Stop Homework

In an article in the December 2009 issue of the Ontario Principals’ Council Exemplary Leadership In Public Education, Jan Olson, the principal of the Barrie, Ontario, Canada school which eliminated homework last year, and some teachers from that school, write about their experiences with no homework and why adopting a no homework policy is sound policy.

It’s too bad that so few principals have taken the steps that Olson, and Christine Hendricks (a principal who instituted a no-homework practice at her school in Glenrock, Wyoming) have. Both of those principals discovered benefits to their policies that they didn’t expect. In Olson’s case, students’ grades and test scores increased and he believes it was due to the emphasis placed on teachers working more closely together and working on effective teaching strategies, rather than sending work home with the students. in Hendricks’s case, she found that students came to school better rested and more eager to learn, and that there was a significant decrease in negative interactions between teachers and students.

You can read the article here. (Permission to reprint this article was received by the Ontario Principals’ Council. The original article appeared in The OPCRegister, Vol. 11 No. 4.)

The website, Great Schools, just published a series of articles on homework, including an interview with me.

When I was doing research for my book, I found that everyone, including the National PTA and the National Education Association referred to the 10-minute rule, but I never did discover its origin. But in reading the pieces on GreatSchools, I discovered that so-called homework guru, Harris Cooper, made it up out of whole cloth:

So how can you know if your child is doing the right amount? Who came up with that 10-minutes-per-grade rule that’s become the accepted norm? (And if that is the magic number, why is my neighbor’s 8-year-old daughter doing two-plus hours a night?)

The oft-bandied rule on homework quantity — 10 minutes a night per grade (starting from between 10 to 20 minutes in first grade) — is ubiquitous. Indeed, go to the National Education Association’s website or the national Parent Teacher Association’s website, and 10 minutes per grade is the recommended amount for first through 12th grade.

But where did it come from? “The source [of that figure] was a teacher who walked up to me after a workshop I did about 25 years ago,” says Cooper. “I’d put up a chart showing middle school kids who reported doing an hour to an hour and a half were doing just as well as high schoolers doing two hours a night. The teacher said, ‘That sounds like the 10-minute rule.’” He adds with a laugh, “I stole the idea.”

Two weeks ago, I attended my first webinar, hosted by Edutopia, where Linda Darling Hammond talked about international standards and assessments. It’s really too bad she wasn’t Obama’s pick for Secretary of Education; she’s smart, articulate, progressive, and she even knows how to use power point!

If you have about 50 minutes, it’s worth listening to. You can find it here.

(Happy Thanksgiving)

Last June, I ran a series of interviews I had conducted with activists and educators who were on my radar as people trying to do something to change policy and practice in their communities. Today, I’m running an interview I conducted with one of the most interesting school heads I’ve ever encountered, Dominic Randolph, who is in his third year as Head of Riverdale Country School, an independent K-12 school in New York City. Before that, he was the assistant headmaster at a four-year co-educational boarding school. Randolph’s wife is also an educator; their daughter is a junior in college. Randolph’s blog, is always fascinating and full of interesting references and ideas.

Interview with Dominic Randolph
by Sara Bennett

“Schools tend to be high stress but not intellectually challenging. We need to understand this generation of students and allow learning to be meaningful.

–Dominic Randolph, head of Riverdale Country School, New York,

What are you thinking about these days?
I’m interested in how we keep schools focused on developing people who are creative and great critical thinkers. You can’t be a good thinker if you have to constantly shift from one thing to the next. If a school were to be built around effective thinking, that school and its schedule might look very different from the traditional models we have.

Read the rest of this entry »

I am always looking for schools that have homework opt-out policies, but they seem to be few and far between. Last November, I posted a link to a school in Australia with an opt-out policy.

A reader who has been trying to get opt-out policies at her children’s Alberta schools recently sent me a link to an Alberta school with an opt-out policy.

It reads:

St. Andrew’s School staff and school council spent considerable time reviewing homework. The dialogue was in depth and revealed many ideas and points of view both with staff and with parents.

As a school community, we came to the following understanding. Parents are the prime educators for their children, and as such have important responsibilities as to the personal and educational growth of their children. Thus parents must decide what is in the best interest of their children in regards to home work.

Read the rest of this entry »

My favorite education blogger, Susan Ohanian, posted a link to this wonderful piece by Marion Brady in the Washington Post.

The One Reason Duncan’s “Race to the Top Will Fail
By Marion Brady
November 4, 2009

When “Race to the Top” fails, as it will, the main reason won’t be any of those currently being advanced by the corporate interests and politicians now running the education show.

It won’t fail because of lack of academic rigor, poor teaching, weak administrators, too-short school year, union resistance, differing state standards, insufficient performance incentives, sorry teacher training, or lingering traces of the early-20th Century Progressive movement.

It will fail primarily for a reason not even being mentioned by leaders of today’s reform effort: A curriculum adopted in 1893 that grows more dysfunctional with each passing year. Imagine a car being driven down a winding rural road with all the passengers, including the driver, peering intently out the back window.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve written here before about Washington Post reporter, Jay Mathews, who calls himself “Mr. Homework.” In August, 2008, he did an about-face and called for an end to homework for elementary school students. A few days ago, he wrote a Washington Post column, “Is Homework Necessary,” where he wonders whether his faith in homework for middle and high schoolers is misplaced. He suggests that assignments be shorter and more carefully defined so as to get “the same sense of student understanding and not just to make sure the students and their parents don’t think the teacher is going soft.” Read the piece here.

After reading the piece, I sent Mr. Mathews the following email and posted it as a comment as well. I encourage you to post your own comments.

I read your recent piece in the Washington Post and, of course, I’m delighted you’re always rethinking homework.

I’m glad that the teachers you’re talking to are also thinking more about homework. One of the biggest issues missing from the homework debate, in my opinion, is the quality of the homework. If my memory is correct, you no longer have any children in high school, so maybe you haven’t had a chance to take a look at the kind of homework most kids are getting.

I do still have a child in high school, so I get to see, on a nightly basis, the homework that teachers give and that society still thinks is so important. And I’m pretty sure my daughter’s New York City public high school is typical of any large school.

I don’t think my daughter has yet had one homework assignment last year or this that was worth any time at all. Nevertheless, most of her teachers assign homework every night, and homework counts toward her grade. Most teachers provide no feedback on the homework whatsoever; they mainly spot check to make sure the students have complied with the requirements. None of it requires original thinking, there is very little writing or reading, and there are a lot of projects similar to the posters and “characters in a can” that she did in elementary school.

Whenever I’m on a talk show, there’s always someone who claims that homework is very important, as though students are being assigned interesting, challenging work that involves creative and analytic thinking. Neither in 9th grade, nor so far this year in 10th, has my daughter written an essay that was returned with any feedback. So the one skill that students really need, writing, isn’t being taught at all. It’s no wonder that when I taught writing to first year law students, I had to do so much remediation.

The real problem, in my opinion, is that education in general isn’t very good. Sure there’s a school here and there where students are involved in thrilling discoveries, sit in small seminars, have interesting and engaged teachers, and get a fantastic education. But the majority of kids sit in classes where teachers drone on and on from outdated textbooks and give the same tests they’ve been giving for as long as they’ve been teaching. (Have you read The Global Achievement Gap? The author takes “walking tours” of schools and explains what he sees going on in the classroom.)

As I stated at the outset, I’m glad to see you’re still thinking about homework and not taking it at face value. May I suggest that you take a look at the assignments the kids in your local public high schools are getting and see whether you think they’re worth spending any time on. (Or, if you’d like, I’d be happy to describe the work my daughter receives on a nightly basis.) I stand by my longstanding advice: Let students of all ages read, rather than inundate them with busywork. They’ll all end up more literate and able to think.

All best,

Sara Bennett
co-author, The Case Against Homework
founder, Stop Homework

Race to Nowhere, a documentary which looks at the fast-paced, high-stress lives of many of today’s students, is premiering on Saturday, October 10, at the Mill Valley Film Festival. I’ve written about the film before because I’m an Advisor to the film, I appear in the film, I fully support the film, and I think it’s the perfect tool for either starting, or supplementing, a conversation in your community about the numerous problems facing today’s youth.

If you live near Mill Valley, California, you should try to see the film either at Saturday’s premier or on October 18. If you don’t live near Mill Valley, you can view the trailer here. And you can listen to the filmmaker, Vicki Abeles, talk about the movie on BAM! Radio.

I also highly recommend you contact Vicki and set up a screening. Tell her I told you about the film.