Tue 3 Oct 2006
Here is a disturbing article from Time magazine.
Last week, our Kindergartener came home with 7 pages of 'homework'. And after a long day at school, church activities, time memorizing scripture for our Awana program…it took him over an hour to do his 'homework'. We were all worn out.
A couple of weeks ago I noticed our high schoolers already complaining about how busy things were for them, and I was lamenting to some parents, "Maybe I just slacked off in high school, but I don't remember having this much homework so close to the beginning of school…"
It was only 2 weeks into the new school year and our students were already groaning about how they couldn't come to small groups, or band practice, or …whatever….because they were swamped with homework. (And, granted, I did slack in high school. But that's a story for another time.)
But it's not just my perception. According to a 2004 national survey of 2,900 American children conducted by the University of Michigan, the amount of time spent on homework is up 51% since 1981.
51%. Are you kidding me?
And that's not even the worse part. It goes down hill from there. Most of that increase reflects bigger loads for little kids. An academic study found that whereas students ages 6 to 8 did an average of 52 min. of homework a week in 1981, they were toiling 128 min. weekly by 1997. And that's before No Child Left Behind kicked in. An admittedly less scientific poll of parents conducted this year for AOL and the Associated Press found that elementary school students were averaging 78 min. a night.
Geez. Ready for more bad news?
Too much homework brings diminishing returns. Cooper's analysis of dozens of studies found that kids who do some homework in middle and high school score somewhat better on standardized tests, but doing more than 60 to 90 min. a night in middle school and more than 2 hr. in high school is associated with, gulp, lower scores.
Where's Ferris when you need him?
9 Responses to “ The Homework Myth ”
Comments:
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
October 3rd, 2006 at 1:29 pm
Did slacking include Mr. Gordan sending us to Mr. Dounuts during senior English???
My 6th grader was up until 10PM doing his homework last night. It’s not any better in private school. Even our weekends are packed with homework assignments.
October 3rd, 2006 at 2:08 pm
ugh.
That’s not encouraging…
I wonder how Jimmie slave-drives his homeschooled kids???
October 3rd, 2006 at 2:15 pm
Ok
Here is the reality of Homeschooling in our house.
Josh and Allen get up about 9:30 and eat breakfast. They start homeschool about 10:00. They finish about 1:30 for the day with everything. They do not get homework because they do homework at home. BTW, proud papa wants to brag. Josh scored 98% on his national test this year. Allen scored 78%. Allen had problems with compare and contrast in many areass. We have been working on that very hard this school year.
October 3rd, 2006 at 2:22 pm
Funny thing is..I taught 6th grade for 5 years, but I don’t remmeber given “that” much homework. I guess it’s pay back.
That home school schedule is sounding REALLY good right now…
October 3rd, 2006 at 9:06 pm
I didn’t average two hours a day/night with college classes, much less elementary and high school. Since I’ve had kids spread way apart I’ve seen it steadily increase and become more serious over the years. It’s crazy. Nations with much less homework on average are performing better than us in education. I seriously doubt the answer is still more of the same.
What’s that definition of insanity again …
October 4th, 2006 at 7:10 am
I didn’t do 2 hours a night until Seminary…even then it wasn’t EVERY night. But it really bothers me that we’re driving our kids this hard…
I’m just entering this arena, so I don’t have any clue as to the answer…
October 4th, 2006 at 9:07 am
I am not wanting to seem insensitive or out of touch with my politically correct side, but studying the facts tends to put one on a collision course with feminine sensitivities sometimes. I am not intentionally trying to be a jerk, but I normally come across as one discussing this situation.
This is where I step in poo and typically do not care to sling it off of my shoes. What is the most important thing to happen in public education since 1885? It is not the No Child Left Behind omnibus law. It was mainstreaming. That is also the same time that the ACT was re-scored to adjust overall test scores upward by between 3 and 6 points according to some studies. National standardized tests also have been adjusted so that the current level of attainment was not as high as it was before 1985 but the scores show continued higher achievement.
Mainstreaming is mandated by federal law to have all students in “regular” class as much as possible. The kids who are not “mentally gifted” my euphemism who used to be labeled as “Special Needs”, or “Severely Emotionally Disturbed” (SED) or “Special Education” are now federally mandated to be in the classroom and that their test scores be included in the general population for the school. I hope you see where this is going concerning homework. A teacher cannot assign homework for the kids who need it, they have to assign homework for the whole class. Because of this, all students are required to do hours of homework because certain students need to do the homework.
With NCLB all student test scores must rise or federal funding is threatened. So what does this mean in reality? Homework is assigned in hopes of raising overall test scores. Average students are overwhelmed with useless homework and this causes resentment and angst. Gifted students rush through their homework because it is not challenging in the least bit and does them no good whatsoever. Then we come to the students the homework is actually aimed toward. Most cannot grasp the concepts or thought processes required to accomplish the work and it is an overall waist of their time.
Why do kids all over our country have homework? Because of political correctness gone amuck.
October 4th, 2006 at 9:47 am
Last night Addison and I worked on his homework until 10:30PM. Needless to say, we are feed up with this. So, we have a meeting with our administrator. Thanks Tom for the post, because I’m using some of it in the meeting.
October 4th, 2006 at 10:00 am
Craig,
Let me know how the admin meeting goes !