But be honest. Aren't many of you lamenting the loss of free time for exploration, family, chores, etc also the same ones who will be wringing your hands if your kids don't have the grades to get into Harvard or Williams?

Maybe you can't have it both ways. My kid isn't getting into Harvard or Williams. But he'll get into a second tier college and likely do very well for himself. And in the meantime, he has time to read, researching things that interest him, help out around the house, AND he gets a solid 9 hours of sleep a night. I honestly don't think Harvard could serve him better, but obviously YMMV.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Serious question: Are there any MS/HS options in DC that offer both a sharp, engaged peer group and a light-to-manageable homework load?

Most schools have minimum core requirements. If somebody stuck to the minimum and forgo AP classes they would have less homework. But everybody is afraid to do that in fear of going to a lesser college.

I think one of my DSs has found a way to engage with a sharp peer group in AP and honors classes AND keep homework to a reasonable level. But he does this by not caring much about his grades. He does care about learning things, and when he is interested in a topic or an assignment, there are few who work harder than he does. But if the homework feels like busywork to him, or if he doesn't feel like it is helping him learn the material, he throws in the towel after a period of time. And he seems to have a built-in timer. If a teacher demands an unreasonable amount of homework or reading, he works on it for what he thinks is a reasonable amount of time and then stops. He is not going to spend 3 hours a night doing homework (again, unless it is something super interesting to him). He gets good, not great, grades and knows that that will likely keep him out of the most selective colleges, in spite of his excellent test scores. He is okay with that. It is a game that has no meaning for him.

Kids from China and India will crush your over-protected mediocre-soccer-playing, non-reading, box-checking offspring. On behalf of All of China and India, let me encourage you all to keep agitating for drastic reductions in homework.

Assigning excessive homework is a crutch for poor teachers.

I don't know that this is true at all. I think the problem is the expectations of parents, largely. I'm young for this forum--in my 20s and I went to high school in the early 2000s. I had the kind of stressful experience people are describing--played a sport, played an instrument at a high level, and took a lot of honors and AP classes. For my classes that were honors and AP, what was expected was an average of one hour out of class per class period. I had 5 academic subjects (science, math, English, foreign language, and social studies), thus an average of five hours of homework. But this is average--I had a lot of assignments that were long term, like writing a paper--and remember that for those you can work over the weekend. Some days a class would have more homework, some days less.

Is this healthy? Well I don't know that it is healthy to subject kids to the kind of stresses that parents subject them to these days, with trying to get into THE BEST COLLEGE OR ELSE. But I also think that it is nearly impossible to teach a lot of subjects at a high level without investment after the school day is over, and this has nothing to do with poor teaching. Learning math requires practice. Teaching a rigorous English class is impossible without assigning reading. Writing assignments not something that can be done during the class time, and good social studies classes involve research papers. In the higher levels of foreign language, when you start writing and reading assignments (but you also need to spend time just memorizing vocabulary and grammar for fluency), it is impossible to do that during class time. Lab write ups? You barely have time to teach a good lab during the time allotted in a class period, so how are you going to have kids write them up AND do the lab in class? Especially if you have questions that require them to link up the lab to concepts?

Perhaps homework is a crutch for poor teachers in elementary school, but by middle and high school, you're getting into areas that simply cannot be taught entirely during the class day if you want a rigorous education. So something has to give--either the depth of the classes (less writing intensive classes, covering less material, less accelerated math sequence, less complex lab write ups, etc.), the intensity of extracurriculars, or sleep. Or you could not take APs and honors classes. Choose your poison.

Anonymous wrote:Assigning excessive homework is a crutch for poor teachers.

Then DC/MD/VA is deeply infected!

Assigning excessive homework is a crutch for poor teachers.

Anonymous wrote:When/where I went to school (late 70s, CA, public school in an affluent university town), the kids who got As in AP course and the kids who did competitive sports where generally different people. Now more kids are trying to do both, which is a serious increase in workload per kid, even if we assume that the demands of each endeavor have remained constant. (For the record, I think they've increased). And we've thrown community service requirements on top of that.

One thing that strikes me most about the homework load is that it leaves very little time for independent intellectual exploration. Just "doing the needful" consumes enough time and mental energy that the marathon pleasure reading binges and the little research projects that both my husband (growing up on the opposite coast) and I would set for ourselves aren't really possible. My kid doesn't get to set her own intellectual agenda in the way that we did and I think that's a big loss.

I wish teachers/school administrators would take that into account -- but somehow the assumption is that homework is just competing with sports or social media or other homework (and why should my subject get less attention?). Not true.

The other thing that has been sacrificed in our house is the kid's contribution to family labor. Also not a good thing, IMO, but probably one my DC wouldn't complain about.

This is my thought too. It's really very sad.

When/where I went to school (late 70s, CA, public school in an affluent university town), the kids who got As in AP course and the kids who did competitive sports where generally different people. Now more kids are trying to do both, which is a serious increase in workload per kid, even if we assume that the demands of each endeavor have remained constant. (For the record, I think they've increased). And we've thrown community service requirements on top of that.

One thing that strikes me most about the homework load is that it leaves very little time for independent intellectual exploration. Just "doing the needful" consumes enough time and mental energy that the marathon pleasure reading binges and the little research projects that both my husband (growing up on the opposite coast) and I would set for ourselves aren't really possible. My kid doesn't get to set her own intellectual agenda in the way that we did and I think that's a big loss.

I wish teachers/school administrators would take that into account -- but somehow the assumption is that homework is just competing with sports or social media or other homework (and why should my subject get less attention?). Not true.

The other thing that has been sacrificed in our house is the kid's contribution to family labor. Also not a good thing, IMO, but probably one my DC wouldn't complain about.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whats interesting is the overwhelming number of posts here saying there's too much homework, which is pretty much what I hear from all parents. So why is this happening? Who is supporting it?

There are some parents on this thread that don't think 3 hours is too much and they just think kids are busy on social media, exercise too much and spend too much time volunteering and that is the problem.

If they would just stop doing sports and helping others the hw problem will go away.

No, it will not! DD was playing both school and travel sports last year. This year we evaluated and she will only be playing club sports where the practice is not everyday, so that she will be on top of her hw, and actually have time ...gasp...study and not cram! Seven subjects and seven sets of hw it seems every night, and with all the new technology teachers are asking for assignments to be turned in by certain times, not first thing the next school day. And we're paying for this....somethings wrong with this picture...

I'm honestly interested how it's seven subjects? Not questioning your veracity, just curious. Math, science, foreign language, English, and history -- that's five -- what else is there? Are there two additional core academic subjects, or are the additional subjects art classes with homework for that, or what?

AP Art and Religion

Does no one have study hall any longer in school?

Every DC area kid I know has a phone and uses it a lot -- I don't believe that the increased use of phones/computers for entertainment is not a part of this. Fits in with the pattern of affluent parents assuming nothing is ever attributable to their children, though.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whats interesting is the overwhelming number of posts here saying there's too much homework, which is pretty much what I hear from all parents. So why is this happening? Who is supporting it?

There are some parents on this thread that don't think 3 hours is too much and they just think kids are busy on social media, exercise too much and spend too much time volunteering and that is the problem.

If they would just stop doing sports and helping others the hw problem will go away.

No, it will not! DD was playing both school and travel sports last year. This year we evaluated and she will only be playing club sports where the practice is not everyday, so that she will be on top of her hw, and actually have time ...gasp...study and not cram! Seven subjects and seven sets of hw it seems every night, and with all the new technology teachers are asking for assignments to be turned in by certain times, not first thing the next school day. And we're paying for this....somethings wrong with this picture...

I'm honestly interested how it's seven subjects? Not questioning your veracity, just curious. Math, science, foreign language, English, and history -- that's five -- what else is there? Are there two additional core academic subjects, or are the additional subjects art classes with homework for that, or what?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Serious question: Are there any MS/HS options in DC that offer both a sharp, engaged peer group and a light-to-manageable homework load?

Most schools have minimum core requirements. If somebody stuck to the minimum and forgo AP classes they would have less homework. But everybody is afraid to do that in fear of going to a lesser college.

I took lots of APs, got 5s on everything, and did maybe -- MAYBE -- ten hours of homework a week, all in. I can't believe that a similar course load today really *requires* 2-3 times that.

Well good for you. But the private big three I went to did not allow that. If you had only spent two hours a night on homework, you would have only finished half your homework a night and been crucified by the teachers and counseled out. Many kids are assigned four to five hour of homework a night, with even more to do over the weekend.

New Poster here. I think this is a change over time. I attended Sidwell in the 70's and early 80's and don't remember more than an hour or two of homework a night, unless it was something I had put off and allowed to pile up.

I too went to high school in the 70s. I enjoyed myself, participated in extracurriculars (lots), had down time, friends, church, family time and generally a good experience and graduated no. 1 in my class. My homework load was extremely light compared to DS's. Somehow I managed to do the same in college and wound up graduating with honors from a top law school. So what I am inartfully trying to say is that I did just fine w/o 8 hours of homework a night. I simply don't understand where all this homework is going to get us, except for a lot of tired, suicidal kids. The system is broken but no one/entity wants to be the first to try and change.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Serious question: Are there any MS/HS options in DC that offer both a sharp, engaged peer group and a light-to-manageable homework load?

Most schools have minimum core requirements. If somebody stuck to the minimum and forgo AP classes they would have less homework. But everybody is afraid to do that in fear of going to a lesser college.

I took lots of APs, got 5s on everything, and did maybe -- MAYBE -- ten hours of homework a week, all in. I can't believe that a similar course load today really *requires* 2-3 times that.

Me too, and I went to a Big 3. In fact, 10 hours a week would be on the high end.

What year may I ask?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whats interesting is the overwhelming number of posts here saying there's too much homework, which is pretty much what I hear from all parents. So why is this happening? Who is supporting it?

There are some parents on this thread that don't think 3 hours is too much and they just think kids are busy on social media, exercise too much and spend too much time volunteering and that is the problem.

If they would just stop doing sports and helping others the hw problem will go away.

No, it will not! DD was playing both school and travel sports last year. This year we evaluated and she will only be playing club sports where the practice is not everyday, so that she will be on top of her hw, and actually have time ...gasp...study and not cram! Seven subjects and seven sets of hw it seems every night, and with all the new technology teachers are asking for assignments to be turned in by certain times, not first thing the next school day. And we're paying for this....somethings wrong with this picture...