Stop Homework

I won’t be posting again until September, but I will be answering email, so please feel free to write me with your questions, concerns, and requests for speaking engagements. If you’re looking for an end-of-the-year gift for your children’s teachers, consider giving The Case Against Homework. When teachers and administrators read it, they think about, and change, their homework practices.

This school year, Stop Homework received funding and became affiliated with The Alliance for Childhood. Through Stop Homework, I’ve been interviewed for dozens of publications and radio and TV shows in the U.S., Canada, South America, and Europe; I’ve spoken with hundreds of parents and educators and helped many of them advocate for change in their communities; I’ve organized meetings among heads of schools to start dialogues on homework reform; and I’ve helped educators figure out ways to change their policies. If you need help of any kind, be sure to let me know.

Here are just a few the highlights from 2007-2008:

One of my favorite education bloggers, Donalyn Miller, has a recent post on the problems with the Reading First Program. In case you don’t make it all the way through this post, this is her conclusion: “We don’t need another reading program; we need to go back to the first reading program—connecting children with books. This should always be our bottom line.”

Reading First Puts Reading Last
by Donalyn Miller

On May 1st, the Department of Education released the preliminary results of Reading First, the federal program which provides grants for initiatives which improve the reading achievement of at-risk elementary school children. The initial findings of the DOE study indicate that students participating in Reading First perform no better on reading achievement tests than their peers in other instructional programs. Instead of re-addressing the flawed premise on which Reading First was built, the 2000 Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching Children to Read, policymakers ask for more money to fund this failing federal program and beg us all to give Reading First more time.

Read the rest of this entry »

Both the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times ran articles this weekend on the amount of stress faced by high schoolers. The Wall Street Journal reported that 11th grade has become a nightmare year for students hoping to go to elite colleges. As to the homework of one 11th grader, it wrote: “As [Ms. Glickman] moves from class to class, the demands of being a junior pile up. Honors Spanish — 30 minutes of homework a night. Advanced-placement English — 30 to 90 minutes a night, depending on which books or documents the class is studying. Honors pre-calculus — another hour of homework. Honors biology — 30 minutes more. At the end of the day comes Ms. Glickman’s favorite class and her toughest — advanced-placement history, with two hours of homework a night, including reading and regular essays.” The New York Times wrote that a lunch period is now becoming mandatory in some high-performing high schools, where students routinely skip eating so they can fit in one more class.

Of course, to readers of this blog, these stories are nothing new. The question still remains, though: when are we going to put an end to this?

A parent of a middle schooler in Massachusetts, wrote to me to tell me her concerns with Renaissance Learning’s Accelerated Reader program. Her local middle school uses AR to quiz students on their independent reading. Students are only rarely allowed to bring their own books in to read silently in school. Moreover, students are given a book quota for outside reading each quarter and the quizzes are used for “accountability.” Quiz scores are factored into students’ grades.

This parent asked that her children be allowed to opt out.

Here’s the very compelling letter she wrote to the English curriculum coordinator:

Thanks for taking the time to talk with me recently regarding the use of Renaissance Learning’s Accelerated Reader to monitor independent reading. As you know, my husband and I have serious concerns about the program and its impact on our children.

From my understanding, the school uses AR in an effort to encourage students to develop the healthy habit of reading for pleasure outside the classroom. This is a goal we share. However, studies show mandating reading in this fashion simply turns something pleasurable – exploring a new book – into just another chore, rather than building intrinsic motivation. Moreover, it can negatively affect intrinsic motivation. Research also shows that, even without the use of tests or rewards, providing books and time to read results in substantial reading gains (Thompson, Madhuri, and Taylor, Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 51(7), 2008; Stephen Krashen, Knowledge Quest, American Library Association 36(1), 2007; Jennie M. Persinger, Knowledge Quest, American Library Association, 29(5), 2001; Alfie Kohn, Punished by Rewards, 1999).

Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s an email I received from an adult who dropped out of school because of too much homework. The writer, now 35, told me he went on to get an associates degree, joined the military, worked as a flight attendant, and is now a contract worker, using skills he picked up in the military:

I dropped out of high school during my junior year. Why? I got tired (of homework). I was mostly an A and the occasional B student while growing up. Honor roll student every quarter/semester. But I failed my first course ever in the first quarter of my junior year. In fact, I failed four of six classes that quarter! Why? Homework. Believe it or not, I quit doing my homework. I had enough.

I was a bright student. I was quick to learn. And, I still passed all my tests. A’s. Maybe the occasional B. I paid attention in class. I took in the knowledge. And, I gave that knowledge right back to them when tested. Typically you would think that my test scores would show competency and success. I understood what I was taught without a doubt. Yet I failed four courses! Because I wouldn’t (no, because I couldn’t!!!) do my homework. It was too much. Way too much. Years and years of excessive homework took its toll on me. I was tired. I was fatigued. I was beat. And I dropped out.

The system turned a successful, smart kid into a worn out dropout.

About a year ago, I posted a guest blog entry by Chris Elssasser, an associate professor of education at Pepperdine University, in which he analyzed how much time high school students really have and asked what students should give up for homework.

A middle school teacher responded, writing that students have plenty of time for homework. It’s important to read what the teacher had to say, because it shows why some teachers believe that parental complaints are baseless.

Here’s what the teacher wrote:

Why are you accounting for exercise PLUS sports PLUS assuming the students have gym class. And last time I checked that 45 minutes for breakfast was more like 5, and the 45 minutes for lunch a part of school.

6 AM Wake up
8-3 School
3-5 Afterschool activities
5-6 Relax
6-6:30 Dinner
6:30-9:30 Homework
9:30-10 TV
10 Bed

As a middle school teacher, we aim for between one hour and 90 minutes a day. I doubled it, and still find this to be an honest expectation. The students I find can’t complete the homework are either in a day care that doesn’t enforce homework time and have no study skills themselves and don’t begin till 7 when their parents come home; or the students who are over dedicated to sports and have multiple 3-hour-a-day practices during the week and feel that athletic achievement and ‘well-roundedness’ are more important than school.

Today’s guest blogger, Frank Bruni, the father of a 12-year-old seventh grader, lives in Toronto, Canada. Frank was a driving force in pushing the Toronto District School Board to review and revamp its homework policy. You can read Frank’s other guest blog entries here and here.

Just Start
by Frank Bruni

On April 16th 2008, Toronto Canada became one of the first jurisdictions in North America to pass a substantive homework reform policy.

The policy reduces the homework burden on middle school and high school students and all but eliminates homework in the elementary grades. In addition, homework will no longer be allowed during vacations.

The new policy mandates that teacher’s co-ordinate their efforts and that the homework that is sent home is “clearly articulated and carefully planned” and “require no additional teaching outside the classroom”.

This policy is a major breakthrough for those of us who have been advocating for homework reform.
Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s guest blogger is “FedUpMom”, the mother of a 10-year-old who attends a public school in the suburbs of Philadelphia.

My Life as a Homework Protester
by FedUpMom

My life as a homework protester began last year, when my daughter was in 4th grade. The straw that broke the camel’s back was an assignment which came home every week: look up 10 spelling words in the dictionary and copy out the definitions. My daughter is a slow writer and this added up to an hour’s misery. I was furious. I went to her teacher and said, “the definitions homework takes my daughter forever; we’re not doing it.” He said, “Oh, if it takes her too long to write out, she can look it up on the internet and print it out. That’s what a lot of the kids do.” This might be quicker, but it’s still pointless, and I pity the tree that gets killed to provide the paper. I said, “if the goal is that my daughter should know the meaning of those words, we will discuss the words with her and make sure she knows the meaning. Then we’ll write a note telling you what we did”. He agreed. Right there my child’s homework headache was cut way down.

Next, I went to the principal to talk about homework overload. I wanted to send a survey to the parents, asking how they felt about homework: the principal rejected the idea on the grounds that it was “too adversarial”. (You want to see adversarial? Go visit some of those parents at 7:00 p.m. when they’re trying to get their kids through a mountain of homework.) Then she touched on several themes that would return every time I talked to her.

1.) “Maybe you can arrange for less homework now, but I’m warning you, when she gets to 5th grade, she’ll be required to do a lot of homework, and she needs to be prepared”. Now that my daughter is in 5th grade, Ms. Principal warns me about the heavy homework load in 6th grade. Is my daughter supposed to spend 4th grade learning how to handle 5th grade, 5th grade learning how to handle 6th grade, and so on forever? When does she learn something that’s worth learning for its own sake?

2.) “Your daughter should join the after-school homework club.” This is a cop-out. Kids have better things to do after school.

3.) “Your daughter is lazy and stubborn; you are emotional and over-involved.” Absolutely right. And those are our good qualities!