I think the "building study habits" argument is silly for lower elementary. Especially when this line of thinking gets pushed back to Prek. They have to start sometime, and starting too young harms rather than helping. I have a second grader and he does his homework, which is only 15-20 min a night. But even that he dislikes and sometimes results in him fighting with us. And it's pretty easy for him. I know of other kids in 1st & 2nd who spend hours on homework that's only "supposed" to take 15-30 minutes. Little kids have already spent 7 hours mostly sitting still. They NEED time to move, socialize, play freely, help with chores, see their parents & siblings, be creative, let their minds wander, etc.

Regarding high school homework, I understand that much more, but that, combined with doing a sport, is why I couldn't believe how much free time I had in college. I took a full course load, studied a lot, worked some, and did extracurricular activities and still had TONS more free time than I'd had in high school.

Anonymous wrote:My first-grader has little homework. I doubt it's even required and seems completely reasonable. In short, it's nothing that can't be accomplished by spending ten minutes a week.

However, I work with my child for 30 minutes a few nights a week on various things that I feel the school omits or glosses over. For example, we've lately spent time on grammar and writing.

Why are you even in this discussion? Your kid is going to have homework no matter what the school does, and the difficulty is irrelevant because you're walking him or her through it. Neither the practice argument nor the study skills argument holds in your house, and you're tripling the minutes-per-grade guideline.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I disagree. Homework has some value, one of which is preparing the expectation to do homework. Also, especially in math it does help reinforce the concepts taught in class.

Homework is not "wrecking" schools -- such nonsense and hyperbole. I swear parents today want to coddle kids with their demands for four/five recess and less pressure. Good Lord, expect more from your children. They are capable and want to learn.

There are actual studies out there that support the assertion that homework has no benefit in elementary school.

Are you also a climate change denier?

Different poster but ... there also are a lot of studies that assert that homework does have benefit in elementary school. So unless you want to start dragging out studies and providing citations so that we can all start vetting them then stop slinging mud. We get it. You don't like homework in ES.

-Signed, A Different Poster who also is NOT a Climate Change Denier

Can we see those? Because to my knowledge there are no such studies vis-a-vis elementary school students. The Duke study shows benefits for older children, but not elementary-age ones.

Go to Marzano and look at his summation of homework for math for elementary school students. If you have an argument with Marzano then there really is no use continuing the discussion.

That would be nice, because I still don't believe homework is necessary or sufficient for school success.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I disagree. Homework has some value, one of which is preparing the expectation to do homework. Also, especially in math it does help reinforce the concepts taught in class.

Homework is not "wrecking" schools -- such nonsense and hyperbole. I swear parents today want to coddle kids with their demands for four/five recess and less pressure. Good Lord, expect more from your children. They are capable and want to learn.

There are actual studies out there that support the assertion that homework has no benefit in elementary school.

Are you also a climate change denier?

Different poster but ... there also are a lot of studies that assert that homework does have benefit in elementary school. So unless you want to start dragging out studies and providing citations so that we can all start vetting them then stop slinging mud. We get it. You don't like homework in ES.

-Signed, A Different Poster who also is NOT a Climate Change Denier

Can we see those? Because to my knowledge there are no such studies vis-a-vis elementary school students. The Duke study shows benefits for older children, but not elementary-age ones.

Go to Marzano and look at his summation of homework for math for elementary school students. If you have an argument with Marzano then there really is no use continuing the discussion.

The schools already have guidelines on homework that are very reasonable. I don't understand the push back against homework. They all seem to be from parents who either had children in schools who didn't adhere to the standards or from parents whose kids haven't reached elementary. 1st grade homework is no more than 10 minutes a night as a guideline. How can anyone object to this so much?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Being a parent takes lots of extra effort. If you are not willing to put in the effort, why have kids? The things that you do while the kids are young, set the example they will live by. Learning should be both at home and at schools.

This is true, but what does this have to do with homework??

Anonymous wrote:
Schools cannot provide everything.

I don't see anyone saying they should! Please explain this remark -- what made you write it? Did you think someone wants school to 'provide everything'?

Helping your kids with homework is part of parenting. Most parents who complain about it do not want to sit down and help their kids. They'd prefer homework when the kids are older so they do not have to deal with it. That is lazy parenting.

Yes, lots of people expect the schools to provide everything.

why is it part of parenting? Did your parents sit and do homework with you? Mine didn't. It's ridiculous to give kids assignments that they can't do. My preschooler was asked to do a report at home for black history month, using two sources. He just learned to write his name legibly a few months ago. I didn't want to do it, not because I'm lazy, but because it's stupid and not helpful.

I agree that in elementary school, parents should not HAVE to help kids with homework depending on the situation.

If the child is struggling, then YES by all means, help them with the math problem!!

But if the assignment is beyond what a child could ever do on his own, I think it is ridiculous. Former MCPS parent here. In 3rd grade, my child was given an assignment to create a 3D model of a bee. Yes a bee. The amount of work that had to go into this was ridiculous!!! The same thing for the following year...I think it was a caterpillar. Now I have a child in private school 3rd grade, and so far, there hasn't been a time where I have to help DD, except to quiz her in preparation for a test.

Agreed. Regular homework for children meeting expectations should NOT require parental help beyond giving them a quiet space to work or answer questions here or there.

This is a different argument than not having any homework. This argument is about the difficulty of the homework.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I disagree. Homework has some value, one of which is preparing the expectation to do homework. Also, especially in math it does help reinforce the concepts taught in class.

Homework is not "wrecking" schools -- such nonsense and hyperbole. I swear parents today want to coddle kids with their demands for four/five recess and less pressure. Good Lord, expect more from your children. They are capable and want to learn.

There are actual studies out there that support the assertion that homework has no benefit in elementary school.

Are you also a climate change denier?

Different poster but ... there also are a lot of studies that assert that homework does have benefit in elementary school. So unless you want to start dragging out studies and providing citations so that we can all start vetting them then stop slinging mud. We get it. You don't like homework in ES.

-Signed, A Different Poster who also is NOT a Climate Change Denier

Can we see those? Because to my knowledge there are no such studies vis-a-vis elementary school students. The Duke study shows benefits for older children, but not elementary-age ones.

Look at the poster below yours. She gives her child volunteer homework. None of these studies measure this type of work. And for the most part very few studies are very comprehensive and detailed.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Being a parent takes lots of extra effort. If you are not willing to put in the effort, why have kids? The things that you do while the kids are young, set the example they will live by. Learning should be both at home and at schools.

This is true, but what does this have to do with homework??

Anonymous wrote:
Schools cannot provide everything.

I don't see anyone saying they should! Please explain this remark -- what made you write it? Did you think someone wants school to 'provide everything'?

Helping your kids with homework is part of parenting. Most parents who complain about it do not want to sit down and help their kids. They'd prefer homework when the kids are older so they do not have to deal with it. That is lazy parenting.

Yes, lots of people expect the schools to provide everything.

why is it part of parenting? Did your parents sit and do homework with you? Mine didn't. It's ridiculous to give kids assignments that they can't do. My preschooler was asked to do a report at home for black history month, using two sources. He just learned to write his name legibly a few months ago. I didn't want to do it, not because I'm lazy, but because it's stupid and not helpful.

I agree that in elementary school, parents should not HAVE to help kids with homework depending on the situation.

If the child is struggling, then YES by all means, help them with the math problem!!

But if the assignment is beyond what a child could ever do on his own, I think it is ridiculous. Former MCPS parent here. In 3rd grade, my child was given an assignment to create a 3D model of a bee. Yes a bee. The amount of work that had to go into this was ridiculous!!! The same thing for the following year...I think it was a caterpillar. Now I have a child in private school 3rd grade, and so far, there hasn't been a time where I have to help DD, except to quiz her in preparation for a test.

Agreed. Regular homework for children meeting expectations should NOT require parental help beyond giving them a quiet space to work or answer questions here or there.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I disagree. Homework has some value, one of which is preparing the expectation to do homework. Also, especially in math it does help reinforce the concepts taught in class.

Homework is not "wrecking" schools -- such nonsense and hyperbole. I swear parents today want to coddle kids with their demands for four/five recess and less pressure. Good Lord, expect more from your children. They are capable and want to learn.

There are actual studies out there that support the assertion that homework has no benefit in elementary school.

Are you also a climate change denier?

Different poster but ... there also are a lot of studies that assert that homework does have benefit in elementary school. So unless you want to start dragging out studies and providing citations so that we can all start vetting them then stop slinging mud. We get it. You don't like homework in ES.

-Signed, A Different Poster who also is NOT a Climate Change Denier

Can we see those? Because to my knowledge there are no such studies vis-a-vis elementary school students. The Duke study shows benefits for older children, but not elementary-age ones.

https://today.duke.edu/2006/09/homework_oped.html

Seems to be a round up of the data (as of awhile ago).

From the article:

"The homework question is best answered by comparing students who are assigned homework with students assigned no homework but who are similar in other ways. The results of such studies suggest that homework can improve students' scores on the class tests that come at the end of a topic. Students assigned homework in 2nd grade did better on math, 3rd and 4th graders did better on English skills and vocabulary, 5th graders on social studies, 9th through 12th graders on American history, and 12th graders on Shakespeare.

Less authoritative are 12 studies that link the amount of homework to achievement, but control for lots of other factors that might influence this connection. These types of studies, often based on national samples of students, also find a positive link between time on homework and achievement.

Yet other studies simply correlate homework and achievement with no attempt to control for student differences. In 35 such studies, about 77 percent find the link between homework and achievement is positive. Most interesting, though, is these results suggest little or no relationship between homework and achievement for elementary school students."

IMO, from this is looks like homework is effective. The studies that tried to normalize based on student characteristics show that it helps. At the VERY least it isn't a slam dunk that elementary schools homework is bad.

My first-grader has little homework. I doubt it's even required and seems completely reasonable. In short, it's nothing that can't be accomplished by spending ten minutes a week.

However, I work with my child for 30 minutes a few nights a week on various things that I feel the school omits or glosses over. For example, we've lately spent time on grammar and writing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I disagree. Homework has some value, one of which is preparing the expectation to do homework. Also, especially in math it does help reinforce the concepts taught in class.

Homework is not "wrecking" schools -- such nonsense and hyperbole. I swear parents today want to coddle kids with their demands for four/five recess and less pressure. Good Lord, expect more from your children. They are capable and want to learn.

There are actual studies out there that support the assertion that homework has no benefit in elementary school.

Are you also a climate change denier?

Different poster but ... there also are a lot of studies that assert that homework does have benefit in elementary school. So unless you want to start dragging out studies and providing citations so that we can all start vetting them then stop slinging mud. We get it. You don't like homework in ES.

-Signed, A Different Poster who also is NOT a Climate Change Denier

Can we see those? Because to my knowledge there are no such studies vis-a-vis elementary school students. The Duke study shows benefits for older children, but not elementary-age ones.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Being a parent takes lots of extra effort. If you are not willing to put in the effort, why have kids? The things that you do while the kids are young, set the example they will live by. Learning should be both at home and at schools.

This is true, but what does this have to do with homework??

Anonymous wrote:
Schools cannot provide everything.

I don't see anyone saying they should! Please explain this remark -- what made you write it? Did you think someone wants school to 'provide everything'?

Helping your kids with homework is part of parenting. Most parents who complain about it do not want to sit down and help their kids. They'd prefer homework when the kids are older so they do not have to deal with it. That is lazy parenting.

Yes, lots of people expect the schools to provide everything.

why is it part of parenting? Did your parents sit and do homework with you? Mine didn't. It's ridiculous to give kids assignments that they can't do. My preschooler was asked to do a report at home for black history month, using two sources. He just learned to write his name legibly a few months ago. I didn't want to do it, not because I'm lazy, but because it's stupid and not helpful.

I agree that in elementary school, parents should not HAVE to help kids with homework depending on the situation.

If the child is struggling, then YES by all means, help them with the math problem!!

But if the assignment is beyond what a child could ever do on his own, I think it is ridiculous. Former MCPS parent here. In 3rd grade, my child was given an assignment to create a 3D model of a bee. Yes a bee. The amount of work that had to go into this was ridiculous!!! The same thing for the following year...I think it was a caterpillar. Now I have a child in private school 3rd grade, and so far, there hasn't been a time where I have to help DD, except to quiz her in preparation for a test.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I disagree. Homework has some value, one of which is preparing the expectation to do homework. Also, especially in math it does help reinforce the concepts taught in class.

Homework is not "wrecking" schools -- such nonsense and hyperbole. I swear parents today want to coddle kids with their demands for four/five recess and less pressure. Good Lord, expect more from your children. They are capable and want to learn.

There are actual studies out there that support the assertion that homework has no benefit in elementary school.

Are you also a climate change denier?

Different poster but ... there also are a lot of studies that assert that homework does have benefit in elementary school. So unless you want to start dragging out studies and providing citations so that we can all start vetting them then stop slinging mud. We get it. You don't like homework in ES.

-Signed, A Different Poster who also is NOT a Climate Change Denier

Anonymous wrote:Oh, and add me to the crowd who sees homework in elementary school as useless and 2h in high school as nuts. I personally don't see the need for any homework in elementary or middle or more than half an hour nightly in high school at the very most.

That also dovetails with the average nightly amount in Finland for high schoolers (2.8h/wk, or just under 34m/night). In the US, the average is a silly 6.1h/wk, or about 1h13m a night.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/11453912/Homework-around-the-world-how-much-is-too-much.html

Agreed, from a teacher family planning on homeschooling for the aforementioned reasons.

We are child centric not teacher centric. This means that teachers need to teach to the child and children need to do what is best for them to learn. Teaching isn't about being the most creative teacher. It's about getting children to grow. If the assignment is able to demonstrate growth down the line, then it should be considered whether or not a teacher can observe and record the assignment or not.