credit program. If your child has mastered the subject matter without doing any homework he will do well in school. If your child has not mastered the subject but turns in homework for credit he or she will not do well in the class and his final grade will reflect this. I don't see what the big deal is here? If your child's mastery of the subject matter is your focus why are you obssessed with other students opting to turn in homework for credit? If the measely few homework credit points in the elementary school curriculum are so critical and important to you opt to have your child do the homework. Afterall this grade grubbing mentality in elementary school for a few colorful stickies on homework assignments shouldn't supercede subject mastery. |
Anonymous
No, but in my child's school homework counts for one third of the final grade. Tests count for one third, and classwork counts for one third. I don't like this system as a parent, and I wouldn't like it as a teacher. I want to change the system. Not to opt my own child out, not to speak with one individual teacher, but to have the swhole school do things differently, so that grades only reflect mastery of content, not effort on homework.
My child is send to the school in our neighborhood. It's a public school. We don't have a choice as to which public school. We didn't win the magnet lottery. This is the one we're working with. I don't want to deprive children of the right to dutifully turn in their homework. Homework is great (if it is useful homework!) I just don't want homework to be evaluated for a grade on the report card. I want homework to be monitored and assessed for correctness, maybe recorded for an effort or study skills grade, but I was EVERY chld's progress evaluated in school on in school assessments. That's the fairest way.
Not necessarily, not if 1/3 of his reading grade depends upon filling out worksheets at home.
It's not an issue for my child, but there are kids who haven't mastered the material but use homework completion and "effort"to get Bs and As in the class they are taking. This creates problems down the line in schools, where kids have a history of getting As and Bs vecause they are diligent students, and parent s have no idea the kid is actually failing until they take a state mandated test.
Maybe policies at your child's school are different than at mine. In my child's school homework counts for a significant chunk of a child's achievement score. Homework is assigned every day and it is graded every day. And the grade counts toward a final achievement grade. We're not talking about stickers, this is a full third of my child's grade. I appreciate the fact that the homework is monitored and assessed daily and recognize that is a lot of work for the teacher. I do feel the homework chosen could be more useful but that's a different story. My key problem is that if non-useful homework is assigned, I can't really tell my child to just ignore it. Final grades ARE important in this world for a variety or reasons, including entry into schools down the line that look at test scores and grades. |
Anonymous
| Nonsense. Do you expect me to believe that if your kid in elementary school has achieved subject mastery (demonstrated by acing all the classroom tests, standardized state tests, oral performance in class and other national normed tests) that he or she will get a bad grade for not submitting any homework. I do not believe this for a second. Something does not compute here. If you kid is not in the latter category perhaps he or she needs to do some homework!! |
Anonymous
| If you consider mastery of subject matter 70 - 80 percent and the kid does no homework do not expect an A in my class. If you are a 95 + percenter on all in-class tests, evaluations, State and national examinations proove to me that not turning in homework (counting for a "1/3 of a kid's grades") will yield this child a C- in elementary school. This does not happen. You are overreacting. |
Anonymous
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10:35 from page 6 here.
The problem, at least for us, is not that my DD's grade will suffer because of not turning in homework. She truly suffers from the anxiety of having too much busy work to do. It is not just the nightly homework, but the long term projects that, while fun and educational to some extent, how valuable are they really? I would personally prefer that she had more time for free reading and self directed work rather than working on a proscribed (even if educational) project. Her stupid social studies project practically ruined our Thanksgiving break. And there are social, if not educational, consequences to not doing the homework. They earn rewards for turning in all their homework on time. Kids who don't finish have to sit out recess to finish. Some kids may not care, but these things are a big deal to my DD. She is also inherently a teacher pleaser. If Mrs. X says to do 3 pages of problems, by golly she would almost rather gouge her eyes out than not do those 3 pages. |
Anonymous
| Wondering if any parents who object to the content of the homework (as opposed to thinking their child should not do homework) have talked to the teacher about homework substitution. When my DS was several grade-levels ahead in math, we worked out a deal where I could give him substitute homework on the same general topic (say long-division rather than simple division, or multiplication with fractions instead of simple multiplication) and he got full credit. Win/win. |
Anonymous
This is precisely what sensible parents and their children do. They do not bitch and moan about about homework on the sidelines. They recognize education is a partnership, a contact sport, and they get into the game. The problem is not homework. It's the stupid parents ... stupid. |
Anonymous
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And what about when you have the sensible discussion with the teacher and they are not willing to adjust or accommodate? Or say they will, but the same old, same old keeps happening? As parents we have to make choices about which battles we are willing to fight.
Also, I'd really like to know where all these teachers and schools are that are so flexible and accommodating! |
Anonymous
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Perhaps your child is not as gifted as you think (based on those tests you love the teacher to give in the classroom). I was persistent in my negotiations with the teachers and demonstrated mastery of additional above level testing ( > 2 grades) made it easy for the school to accommodate my children by enriching and jacking up the challenge and difficulty of their homework assignments. I therefore cannot bitch and moan.
Don't give up. However, if your child can't perform on these higher powered tests you love, and bombs ... you've sunk your case at the starting gates. The child will likely get the same homework as all the rest. |
Anonymous
There are at least two and maybe more people on this thread posting on the "be able to opt out of homework/don't count HW for a grade" side. In my son's case, yes, acing all tests and performing well in class is great, but homework completion counts for at least 30% of his grade in reading, math, spelling, science and social studies. |
Anonymous
State and national exams don't count for a report card grade in our school district, at least not in third grade. I don't think the teachers even have the results back until the summer but I'm not sure. In class tests do count, as does in class seat work and homework. But what's your real point here? That it's OK to count homework for an achievement grade, as long as it only counts about 10% of the grade? Why exactly? If it is so important to have homework and to make sure kids do it -- for the "work habits" etc -- why shouldn't it count every bit as much as unit tests and chapter tests? |
Anonymous
Yeah, I've done that. But what does it say about the teacher and her instructional goals for your child, that she saw nothing wrong with assigning him homeworkon topics he had already mastered? What exactly was her point in assigning this work? She of course knew he had mastered it -- teachers know what kids are able to do because they work with them all day long, right, pretesting and differentiating instruction -- so why wasn't she assigning him work on his level for homework? |
Anonymous
I think the problem is the policies of the school district. If they were changed as a district, parents would have less reason to "bitch and moan". |
Anonymous
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15:39, not getting your hostility. I am the poster you responded to (maybe?) and sorry to disappoint, but she does well on tests of all sorts (in school, SOL, CTY SCAT, WISC, achievement tests, etc.). And homework for that matter.... I just think it is unnecessary for mastery (for her) and of her time in general. I don't see why it is so hard to believe that not all teachers/schools are happy to accommodate kids by giving alternative homework. That is more work for them. Her teacher has a self professed goal of making sure the kids have mastered the grade level before moving on. Which is fine. But if your kid has already mastered the material, it's drudgery when they could be learning something new.
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