Stop Homework

The Importance of Allowing Your Children to be Ordinary

I really like this piece, Pushing for Perfection–A Poor Choice in Parenting, sent to me by northTOmom, who often writes interesting comments here.

Pushing for Perfection–A Poor Choice in Parenting
The importance of allowing your children to be ordinary
by Joanne Kates
(from postcity.com)

I was talking the other day to a woman who described herself as “Type A, a bit of a control freak” and said that she knows this infuses her parenting style.

I admitted to her that I play for that team too, and that it hasn’t been so hot for my parenting. She seemed shocked.

She then asked me: “Would you do it differently if you had it to do over again?”

I said yes. Which I think made her want to throw up, but she gained control over herself and asked me for details.

I told her that my biggest parenting mistake was schools. In order not to get sued, I shan’t mention specific names, but I will confess to pushing both my kids to go to high-performance academically rigorous schools. Which neither of them liked. What a surprise.

My kids are both super bright (we all think that) so I thought they’d benefit from high academic standards.

At least that’s what I told myself. And other people.
Continue reading “The Importance of Allowing Your Children to be Ordinary”

Homework Hell

A few weeks ago, the Boston Globe ran a piece, Homework Hell. Here’s the letter, heavily edited, that the Globe published on Sunday in response:

Beth Teitell’s article “Homework Hell” (May 2) provided an important, albeit anecdotal, view of how homework can negatively affect family life, but the topic of homework and the ways many schools routinely apply the requirement deserves fuller treatment. Teachers, administrators, parents, and reporters would do well to consider what’s driving blind acceptance of homework at all levels and whether current practices are beneficial or based on nothing but an enduring myth. – Peggy Field / Norwell

Peggy Field sent me the full letter she had written to the Globe:

To the Editor:

Beth Teitell’s article “Homework Hell” in the May 2 Boston Globe magazine provided an important, albeit anecdotal, view of how homework can negatively affect family life, but the topic of homework and the ways many schools apply the requirement as a matter of routine deserves a much fuller and more serious treatment.

Teitell’s piece seemed promising at first, illustrating the real rifts that can occur between parent and child when parents are put in the position of homework enforcer. However, the piece veered into a discussion of vague “parental anxiety” before concluding with an exhortation from Boston Teachers Union President Richard Stutman to parents to “keep your anxiety to yourself” when helping out.

Omitted is the possibility that parents can maintain a positive attitude toward school, teachers and learning, and continue to urge their children to work hard and do their best, while asking questions of their child’s teacher and school officials about homework policy.

Many important questions about the stated goals, educational validity and simple fairness of compelling students (and their families) to devote periods of at-home time to additional school work — particularly in elementary and middle school grades — are simply not being asked by those who should be asking such questions. Existing thorough and respectful examinations of the subject, not only by Alfie Kohn but also by Sara Bennett, Etta Kralovec, John Buell and Cathy Vaterott, are blithley ignored in lieu of complacently maintaining the status quo.

Few would argue that taking time outside of school to thoughtfully puzzle out a vexing calculus problem or computer program, or to read a novel or historical text at length, is a negative. But teachers, administrators, parents and education reporters would do well to take a step back and consider what is actually driving blind acceptance of homework simply as a matter of routine at all levels, and whether current practices are beneficial or even harmless, or if they are based on nothing but an enduring myth.

Send a postcard to Michelle Obama – End High Stakes Testing

Time Out From Testing and other organizations and individuals from across the country are launching a May 29th postcard campaign asking First Lady Michelle Obama to encourage the President to put an end to the use of High Stakes Testing. On the campaign trail, Michelle Obama stated:

No Child Left Behind is strangling the life out of most schools…. If my future were determined by my performance on a standardized test I wouldn’t be here. I guarantee that.

Time Out From Testing is asking that everyone send a postcard on May 29th. You can write something like this:

Dear Michelle Obama:

We want the same education for our public school children that you provide for Malia and Sasha. Our child is not a test score.

Encourage the President to end the use of high stakes standardized tests!

Sincerely,
Name:
Address:
Signature

Mail to: First Lady Michelle Obama
White House,
Washington DC

Finally, let Time Out From Testing know that you sent a postcard so that it can have an accurate count of the postcards sent.

Such, Such Were the Joys (cont’d)

Today, FedUp Mom answers the final question she posed five weeks ago in her guest post where she suggested that people read Such, Such Were the Joys by George Orwell. Read her answers to the other questions she posed here, here, here, and here. And, of course, don’t forget to chime in with your own answer.

(A big thanks to FedUp Mom for taking the time to write and for her thought-provoking posts. If you want to write your own guest post, please email me.)

Such, Such Thursdays
by FedUp Mom
(part 5)

QUESTION #5 (Extra Credit):

(from Such, Such Were the Joys)

“There never was, I suppose, in the history of the world a time when the sheer vulgar fatness of wealth, without any kind of aristocratic elegance to redeem it, was so obtrusive as in those years before 1914… The extraordinary thing was the way in which everyone took it for granted that this oozing, bulging wealth of the English upper and upper-middle classes would last for ever, and was part of the order of things… How would St. Cyprian’s appear to me now, if I could go back, at my present age, and see it as it was in 1915 [when Orwell left the school]? … I should see them [the Headmaster and his wife] as a couple of silly, shallow, ineffectual people, eagerly clambering up a social ladder which any thinking person could see to be on the point of collapse.”

How does Orwell’s historical moment compare to our own? Is our social ladder on the point of collapse?

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The moment Orwell describes, of smug wealth on the verge of catastrophe, is of course very similar to our situation about two years ago, and similar to the situation in the US on the verge of the Great Depression. Now that we have embarked on another economic collapse, what changes can we expect to see to our schools?

It is clear that the public schools will soon be hurting badly. They were kept afloat for a while by federal stimulus money, but that will run out over the next couple of years. We will see programs being cut. I’ve heard through the grapevine that our local public elementary school is already experiencing overcrowded classrooms. The job market for new teachers is terrible.

At the same time, NCLB remains in place, and everyone is fixated on test scores. So less money will mean fewer “frills” like gifted ed, arts, and music . The grade-level tests, which were meant to function as a floor, have become the ceiling that nobody bothers to teach beyond.

As the recession continues to unravel our economy, the public schools will continue their descent. If we’re lucky, we’ll see some growth in alternative schooling, including homeschooling co-ops. Anyone who can manage it will send their kids to private schools.

What do you predict?

Is Skipping College a Viable Option?

Last week’s New York Times had a piece, Plan B – Skip College, suggesting that going to college is not the be all and end all for many students, noting that no more than half of those who began a four-year bachelor’s degree program in the fall of 2006 will get that degree within six years. Moreover, some economists and educators are arguing that there should be credible alternatives for students unlikely to be successful pursuing a higher degree, or who may not be ready to do so.

Read the piece here.

High Schoolers and Cheating

A small study of 100 high school juniors from a mid-Western high school, published in the Mid-Western Educational Researcher, shows, yet again, that cheating is rampant. According to Kenneth Kiewra, professor of educational psychology at the University of Nebraska Lincoln, and one of the study’s authors, “Students generally understand what constitutes cheating, but they do it anyway. They cheat on tests, homework assignments and when writing reports. In some cases, though, students simply don’t grasp that some dishonest acts are cheating.”

Among the findings:

* 89 percent said glancing at someone else’s answers during a test was cheating (87 percent said they’d done that at least once)

* 94 percent said providing answers to someone during a test was cheating (74 percent admitted doing so)

* 47 percent said that providing test questions to a fellow student who had yet to take a test was academically dishonest (nearly 70 percent admitted doing so)

* 23 percent said doing individual homework with a partner was dishonest (91 percent admitted doing so)

* 39 percent said writing a report based on the movie instead of reading the book wasn’t cheating (53 percent admitted doing so)

Nearly Half of England’s Schools Boycott National Standardized Tests

In England last week, nearly half of its schools refused to administer the national standardized tests. The National Union of Teachers, as well as the National Association of Head Teachers, voted in favor of a boycott. The reason: the importance placed on the tests is forcing teachers to teach to them instead of focussing on a more meaningful and broader curriculum.

If only teachers in the U.S. would do the same….

Read the story here.

Such, Such Were the Joys (cont’d)

Today, FedUp Mom answers a question she posed four weeks ago in her guest post where she suggested that people read Such, Such Were the Joys by George Orwell. Read her answers to the other questions she posed here, here and here. And, of course, don’t forget to chime in with your own answer.

Such, Such Thursdays
by FedUp Mom
(part 4)

QUESTION #4:

(from Such, Such Were the Joys)

“That was the pattern of school life — a continuous triumph of the strong over the weak. Virtue consisted in winning: it consisted in being bigger, stronger, handsomer, richer, more popular, more elegant, more unscrupulous than other people … Life was hierarchical and whatever happened was right. There were the strong, who deserved to win and always did win, and there were the weak, who deserved to lose and always did lose, everlastingly.”

Has anything changed? Support your answer.

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The hierarchies of school happen on the micro level (the power trips within the individual school), and also on the macro level (the unequal status between schools.)

On the macro level, we will soon have a Supreme Court populated exclusively by graduates of Harvard and Yale law schools. England has a new Prime Minister educated at Eton and Oxford. The finishing schools of the rich and powerful keep doing their job.

On the micro level, Orwell nailed it. School is all about hierarchy, power, and control. Homework is a continual reminder of who has power over whom, and a way for school to exert control, not just over the students in the classroom, but over the entire family at home.

Draft Homework Policy from Davis, California

In Davis, California, a committee that had been working on a draft policy submitted its report to the Board of Education for review last week. Take a look at the report. It has many family friendly recommendations and, where the people in the committee disagreed with each other, they wrote their own dissents. Here are just a few of the provisions I especially like:

* Teachers are encouraged to develop an agreement with students about when it is appropriate for the student to cease working on the day’s homework (for example, it is taking too much time or the student is unable to complete the assignment independently).

* Consequences for lack of homework completion shall not include exclusion from recess.

* The family shall:
5. intervene and stop a child who has spent an excessive amount of time on the day’s homework;
6. not allow students to sacrifice sleep to complete homework;
7. communicate with the teacher(s) if the student is not consistently able to do the homework by him/herself or if challenges or questions arise. Families of older students should encourage the child to communicate with the teacher in order to foster independence and personal responsibility

Before the end of the school year, one of the parents on the committee will write here about how she got involved in organizing for a better policy and her experiences in doing so.

UPDATE
by Heidy Kellison
co-chair of Homework Committee
June 24, 2010

After nearly three years, a 144-page report, and four school board meetings later, the Davis Joint Unified School District has a new homework policy. The final draft received a 5-0 vote on the first official day of summer. The symbolism is fantastic! A great day for kids made even better for their health and all forms of their development.

Davis is a university town of 65,000 people, just 15 miles from California’s State Capitol. The University of California at Davis is one of the nation’s top research universities, so the demographics aren’t surprising: According to the California Department of Education, 93% of parents with school-aged children have attended college, with a full 60% having attended graduate school. Despite chronic state budget deficits, Davis voters continually pass parcel taxes and raise private funds to maintain healthy schools. Volunteerism is high, and serving on the Board of Education probably deserves hazard pay. It’s safe to say, Davis places a high value on education.

On the surface, Davis seems an unlikely place to call for a reduction in homework. After all, if we value education so much, what’s wrong with doing whatever it takes to get the grade? (A lot, as it turns out.)

I was lucky to co-chair a 12-person committee comprised of teachers, administrators, and parents (I’m a parent). We met for 14 months and developed recommendations where research and consensus intersect.

Is the policy everything I’d hoped for? No. Did anyone get everything they wanted? Absolutely not. But do I believe our process was sound and worthy of being duplicated in other school districts? You bet.

I’ve learned a lot, including the need to approach all stakeholders with an open heart and mind. I’ve acquired more patience, much knowledge, and a great deal of respect for people who invest their lives serving children–parents and professional educators alike.

I know there are bad parents, teachers and administrators, just as there are bad insurance agents, doctors, chefs…you name it. It makes no sense whatsoever to paint any profession with a broad brush, any more than it makes sense to perpetuate racial bias. When we stop pitting ourselves against each other, come to the table and release all our preconceived notions, we will finally serve kids well.

Many blessings to all who advocate for children.

Two New York Schools Drop Standardized Testing for Pre-Schooler Admissions

Pre-school applicants to New York City private schools have long had to take a standardized test used for screening purposes. Now, two schools have dropped the requirement, in part because many parents are prepping their young children and in part because the test isn’t a useful admissions’ criteria. Steve Nelson, the head of the Calhoun school, told the New York Times that he was skeptical that a test could accurately measure a 4-year-old’s intelligence. “Even worse is the emphasis that is placed on the test that creates a culture of frenetic overachievement.” Another private school admissions director stated that she had “significant concerns about how the test has been corrupted with the widespread prepping and the availability of testing materials online.” Sound familiar?