Stop Homework

I won’t be posting again until September, but I will be answering email, so please feel free to write me with your questions, concerns, and requests for speaking engagements. If you’re looking for an end-of-the-year gift for your children’s teachers, consider giving The Case Against Homework. When teachers and administrators read it, they think about, and change, their homework practices.

This school year, Stop Homework received funding and became affiliated with The Alliance for Childhood. Through Stop Homework, I’ve been interviewed for dozens of publications and radio and TV shows in the U.S., Canada, South America, and Europe; I’ve spoken with hundreds of parents and educators and helped many of them advocate for change in their communities; I’ve organized meetings among heads of schools to start dialogues on homework reform; and I’ve helped educators figure out ways to change their policies. If you need help of any kind, be sure to let me know.

Here are just a few the highlights from 2007-2008:

According to a survey released today by Scholastic, many children in the USA are too busy, too distracted and, in some cases, too tired to read books for fun. Schoolwork, homework and the inability to find a book they like keeps most children from doing more than their required school reading. The findings are similar to those released last year by the National Endowment for the Arts, which reported that from 1984 to 2004, the percentage of 17-year-olds who “never or hardly ever” read for fun rose from 9% to 19%. The Scholastic report found that, on average, one in four children read for fun every day and another 40% read for fun at least a few times a week — but 22% rarely, if ever, do. And as kids get older, it finds, the percentage who rarely read for fun grows from 8% to 37%. Read the entire report here.

Recently, I’ve been watching the lectures posted on ted.com. TED, which stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, is an annual conference that brings “together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).” The one by Jill Bolte Taylor, a brain researcher who watched her own stroke unfold, is unforgettable. For their thoughts on education, though, I highly recommend those by Sir Ken Robinson, who talks about how schools kill creativity, and by Dave Eggers, who talks about how a little one-on-one tutoring can go a long way.

One of my favorite education bloggers, Donalyn Miller, has a recent post on the problems with the Reading First Program. In case you don’t make it all the way through this post, this is her conclusion: “We don’t need another reading program; we need to go back to the first reading program—connecting children with books. This should always be our bottom line.”

Reading First Puts Reading Last
by Donalyn Miller

On May 1st, the Department of Education released the preliminary results of Reading First, the federal program which provides grants for initiatives which improve the reading achievement of at-risk elementary school children. The initial findings of the DOE study indicate that students participating in Reading First perform no better on reading achievement tests than their peers in other instructional programs. Instead of re-addressing the flawed premise on which Reading First was built, the 2000 Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching Children to Read, policymakers ask for more money to fund this failing federal program and beg us all to give Reading First more time.

Read the rest of this entry »

I really liked this comment posted by a teacher in response to my blog entry, Middle School Teacher Says There’s Plenty of Time For Homework.

As both a parent and a teacher, what bothers me most is the middle school teacher’s claim that parents who schedule after school activities are saying “athletic achievement and ‘well-roundedness’ are more important than school.”

It is a sad state of affairs when ‘well-roundedness’ and education have become mutually exclusive concepts.

Our society needs to recognize that more goes into raising a healthy, productive member of society than memorizing math facts or completing reading logs. Do we want a longer school day that offers every conceivable enrichment activity a child might be interested in? Or are we willing to allow families to make those choices on their own, based on their children’s needs and interests. If we claim that we are, we must support this by allowing enough “free time” after school for pursuing these enrichment activities without sacrificing sleep for homework.
Read the rest of this entry »

I’m posting a recent comment posted by a teenager on an old blog entry, because I want to make sure everyone gets to see it:

I am in high school and have a GPA of 4.214.

The price I pay is far too high. It sucks the life out of me and my teachers do not care. (I swear that they torture me on purpose.) I end up spending my Saturdays dreading having to do my projects on Sunday. The state just keeps passing laws that continue to raise the bar, but don’t help students learn. What frusturates me the most is that all the work is done for nothing. I end up learning so little after working so hard. I can’t even explore interesting topics, I have to work specifically on one thing. My teacher finished her curiculum early and decided to create a massive project that was due two weeks later (which just happened to be the day my 20 minute english presentation was due, on an African poet!).

This is ridiculous!

Both the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times ran articles this weekend on the amount of stress faced by high schoolers. The Wall Street Journal reported that 11th grade has become a nightmare year for students hoping to go to elite colleges. As to the homework of one 11th grader, it wrote: “As [Ms. Glickman] moves from class to class, the demands of being a junior pile up. Honors Spanish — 30 minutes of homework a night. Advanced-placement English — 30 to 90 minutes a night, depending on which books or documents the class is studying. Honors pre-calculus — another hour of homework. Honors biology — 30 minutes more. At the end of the day comes Ms. Glickman’s favorite class and her toughest — advanced-placement history, with two hours of homework a night, including reading and regular essays.” The New York Times wrote that a lunch period is now becoming mandatory in some high-performing high schools, where students routinely skip eating so they can fit in one more class.

Of course, to readers of this blog, these stories are nothing new. The question still remains, though: when are we going to put an end to this?

A 7th grader from Virginia wrote to me:

Hello, my name is Chris and I’m in the 7th grade. I currently attend an IB (International Baccalaureate) World School (also known as a “smart kids school”). I enjoy the aggressive strategy of education IB schools have, and also like the curriculum of my county and state.

However, we are supposed to set away 2 HOURS for homework every single day, but some days, that is just not enough time. Sometimes, I get back from school and I work on homework all the way until I go to bed, with few breaks. To be honest, I’m a very good student in my school, so I like to take my time on assignments; it’s obviously not an educational problem. Homework indirectly ruins my life. Sure, I have lots of time to do stuff on weekends/breaks, but when I have homework there’s not much time to do anything. I do not like getting 0’s on homework grades, so there’s no choice about it.

I have little time to spend time with my friends, family, or even have time to do something fun when I get loaded on homework some days. Projects - don’t even get me started. Projects slam me in the face left and right. Finally when homework loosens up, I get a huge project I need to focus on. Don’t get me wrong - school is fun and interesting; but working your butt off should be done at school, not when you should be spending time with people close to you at home.