The Great Homework Debate

posted by: Alix | July 01, 2011, 03:59 PM

What are your thoughts about homework in today's world? Conventional wisdom suggests students need homework to teach them to work independently and to reinforce curriculum after an initial lesson. While this is the intent of home-based projects, parents and students have been complaining that evenings filled with piles of worksheets can take away time from extracurricular activities and can be unfair to students without the proper home support. As a result, in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the school board has enacted a new policy that homework can count for only 10% of a student's overall grade.

Before you accuse Los Angeles area students of being more concerned with soaking up rays, consider the intent of the policy. Faced with countless problems stacked against an overwhelmingly urban, low-income, and minority population, the district concluded that homework was either acting as an unfair advantage or biggest road block to students' grades.

According to the new policy: "Varying degrees of access to academic support at home, for whatever reason, should not penalize a student so severely that it prevents the student from passing a class, nor should it inflate the grade."

Despite the district's intent to level the playing field for students, teachers in the LA district are calling the policy detrimental. Teachers worry that the new policy will enable students to slack off assigned work and even reward those who already disregard assignments. Others argue that it could penalize students who are working hard independently on homework assignments regardless of their access to help.

The district's policy has raised many questions about what kinds of homework assignments are appropriate for students across the country. While homework has never been popular with students and even many parents, in recent years it has been particularly panned as counterproductive. Parents and students call homework everything from busywork that doesn't contribute to learning, to too costly and time-consuming in a busy world where students are not only expected to deliver academically but in extracurricular activities and community involvement.

Whether you're for homework for students or against the evening grind, there are studies to support your theories. Some research shows it to be a waste of time for younger students, but many conclude that it is strongly related to higher achievement. Homework has been found to have much less benefit in elementary school and more useful for older students with the relevance of assignments being key to student achievement. Some suggest overly lengthy homework for young children can lead to burn out and resentment. Clearly, homework assignments need to be tailored to their audiences.

The debate yet again plays into the larger conversation about how to evaluate students. Is there a perfect formula on which teachers can rely to gauge student achievement? Depending on the expert, the perfect combination of testing and homework varies significantly.

Should we reevaluate our emphasis on homework?
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