Advice Needed

Each week, I get more and more email from parents around the country about how to handle homework problems. On occasion, if a person has a particularly difficult problem, I’ll answer their questions through a telephone conversation rather than just email.

I know there are a lot of other activists with ideas on how to change homework policy who can also provide advice and support. So, please post your suggestions, similar experiences, etc., in the comments.

NS and her husband, who live in Eagleville, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia, have been meeting with their son’s middle school teachers and the school principal to try to reduce the homework load, but they aren’t having much luck. They have been discussing homework overload with their children’s teachers for years and, last summer, told the school that their fifth-grader would not do any summer homework. This year, though, they are having difficulty getting the middle school to reduce their son’s homework load and are unilaterally deciding which homework is worth their son’s time and which isn’t. At a recent meeting with their son’s teachers and the principal, the teachers had to admit that their son’s grades were reduced significantly because he hadn’t done much of the homework, but that if homework were not part of his grade, he would have received all A’s. Nevertheless, the school is now suggesting that their son be tested for a learning disability. These parents are also having trouble finding like-minded parents to join their efforts and are feeling a little isolated.

Is it possible that they live in a place where everyone else is comfortable with their children’s workloads, which, by the way, include weekend, vacation, and summer homework? Do you have any ideas of what they should do, how they can find other like-minded parents in their school of 1,500?

I suggested that she try writing a letter to her local newspaper to highlight the problem and to find other like-minded parents. Do you have any ideas? Do you have a sample letter you’ve written to your local newspaper?

Please click on the “Leave a comment” button below and help her out.

Inspiration from Australia

The president of the Tasmanian State School Parents and Friends in Australia (an independent community based organization formed in 1947 to represent the parents of children participating in state school education within Tasmania) has started a campaign to stop teachers from assigning homework in elementary and high schools. According to an article in

Another Palo Alto Elementary School Takes a Look at Homework

When parents at Addison Elementary School in Palo Alto, California, brought to their principal’s attention the reduction of homework at Oak Knoll Elementary in Menlo Park, the principal responded by refining its homework policy as well. According to an article in Palo Alto online, the principal stated, “”I was blindsided about the anxiety that seems to be around homework. We took a very deliberate non-reactive approach to educating ourselves and the parents about homework. Parents really want children to have a typical childhood with unstructured time to play, piano lessons, boy scouts, and family time.”

In addition, the District is also reviewing homework policy. According to the Palo Alto school district Director of Elementary Education, “We don’t want homework to be extensive in the elementary school. We also want to be sure that the assignments have a purpose, and they’re not busy work.”

Radio Interview with Etta Kralovec

Here’s a great radio interview with Etta Kralovec, co-author of The End of Homework: How Homework Disrupts Families, Overburdens Children, and Limits Learning. How anyone could not eliminate homework after listening to her speak is beyond me. I interviewed Kralovec for The Case Against Homework and, since that time, we’ve had numerous conversations about homework. She and I are also going to be on a panel together at the American Educational Research Association conference in Chicago in April, along with Alfie Kohn (The Homework Myth), Denise Clark Pope (Doing School), William Crain (Reclaiming Childhood), and Ken Goldberg (Homework Deficiency Disorder).

First Monday

This coming Monday is the first Monday in March. As suggested in The Case Against Homework, and in this blog every month, I recommend that every parent send a note to her/his children’s teachers, administrators, or School Board members on the first Monday of every month.

This past week, the national media reported that the principal of Oak Knoll Elementary School in Menlo Park, California, put a stop to homework. The principal explained his thinking to the parents:

The preponderance of research clearly shows that homework for elementary students does not make a difference in student achievement. . . . Even the most ardent supporters of homework have only been able to produce evidence of associative rather than causal relationships. In addition, it is not surprising that there is no research that demonstrates that homework increases a child’s level of understanding, improves their attitude toward school or inspires a love of learning. For a large number of students we know the opposite is true — large amounts of homework stifle motivation, diminish a child’s love of learning, turn reading into a chore, negatively affect the quality of family time, diminish creativity and turn learning to drudgery.

This Monday, why not politely ask the principal of your school whether s/he’s aware of what happened in Menlo Park and whether s/he’d consider doing the same thing at your school. Good luck and, as always, don’t forget to email me or write a post in the forums and explain what you did and the results.

More Schools are Cutting Back on Homework

According to the San Jose Mercury News, some San Francisco Bay area schools are responding to the requests of elementary and middle-school parents to cut back on homework. The Oak Knoll Elementary school in Menlo Park has mostly banned homework, except reading, occasional projects or catch-up work. Bubb Elementary, in Mountain View relaxed its homework regimen, and Addison Elementary in Palo Alto and the Berryessa School District in San Jose are discussing the issue. And one school, Ohlone Elementary in Palo Alto tries to get children to manage their time during the day. And then they assign homework to the parents: to spend 15 minutes a night talking with their children.

From the Mouth of A Fourth-Grader

Even before Newsweek wrote about how fourth-graders are burned out, I heard from Julianna, a fourth-grader who lives south of the Bay Area in California. I’ve received countless emails from students over the last several months, but Julianna is the youngest yet:

I am in the 4th grade and I have 4 to 5 hours of homework a night! My mom says that she would be a good teacher if she didn’t give us so much homework. I want to send her this website but I am soooooooooo afraid to! I just wanted to say that your idea rocks! I wish that you were my teacher then I wouldn’t have to leave all my superb friends. Please respond.

After getting Julianna’s mother’s permission to correspond with Julianna, I asked Julianna whether there was a Student Council in her school, or some other way students voices’ could be heard. She told me:

We don’t have a Student Council at our school. There isn’t any way for kids to be heard at our school. The teachers and the principal don’t want to know how we feel. That’s one thing that’s really frustrating to me.

I don’t think Julianna’s frustration is surprising to anyone who reads this blog, but I hope it encourages everyone to speak out against homework so that our kids can start to enjoy their childhoods again.

Fourth Graders are Burned Out

According to an article in Newsweek,

Principals and teachers around the country are growing increasingly concerned with what they call the fourth-grade slump. The malaise, which can strike children any time between the end of the second and the middle of fifth grade, is marked by a declining interest in reading and a gradual disengagement from school. What’s causing it? Some say fourth graders get distracted by videogames, organized sports and after-school activities. Others worry that kids are burning out. No Child Left Behind has created an intense push to teach kids the fundamentals of reading. “We kill them with tests in third grade. By fourth grade, they’re tired,” says Gina Defalco, a fourth-grade teacher in Fredericksburg, Va. The slump was first noted in the 1960s, but with schools under pressure to show that kids in all grades are improving, administrators are taking a fresh look at the problem.

Read the rest of the article here.