Stop Homework

The Case Against Home­work: How Home­work Is Hurt­ing Our Chil­dren and What We Can Do About It, by Sara Ben­nett and Nancy Kalish (Three Rivers Press; reprint edi­tion, August, 2007) Buy it from Amazon.

About the Book
Does assign­ing fifty math prob­lems accom­plish any more than assign­ing five? Is mem­o­riz­ing word lists the best way to increase vocab­u­lary, espe­cially when it takes away from read­ing time? And what is the real pur­pose behind those dev­il­ish dioramas?”

The time our chil­dren spend doing home­work has sky­rock­eted in recent years. Par­ents spend count­less hours cajol­ing their kids to com­plete such assign­ments – often with­out con­sid­er­ing whether or not they serve any worth­while pur­pose. Even many teach­ers are in the dark: Only one of the hun­dreds the authors inter­viewed and sur­veyed had ever taken a course specif­i­cally on home­work dur­ing training.

The truth, accord­ing to Sara Ben­nett and Nancy Kalish, is that there is almost no evi­dence that home­work helps ele­men­tary school stu­dents achieve aca­d­e­mic suc­cess and lit­tle evi­dence that it helps older stu­dents. Yet the nightly bur­den is tak­ing a seri­ous toll on America’s fam­i­lies. It robs chil­dren of the sleep, play, and exer­cise time they need for proper phys­i­cal, emo­tional, and neu­ro­log­i­cal devel­op­ment. And it is a hid­den cause of the child­hood obe­sity epi­demic, cre­at­ing a nation of “home­work potatoes.”

In The Case Against Home­work, Ben­nett and Kalish draw on aca­d­e­mic research, inter­views with edu­ca­tors, par­ents, and kids, and their own expe­ri­ence as par­ents and suc­cess­ful home­work reform­ers to offer detailed advice to frus­trated par­ents. You’ll find out which assign­ments advance learn­ing and which are time-wasters, how to set pri­or­i­ties when your child comes home with an over­stuffed back­pack, how to talk and write to teach­ers and school admin­is­tra­tors in per­sua­sive, non­con­fronta­tional ways, and how to rally other par­ents to help restore bal­ance in your children’s lives.

Empow­er­ing, prac­ti­cal, and rig­or­ously researched, The Case Against Home­work, shows how too much work is hav­ing a neg­a­tive effect on our children’s achieve­ment and devel­op­ment and gives us the tools and tac­tics we need to advo­cate for change.

What Peo­ple Are Say­ing About The Case Against Home­work
“Par­ents of Amer­ica, unite! You have noth­ing to lose but your frus­tra­tion. The Case Against Home­work, is an impor­tant book that takes on the 500-pound gorilla – home­work over­load – long ignored by edu­ca­tional pol­icy mak­ers. Every par­ent of a school-age child should buy it and fol­low the authors’ excel­lent advice in order to pro­tect their chil­dren from an edu­ca­tional sys­tem gone hay­wire.“
–Dan Kind­lon, Ph.D., author of Rais­ing Cain, Too Much of a Good Thing, and Alpha Girls

“A won­der­ful book that is not just about home­work but about the sad­ness and futil­ity of turn­ing chil­dren into drudges who learn – if one can call it learn­ing – with­out pas­sion, with­out love, and with­out gain­ing inde­pen­dence. Every edu­ca­tor, every politi­cian, and every par­ent should read this book and take it to heart.“
–Mary Leon­hardt, author of 99 Ways to Help Your Kids Love Reading

“Most par­ents have expe­ri­enced the neg­a­tive effects of home­work on fam­ily har­mony, fam­ily time, and play time, but they accept it as a nec­es­sary evil. Ben­nett and Kalish reveal that the home­work emperor has no clothes; there is no good evi­dence to sup­port pil­ing on home­work, espe­cially in the younger grades. They fol­low through with prac­ti­cal advice for man­ag­ing home­work melt­downs, nego­ti­at­ing with teach­ers, and advo­cat­ing for pol­icy changes.“
–Lawrence Cohen, Ph.D., author of Play­ful Parenting

“The Case Against Home­work, sends a crit­i­cal mes­sage about how to improve the health and well-being of our chil­dren by cut­ting back on busy work and focus­ing on mean­ing­ful assign­ments, a good night’s sleep, and the value of free, unfet­tered play time.“
–Denise Clark Pope, author of Doing School, Stan­ford School of Edu­ca­tion lec­turer, and founder of SOS: Stressed Out Students

“Bravo to Ben­nett and Kalish for hav­ing the courage to say what many of us know to be true! This book serves as an indis­pens­able tool for par­ents who want to get seri­ous about chang­ing home­work prac­tices in their schools.“
–Etta Kralovec, asso­ciate pro­fes­sor of teacher edu­ca­tion, Uni­ver­sity of Ari­zona South, and coau­thor of The End of Homework

“This very impor­tant book makes a pow­er­ful case that exces­sive home­work is hurt­ing fam­ily life and children’s full devel­op­ment. What’s more, the book does some­thing that is very rare: It gives par­ents solid prac­ti­cal advice on how they can deal with teach­ers and schools to pro­duce sig­nif­i­cant change. The authors care deeply about chil­dren and have a spe­cial under­stand­ing of what chil­dren and child­hood are all about.“
–William Crain, Ph.D., pro­fes­sor of psy­chol­ogy at the City Col­lege of New York and author of Reclaim­ing Childhood