Homework: When is it too much?
Now, it's possible my daughter is leaving a crucial piece of context out, but it's no secret that kids at many schools are getting more and more homework at younger ages. What's more disturbing, there is almost no evidence that homework improves academic performance.
So what is a parent to do? I called Nancy Kalish, co-author of the new book making waves, The Case Against Homework. Nancy said parents' first task is to educate themselves about the research.
"A Duke University meta-analysis of 180 studies done on homework found there was virtually no correlation between homework of any kind in elementary school and achievement," said Kalish. "There was a minor correlation in middle school and a moderate correlation in high school, but the benefits maxed out after two hours of homework a night," at which point the homework could become detrimental.
The rule of thumb, from the National Education Association, is 10 minutes of homework per night, per grade, beginning in first grade. But Kalish says, "That rule is based on what kids are developmentally able to handle. But if it's ten minutes of busy work, that is time not time spent well, because it's time taken away from reading, practicing music, or eating dinner with their family, which is the single most important predictor of higher achievement and social success."
Parents need then to educate their children's teachers, who most likely are unfamiliar with the research on homework. "Parents need to get over their fear of talking to teacher," she says. "My co-author and I surveyed hundreds of teachers and found just one had taken a course on homework. Even the Harvard School of Education doesn't offer a course on homework," says Kalish. "So teachers are winging it."
Most important: in this discussion, she says parents need to be non-confrontational, and explain how the homework is negatively impacting your child. "Teachers want children to have a positive learning experience. Recognize that they are on your child's side," says Kalish. "They probably have no idea what havoc the homework load is wreaking."
If that fails, Kalish says you can organize a group of parents and push for school-wide changes, which is what Kalish and a couple other parents did at her daughter's middle school. Now her Brooklyn school has a homework coordinator, who makes sure there are no tests on Mondays, no vacation homework (something I deeply loathe), and the teachers don't give a bunch of assignments all due the same day.
As I watched my ten-year-old last night hunched over a lap top, finished her two hours of homework--which she tells me the teacher will not check, probably because she doesn't have time to check every kids' pages and pages of homework--I decided I'd have the homework discussion with her teacher.
Wish me luck.
In the meantime, if you want even more reasons to oppose homework in elementary school, take a look at a Slate book review of Kalish's and two other books about the homework controversy.
Stumble It!
posted by pam at 9:42 AM
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