Do Kids Have Too Much Homework?
Across the United States, parents, teachers and administrators alike are rethinking their approach to after-school assignments
- By LynNell Hancock
- Smithsonian.com, August 22, 2011, Subscribe
Homework horror stories are as timeworn as school bullies and cafeteria mystery meat. But as high-stakes testing pressures have mounted over the past decade—and global rankings for America’s schools have declined—homework has come under new scrutiny.
Diane Lowrie says she fled an Ocean County, New Jersey, school district three years ago when she realized her first grader’s homework load was nearly crushing him. Reading logs, repetitive math worksheets, and regular social studies reports turned their living room into an anguished battleground. “Tears were shed, every night,” says Lowrie, 47, an environmental educator, who tried to convince school district administrators that the work was not only numbing, but harmful. “Iain started to hate school, to hate learning, and he was only 6 years old,” she told me in a recent interview.
A 2003 Brookings Institution study suggests that Iain’s experience may be typical of a few children in pressure-cooker schools, but it’s not a widespread problem. Still, a 2004 University of Michigan survey of 2,900 six- to seventeen-year-old children found that time spent each week on homework had increased from 2 hours 38 minutes to 3 hours 58 minutes since 1981. And in his 2001 and 2006 reviews of academic studies of homework outcomes, Harris Cooper, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University, found little correlation between the amount of homework and academic achievement in elementary school (though higher in middle school and high school). Cooper supports the influential ten-minute homework rule, which recommends adding ten daily minutes of homework per grade beginning in first grade, up to a maximum of two hours. Some districts have added no homework on weekends to the formula.
The question of how much homework is enough is widely debated and was a focus of the 2009 documentary Race to Nowhere, a galvanizing cri de coeur about the struggles of kids in high-performing schools. “I can’t remember the last time I had the chance to go in the backyard and just run around,” a teenage girl laments in the film. “I’ve gone through bouts of depression” from too much homework, another confesses. A bewildered-looking third girl says: “I would spend six hours a night on my homework.”
The results of international tests give the homework skeptics ammunition. David Baker and Gerald LeTendre, professors of education at Penn State, found that in countries with the most successful school systems, like Japan, teachers give small amounts homework, while teachers in those with the lowest scores, such as Greece and Iran, give a lot. (Of course the quality of the assignment and the teacher’s use of it also matter.) The United States falls somewhere in the middle—average amounts of homework and average test results. Finnish teachers tend to give minimal amounts of homework throughout all the grades; the New York Times reported Finnish high-school kids averaged only one-half hour a night.
Sara Bennett, a Brooklyn criminal attorney and mother of two, began a second career as an anti-homework activist when her first-grade son brought home homework only a parent could complete. The 2006 book she co-wrote, The Case Against Homework, is credited with propelling a nationwide parent movement calling for time limits on homework.
Last year, the affluent village of Ridgewood, New Jersey, was shaken by two young suicides, causing school officials to look for ways they could ease kids’ anxieties. Anthony Orsini, principal of Ridgewood’s Benjamin Franklin Middle School, eliminated homework for elective courses and set up an online system that lets families know how long many homework assignments should take. “We have a high-powered district,” says Orsini. “The pressures are palpable on these students to succeed. My community is not ready to eliminate homework altogether.”
The trend, instead, is to lessen the quantity while improving the quality of homework by using it to complement classroom work, says Cathy Vatterott, a professor of education at University of Missouri at St. Louis and author of Rethinking Homework: Best Practices That Support Diverse Needs (2009). Cynthia Schneider, principal of World Journalism Preparatory school in Queens for 570 sixth through twelfth graders, plans to encourage all students to read for pleasure every night, then write a thoughtful response. There are also initiatives to “decriminalize” not finishing homework assignments.
As for Diane Lowrie, who left Ocean County because of too much homework, she says Iain, now 10 and heading for fifth grade in Roosevelt, New Jersey, is less stressed out. He recently spent 40 hours working on a book report and diorama about the Battle of Yorktown. “But,” says his mother, “it was his idea and he enjoyed it.”
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Comments (28)
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thx for ur help my child is doing less homework
Posted by cookie on February 8,2013 | 06:25 PM
NO MORE HOMEWORK!!!!!
Posted by Cai on February 4,2013 | 04:07 PM
Hello every body. I hope all friends are doing well. So,I think homework is the best way to improve our skills and enhance our knowledge.But,in fact, if there are a lot of homework for students, they will be so tired and annoyed especially when they cant finish it.For instance, they need to play and have some entertainment in order not to get distraught and stressed-out. Any way, I would like to recommend and suggest all instructors and teachers not to give lots of homework to students. Thanks. Noor Agha Azimi From Afghanistan
Posted by Noor Agha Azimi on January 27,2013 | 12:32 AM
This is the truth. I am in 7th grade and i have 4 math sheets front and back each night. In science i have 2 sheets every night both sides. It is already bad enough we are at school for 8 hours. I want to be free for once. Also the fact that we only have 2 days off. Rachel
Posted by on January 15,2013 | 03:31 PM
I’m a 17-year-old junior, always excelled in my classes. My peers have observed this and used to think that I just skate by, not doing any work; that was not the case. The truth is, I worked like a boss every blasted day of school (now up to 12 hours a day or 14 hours on each of the weekend days) to get the grade I had, but I was one of those people who never had time to get out much or do anything fun; I would come home, sit down, do my homework until dinner, and pick it back up for another few hours. By that time, it was around 10 PM; that's when I was in eighth grade! Now, my normal activities include: singing with two choirs, requiring both group practice and my practice; helping other students learn; trying to build a lasting relationship with my family; hanging out with my friends right now, making memories I can look back on after we’ve all moved on in a couple of years. At the very pinnacle of my workload, I'm trying to figure out who I really am and what I want to be, so that I can go through life later on with certainty, instead of roaming around, trying to decide where I want to go to college or where to settle down, how I feel about love, friendship, spirituality, and growth. None of this is very easy for me to do. I don't need to be spending as much time as I do doing the piles of homework that my teachers shove onto my shoulders. I have other things to worry about. All of you who think it's simply a problem of doing the work assigned to you, I have been doing exactly that for over ten years! I am beginning to reach the ends of my ability to perform what has become an overly time-consuming chore that is detrimental to my health. I used to enjoy school! Over the course of the past 5 years, my enthusiasm has waned. Learning is no longer fun for me; I despise school, being altered to more closely resemble a torture chamber than a house of learning or growth. I hope that this issue will become resolved soon, or America may slide even further down the tubes.
Posted by Once Enthusiastic, Now Depressed and Indignant on January 14,2013 | 07:51 PM
i agree kids have to much homework in school
Posted by mystery on January 8,2013 | 09:43 AM
i just dropped out of honors geometry not because i didn't understand it (i understood it perfectly) but because i was getting 20- 30 challenge problems a night and it was taking me too long to get it done. im in 8th grade. Since theres no regular geometry at my school i had to go back to algebra 1, which i got all As in last year. its 10:33 and im still working on a persuasive essay (about too much homework, what else would it be about?). do you think my teachers will accept the end of the world as an excuse for not finishing?
Posted by zzzzzzzzzz on December 20,2012 | 01:34 AM
School stresses me out so much. I have two AP classes (US History and Language and Composition) that in themselves take up at least 2-4 hours a night. The sad part is, I'm in other classes too. I had to ask my precalculus teacher if I could turn my homework in after Winter break because I am so stressed out. This is the first time I have ever asked a teacher if I could turn something in late, and I would have never done it if she wasn't one of my favorites, mind you. I take SAT Prep, Physics, Spanish 4, Gym, and a Video game design course. I am so overwhelmed by everything. My winter break is FULL of homework. I have to do the precalculus stuff, a project for APUS, AND read a novel for AP Language and Comp. I want to get it done before Christmas, but I have other things that I want to do with my family. Teachers need to understand that their class is not the only class a student has! I am trying to balance out school work, bowling, and being an Officer in FBLA. I'm terrified to even attempt to join another activity because I have low B's in my AP classes. I'm worried that this might destroy my chances of getting into a great college when I've been working so hard (I have a 4.011 GPA). Honestly, my teachers are scaring me away from AP courses next year. Although I hear AP Euro is an easier class than APUS, I'm still scared to have another year like this, especially before college. I'd rather stress during college, not High School. If only I could tell my teachers this......
Posted by Amber on December 20,2012 | 09:11 PM
no they dont have to much homework the only time they have to much homework is when they never do it and the teachers give thim time to make it up but thin they say that teachers give thim to much homework
Posted by savannah.m on December 7,2012 | 11:12 AM
1)to much reading 2)middle schoolers need less homework
Posted by Courtney Forzetting on November 5,2012 | 10:36 AM
If I have too many homeworks I simply don't do them. If my teachers have a problem with that too bad.
Posted by Kurty on October 3,2012 | 02:07 PM
I'm a junior in a failing school, while I still achieve highly. I spend at least 4 hours of homework the first night that I can't start until after 4. I'm 3 days into school and already suffering terrible anxiety, but to achieve what's expected of me I can't do anything less than my 4-10 hours of homework a night. I started pre-calc. homework on the first day 20 questions at a time, and then I have to read the section before he teaches it. I'm required to read 1 38-53 page chapter a week for history, I get some Spanish homework, and I also have the vocab words, and assignments for English, plus add up physics homework, band, band practice and out of my time sectionals I have to lead. I have no study hall, only ACT prep class. Trying to add in clubs is a miracle, and I can't say I do particularly well in any. School isn't fun and I have to show up and suffer through migraines or tension headaches almost every day since I was in the fourth grade. (Unrelated) I hate school, especially with the "new food initiative" that practically starves me (a 90 something pound 16 year old). Some nights I have to stay up until after 2 in the morning because of band and homework combined, and I can't work off of my 4 1/2 hours of sleep for the next 8 MONTHS. What happened to 4 classes a day, less homework, more than 5 minutes to scarf down my daily value of carbohydrates, and actually enjoying learning?
Posted by Veronika on August 20,2012 | 08:48 PM
School for me is terrible. I dont have time to eat most of the time because i have huge projects all the time. I dont have time to do the things i love like playing with my dog, riding my bike, hanging with friends. I feel as if i should sell my bike and all my things in my room besides my bed and computer because i need my computer for homework and bed for sleeping. i should just not have any friends because i dont have time for them anyway. homework isnt teaching me a thing because i have so much stuff to memorize that i cant learn anything. it goes into my brain and then right back out. my grades are dropping horribly and im only a sophmore. i feel like ill never make it through college and at this point i dont want to go just so i will fail and waste all that money. i get youre supposed to teach students all this stuff, but my school is just dumb. that cut out a period so now we only have 7 periods instead of 8 and classes are longer...well there went my study hall.
Posted by Dakota on May 10,2012 | 09:16 AM
Hey, homework gets me stressed and upset, I easily get frustrated and depressed with how much I have. Its way tooo much, I say!Kids should be spending afternoons playing or hanging out with friends. Isn't school enough! At the moment I am freaking out about homework I have 11 assignments for 1 week and this is the first day back of school. HELP ME! I just want to cry and leave schools, stress is not healthy for anybody. SO JUST STOP HOMEWORK!!
Posted by Lola on April 24,2012 | 03:57 AM
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