why does teacher assign homework

Does Homework Really Help Students Learn?

A conversation with a Wheelock researcher, a BU student, and a fourth-grade teacher

“Quality homework is engaging and relevant to kids’ lives,” says Wheelock’s Janine Bempechat. “It gives them autonomy and engages them in the community and with their families. In some subjects, like math, worksheets can be very helpful. It has to do with the value of practicing over and over.” Photo by iStock/Glenn Cook Photography

Do your homework.

If only it were that simple.

Educators have debated the merits of homework since the late 19th century. In recent years, amid concerns of some parents and teachers that children are being stressed out by too much homework, things have only gotten more fraught.

“Homework is complicated,” says developmental psychologist Janine Bempechat, a Wheelock College of Education & Human Development clinical professor. The author of the essay “ The Case for (Quality) Homework—Why It Improves Learning and How Parents Can Help ” in the winter 2019 issue of Education Next , Bempechat has studied how the debate about homework is influencing teacher preparation, parent and student beliefs about learning, and school policies.

She worries especially about socioeconomically disadvantaged students from low-performing schools who, according to research by Bempechat and others, get little or no homework.

BU Today  sat down with Bempechat and Erin Bruce (Wheelock’17,’18), a new fourth-grade teacher at a suburban Boston school, and future teacher freshman Emma Ardizzone (Wheelock) to talk about what quality homework looks like, how it can help children learn, and how schools can equip teachers to design it, evaluate it, and facilitate parents’ role in it.

BU Today: Parents and educators who are against homework in elementary school say there is no research definitively linking it to academic performance for kids in the early grades. You’ve said that they’re missing the point.

Bempechat : I think teachers assign homework in elementary school as a way to help kids develop skills they’ll need when they’re older—to begin to instill a sense of responsibility and to learn planning and organizational skills. That’s what I think is the greatest value of homework—in cultivating beliefs about learning and skills associated with academic success. If we greatly reduce or eliminate homework in elementary school, we deprive kids and parents of opportunities to instill these important learning habits and skills.

We do know that beginning in late middle school, and continuing through high school, there is a strong and positive correlation between homework completion and academic success.

That’s what I think is the greatest value of homework—in cultivating beliefs about learning and skills associated with academic success.

You talk about the importance of quality homework. What is that?

Quality homework is engaging and relevant to kids’ lives. It gives them autonomy and engages them in the community and with their families. In some subjects, like math, worksheets can be very helpful. It has to do with the value of practicing over and over.

What are your concerns about homework and low-income children?

The argument that some people make—that homework “punishes the poor” because lower-income parents may not be as well-equipped as affluent parents to help their children with homework—is very troubling to me. There are no parents who don’t care about their children’s learning. Parents don’t actually have to help with homework completion in order for kids to do well. They can help in other ways—by helping children organize a study space, providing snacks, being there as a support, helping children work in groups with siblings or friends.

Isn’t the discussion about getting rid of homework happening mostly in affluent communities?

Yes, and the stories we hear of kids being stressed out from too much homework—four or five hours of homework a night—are real. That’s problematic for physical and mental health and overall well-being. But the research shows that higher-income students get a lot more homework than lower-income kids.

Teachers may not have as high expectations for lower-income children. Schools should bear responsibility for providing supports for kids to be able to get their homework done—after-school clubs, community support, peer group support. It does kids a disservice when our expectations are lower for them.

The conversation around homework is to some extent a social class and social justice issue. If we eliminate homework for all children because affluent children have too much, we’re really doing a disservice to low-income children. They need the challenge, and every student can rise to the challenge with enough supports in place.

What did you learn by studying how education schools are preparing future teachers to handle homework?

My colleague, Margarita Jimenez-Silva, at the University of California, Davis, School of Education, and I interviewed faculty members at education schools, as well as supervising teachers, to find out how students are being prepared. And it seemed that they weren’t. There didn’t seem to be any readings on the research, or conversations on what high-quality homework is and how to design it.

Erin, what kind of training did you get in handling homework?

Bruce : I had phenomenal professors at Wheelock, but homework just didn’t come up. I did lots of student teaching. I’ve been in classrooms where the teachers didn’t assign any homework, and I’ve been in rooms where they assigned hours of homework a night. But I never even considered homework as something that was my decision. I just thought it was something I’d pull out of a book and it’d be done.

I started giving homework on the first night of school this year. My first assignment was to go home and draw a picture of the room where you do your homework. I want to know if it’s at a table and if there are chairs around it and if mom’s cooking dinner while you’re doing homework.

The second night I asked them to talk to a grown-up about how are you going to be able to get your homework done during the week. The kids really enjoyed it. There’s a running joke that I’m teaching life skills.

Friday nights, I read all my kids’ responses to me on their homework from the week and it’s wonderful. They pour their hearts out. It’s like we’re having a conversation on my couch Friday night.

It matters to know that the teacher cares about you and that what you think matters to the teacher. Homework is a vehicle to connect home and school…for parents to know teachers are welcoming to them and their families.

Bempechat : I can’t imagine that most new teachers would have the intuition Erin had in designing homework the way she did.

Ardizzone : Conversations with kids about homework, feeling you’re being listened to—that’s such a big part of wanting to do homework….I grew up in Westchester County. It was a pretty demanding school district. My junior year English teacher—I loved her—she would give us feedback, have meetings with all of us. She’d say, “If you have any questions, if you have anything you want to talk about, you can talk to me, here are my office hours.” It felt like she actually cared.

Bempechat : It matters to know that the teacher cares about you and that what you think matters to the teacher. Homework is a vehicle to connect home and school…for parents to know teachers are welcoming to them and their families.

Ardizzone : But can’t it lead to parents being overbearing and too involved in their children’s lives as students?

Bempechat : There’s good help and there’s bad help. The bad help is what you’re describing—when parents hover inappropriately, when they micromanage, when they see their children confused and struggling and tell them what to do.

Good help is when parents recognize there’s a struggle going on and instead ask informative questions: “Where do you think you went wrong?” They give hints, or pointers, rather than saying, “You missed this,” or “You didn’t read that.”

Bruce : I hope something comes of this. I hope BU or Wheelock can think of some way to make this a more pressing issue. As a first-year teacher, it was not something I even thought about on the first day of school—until a kid raised his hand and said, “Do we have homework?” It would have been wonderful if I’d had a plan from day one.

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Sara Rimer A journalist for more than three decades, Sara Rimer worked at the Miami Herald , Washington Post and, for 26 years, the New York Times , where she was the New England bureau chief, and a national reporter covering education, aging, immigration, and other social justice issues. Her stories on the death penalty’s inequities were nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and cited in the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision outlawing the execution of people with intellectual disabilities. Her journalism honors include Columbia University’s Meyer Berger award for in-depth human interest reporting. She holds a BA degree in American Studies from the University of Michigan. Profile

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There are 81 comments on Does Homework Really Help Students Learn?

Insightful! The values about homework in elementary schools are well aligned with my intuition as a parent.

when i finish my work i do my homework and i sometimes forget what to do because i did not get enough sleep

same omg it does not help me it is stressful and if I have it in more than one class I hate it.

Same I think my parent wants to help me but, she doesn’t care if I get bad grades so I just try my best and my grades are great.

I think that last question about Good help from parents is not know to all parents, we do as our parents did or how we best think it can be done, so maybe coaching parents or giving them resources on how to help with homework would be very beneficial for the parent on how to help and for the teacher to have consistency and improve homework results, and of course for the child. I do see how homework helps reaffirm the knowledge obtained in the classroom, I also have the ability to see progress and it is a time I share with my kids

The answer to the headline question is a no-brainer – a more pressing problem is why there is a difference in how students from different cultures succeed. Perfect example is the student population at BU – why is there a majority population of Asian students and only about 3% black students at BU? In fact at some universities there are law suits by Asians to stop discrimination and quotas against admitting Asian students because the real truth is that as a group they are demonstrating better qualifications for admittance, while at the same time there are quotas and reduced requirements for black students to boost their portion of the student population because as a group they do more poorly in meeting admissions standards – and it is not about the Benjamins. The real problem is that in our PC society no one has the gazuntas to explore this issue as it may reveal that all people are not created equal after all. Or is it just environmental cultural differences??????

I get you have a concern about the issue but that is not even what the point of this article is about. If you have an issue please take this to the site we have and only post your opinion about the actual topic

This is not at all what the article is talking about.

This literally has nothing to do with the article brought up. You should really take your opinions somewhere else before you speak about something that doesn’t make sense.

we have the same name

so they have the same name what of it?

lol you tell her

totally agree

What does that have to do with homework, that is not what the article talks about AT ALL.

Yes, I think homework plays an important role in the development of student life. Through homework, students have to face challenges on a daily basis and they try to solve them quickly.I am an intense online tutor at 24x7homeworkhelp and I give homework to my students at that level in which they handle it easily.

More than two-thirds of students said they used alcohol and drugs, primarily marijuana, to cope with stress.

You know what’s funny? I got this assignment to write an argument for homework about homework and this article was really helpful and understandable, and I also agree with this article’s point of view.

I also got the same task as you! I was looking for some good resources and I found this! I really found this article useful and easy to understand, just like you! ^^

i think that homework is the best thing that a child can have on the school because it help them with their thinking and memory.

I am a child myself and i think homework is a terrific pass time because i can’t play video games during the week. It also helps me set goals.

Homework is not harmful ,but it will if there is too much

I feel like, from a minors point of view that we shouldn’t get homework. Not only is the homework stressful, but it takes us away from relaxing and being social. For example, me and my friends was supposed to hang at the mall last week but we had to postpone it since we all had some sort of work to do. Our minds shouldn’t be focused on finishing an assignment that in realty, doesn’t matter. I completely understand that we should have homework. I have to write a paper on the unimportance of homework so thanks.

homework isn’t that bad

Are you a student? if not then i don’t really think you know how much and how severe todays homework really is

i am a student and i do not enjoy homework because i practice my sport 4 out of the five days we have school for 4 hours and that’s not even counting the commute time or the fact i still have to shower and eat dinner when i get home. its draining!

i totally agree with you. these people are such boomers

why just why

they do make a really good point, i think that there should be a limit though. hours and hours of homework can be really stressful, and the extra work isn’t making a difference to our learning, but i do believe homework should be optional and extra credit. that would make it for students to not have the leaning stress of a assignment and if you have a low grade you you can catch up.

Studies show that homework improves student achievement in terms of improved grades, test results, and the likelihood to attend college. Research published in the High School Journal indicates that students who spent between 31 and 90 minutes each day on homework “scored about 40 points higher on the SAT-Mathematics subtest than their peers, who reported spending no time on homework each day, on average.” On both standardized tests and grades, students in classes that were assigned homework outperformed 69% of students who didn’t have homework. A majority of studies on homework’s impact – 64% in one meta-study and 72% in another – showed that take home assignments were effective at improving academic achievement. Research by the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) concluded that increased homework led to better GPAs and higher probability of college attendance for high school boys. In fact, boys who attended college did more than three hours of additional homework per week in high school.

So how are your measuring student achievement? That’s the real question. The argument that doing homework is simply a tool for teaching responsibility isn’t enough for me. We can teach responsibility in a number of ways. Also the poor argument that parents don’t need to help with homework, and that students can do it on their own, is wishful thinking at best. It completely ignores neurodiverse students. Students in poverty aren’t magically going to find a space to do homework, a friend’s or siblings to help them do it, and snacks to eat. I feel like the author of this piece has never set foot in a classroom of students.

THIS. This article is pathetic coming from a university. So intellectually dishonest, refusing to address the havoc of capitalism and poverty plays on academic success in life. How can they in one sentence use poor kids in an argument and never once address that poor children have access to damn near 0 of the resources affluent kids have? Draw me a picture and let’s talk about feelings lmao what a joke is that gonna put food in their belly so they can have the calories to burn in order to use their brain to study? What about quiet their 7 other siblings that they share a single bedroom with for hours? Is it gonna force the single mom to magically be at home and at work at the same time to cook food while you study and be there to throw an encouraging word?

Also the “parents don’t need to be a parent and be able to guide their kid at all academically they just need to exist in the next room” is wild. Its one thing if a parent straight up is not equipped but to say kids can just figured it out is…. wow coming from an educator What’s next the teacher doesn’t need to teach cause the kid can just follow the packet and figure it out?

Well then get a tutor right? Oh wait you are poor only affluent kids can afford a tutor for their hours of homework a day were they on average have none of the worries a poor child does. Does this address that poor children are more likely to also suffer abuse and mental illness? Like mentioned what about kids that can’t learn or comprehend the forced standardized way? Just let em fail? These children regularly are not in “special education”(some of those are a joke in their own and full of neglect and abuse) programs cause most aren’t even acknowledged as having disabilities or disorders.

But yes all and all those pesky poor kids just aren’t being worked hard enough lol pretty sure poor children’s existence just in childhood is more work, stress, and responsibility alone than an affluent child’s entire life cycle. Love they never once talked about the quality of education in the classroom being so bad between the poor and affluent it can qualify as segregation, just basically blamed poor people for being lazy, good job capitalism for failing us once again!

why the hell?

you should feel bad for saying this, this article can be helpful for people who has to write a essay about it

This is more of a political rant than it is about homework

I know a teacher who has told his students their homework is to find something they are interested in, pursue it and then come share what they learn. The student responses are quite compelling. One girl taught herself German so she could talk to her grandfather. One boy did a research project on Nelson Mandela because the teacher had mentioned him in class. Another boy, a both on the autism spectrum, fixed his family’s computer. The list goes on. This is fourth grade. I think students are highly motivated to learn, when we step aside and encourage them.

The whole point of homework is to give the students a chance to use the material that they have been presented with in class. If they never have the opportunity to use that information, and discover that it is actually useful, it will be in one ear and out the other. As a science teacher, it is critical that the students are challenged to use the material they have been presented with, which gives them the opportunity to actually think about it rather than regurgitate “facts”. Well designed homework forces the student to think conceptually, as opposed to regurgitation, which is never a pretty sight

Wonderful discussion. and yes, homework helps in learning and building skills in students.

not true it just causes kids to stress

Homework can be both beneficial and unuseful, if you will. There are students who are gifted in all subjects in school and ones with disabilities. Why should the students who are gifted get the lucky break, whereas the people who have disabilities suffer? The people who were born with this “gift” go through school with ease whereas people with disabilities struggle with the work given to them. I speak from experience because I am one of those students: the ones with disabilities. Homework doesn’t benefit “us”, it only tears us down and put us in an abyss of confusion and stress and hopelessness because we can’t learn as fast as others. Or we can’t handle the amount of work given whereas the gifted students go through it with ease. It just brings us down and makes us feel lost; because no mater what, it feels like we are destined to fail. It feels like we weren’t “cut out” for success.

homework does help

here is the thing though, if a child is shoved in the face with a whole ton of homework that isn’t really even considered homework it is assignments, it’s not helpful. the teacher should make homework more of a fun learning experience rather than something that is dreaded

This article was wonderful, I am going to ask my teachers about extra, or at all giving homework.

I agree. Especially when you have homework before an exam. Which is distasteful as you’ll need that time to study. It doesn’t make any sense, nor does us doing homework really matters as It’s just facts thrown at us.

Homework is too severe and is just too much for students, schools need to decrease the amount of homework. When teachers assign homework they forget that the students have other classes that give them the same amount of homework each day. Students need to work on social skills and life skills.

I disagree.

Beyond achievement, proponents of homework argue that it can have many other beneficial effects. They claim it can help students develop good study habits so they are ready to grow as their cognitive capacities mature. It can help students recognize that learning can occur at home as well as at school. Homework can foster independent learning and responsible character traits. And it can give parents an opportunity to see what’s going on at school and let them express positive attitudes toward achievement.

Homework is helpful because homework helps us by teaching us how to learn a specific topic.

As a student myself, I can say that I have almost never gotten the full 9 hours of recommended sleep time, because of homework. (Now I’m writing an essay on it in the middle of the night D=)

I am a 10 year old kid doing a report about “Is homework good or bad” for homework before i was going to do homework is bad but the sources from this site changed my mind!

Homeowkr is god for stusenrs

I agree with hunter because homework can be so stressful especially with this whole covid thing no one has time for homework and every one just wants to get back to there normal lives it is especially stressful when you go on a 2 week vaca 3 weeks into the new school year and and then less then a week after you come back from the vaca you are out for over a month because of covid and you have no way to get the assignment done and turned in

As great as homework is said to be in the is article, I feel like the viewpoint of the students was left out. Every where I go on the internet researching about this topic it almost always has interviews from teachers, professors, and the like. However isn’t that a little biased? Of course teachers are going to be for homework, they’re not the ones that have to stay up past midnight completing the homework from not just one class, but all of them. I just feel like this site is one-sided and you should include what the students of today think of spending four hours every night completing 6-8 classes worth of work.

Are we talking about homework or practice? Those are two very different things and can result in different outcomes.

Homework is a graded assignment. I do not know of research showing the benefits of graded assignments going home.

Practice; however, can be extremely beneficial, especially if there is some sort of feedback (not a grade but feedback). That feedback can come from the teacher, another student or even an automated grading program.

As a former band director, I assigned daily practice. I never once thought it would be appropriate for me to require the students to turn in a recording of their practice for me to grade. Instead, I had in-class assignments/assessments that were graded and directly related to the practice assigned.

I would really like to read articles on “homework” that truly distinguish between the two.

oof i feel bad good luck!

thank you guys for the artical because I have to finish an assingment. yes i did cite it but just thanks

thx for the article guys.

Homework is good

I think homework is helpful AND harmful. Sometimes u can’t get sleep bc of homework but it helps u practice for school too so idk.

I agree with this Article. And does anyone know when this was published. I would like to know.

It was published FEb 19, 2019.

Studies have shown that homework improved student achievement in terms of improved grades, test results, and the likelihood to attend college.

i think homework can help kids but at the same time not help kids

This article is so out of touch with majority of homes it would be laughable if it wasn’t so incredibly sad.

There is no value to homework all it does is add stress to already stressed homes. Parents or adults magically having the time or energy to shepherd kids through homework is dome sort of 1950’s fantasy.

What lala land do these teachers live in?

Homework gives noting to the kid

Homework is Bad

homework is bad.

why do kids even have homework?

Comments are closed.

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Credit: August de Richelieu

Does homework still have value? A Johns Hopkins education expert weighs in

Joyce epstein, co-director of the center on school, family, and community partnerships, discusses why homework is essential, how to maximize its benefit to learners, and what the 'no-homework' approach gets wrong.

By Vicky Hallett

The necessity of homework has been a subject of debate since at least as far back as the 1890s, according to Joyce L. Epstein , co-director of the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships at Johns Hopkins University. "It's always been the case that parents, kids—and sometimes teachers, too—wonder if this is just busy work," Epstein says.

But after decades of researching how to improve schools, the professor in the Johns Hopkins School of Education remains certain that homework is essential—as long as the teachers have done their homework, too. The National Network of Partnership Schools , which she founded in 1995 to advise schools and districts on ways to improve comprehensive programs of family engagement, has developed hundreds of improved homework ideas through its Teachers Involve Parents in Schoolwork program. For an English class, a student might interview a parent on popular hairstyles from their youth and write about the differences between then and now. Or for science class, a family could identify forms of matter over the dinner table, labeling foods as liquids or solids. These innovative and interactive assignments not only reinforce concepts from the classroom but also foster creativity, spark discussions, and boost student motivation.

"We're not trying to eliminate homework procedures, but expand and enrich them," says Epstein, who is packing this research into a forthcoming book on the purposes and designs of homework. In the meantime, the Hub couldn't wait to ask her some questions:

What kind of homework training do teachers typically get?

Future teachers and administrators really have little formal training on how to design homework before they assign it. This means that most just repeat what their teachers did, or they follow textbook suggestions at the end of units. For example, future teachers are well prepared to teach reading and literacy skills at each grade level, and they continue to learn to improve their teaching of reading in ongoing in-service education. By contrast, most receive little or no training on the purposes and designs of homework in reading or other subjects. It is really important for future teachers to receive systematic training to understand that they have the power, opportunity, and obligation to design homework with a purpose.

Why do students need more interactive homework?

If homework assignments are always the same—10 math problems, six sentences with spelling words—homework can get boring and some kids just stop doing their assignments, especially in the middle and high school years. When we've asked teachers what's the best homework you've ever had or designed, invariably we hear examples of talking with a parent or grandparent or peer to share ideas. To be clear, parents should never be asked to "teach" seventh grade science or any other subject. Rather, teachers set up the homework assignments so that the student is in charge. It's always the student's homework. But a good activity can engage parents in a fun, collaborative way. Our data show that with "good" assignments, more kids finish their work, more kids interact with a family partner, and more parents say, "I learned what's happening in the curriculum." It all works around what the youngsters are learning.

Is family engagement really that important?

At Hopkins, I am part of the Center for Social Organization of Schools , a research center that studies how to improve many aspects of education to help all students do their best in school. One thing my colleagues and I realized was that we needed to look deeply into family and community engagement. There were so few references to this topic when we started that we had to build the field of study. When children go to school, their families "attend" with them whether a teacher can "see" the parents or not. So, family engagement is ever-present in the life of a school.

My daughter's elementary school doesn't assign homework until third grade. What's your take on "no homework" policies?

There are some parents, writers, and commentators who have argued against homework, especially for very young children. They suggest that children should have time to play after school. This, of course is true, but many kindergarten kids are excited to have homework like their older siblings. If they give homework, most teachers of young children make assignments very short—often following an informal rule of 10 minutes per grade level. "No homework" does not guarantee that all students will spend their free time in productive and imaginative play.

Some researchers and critics have consistently misinterpreted research findings. They have argued that homework should be assigned only at the high school level where data point to a strong connection of doing assignments with higher student achievement . However, as we discussed, some students stop doing homework. This leads, statistically, to results showing that doing homework or spending more minutes on homework is linked to higher student achievement. If slow or struggling students are not doing their assignments, they contribute to—or cause—this "result."

Teachers need to design homework that even struggling students want to do because it is interesting. Just about all students at any age level react positively to good assignments and will tell you so.

Did COVID change how schools and parents view homework?

Within 24 hours of the day school doors closed in March 2020, just about every school and district in the country figured out that teachers had to talk to and work with students' parents. This was not the same as homeschooling—teachers were still working hard to provide daily lessons. But if a child was learning at home in the living room, parents were more aware of what they were doing in school. One of the silver linings of COVID was that teachers reported that they gained a better understanding of their students' families. We collected wonderfully creative examples of activities from members of the National Network of Partnership Schools. I'm thinking of one art activity where every child talked with a parent about something that made their family unique. Then they drew their finding on a snowflake and returned it to share in class. In math, students talked with a parent about something the family liked so much that they could represent it 100 times. Conversations about schoolwork at home was the point.

How did you create so many homework activities via the Teachers Involve Parents in Schoolwork program?

We had several projects with educators to help them design interactive assignments, not just "do the next three examples on page 38." Teachers worked in teams to create TIPS activities, and then we turned their work into a standard TIPS format in math, reading/language arts, and science for grades K-8. Any teacher can use or adapt our prototypes to match their curricula.

Overall, we know that if future teachers and practicing educators were prepared to design homework assignments to meet specific purposes—including but not limited to interactive activities—more students would benefit from the important experience of doing their homework. And more parents would, indeed, be partners in education.

Posted in Voices+Opinion

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What’s the Purpose of Homework?

• Homework teaches students responsibility.
• Homework gives students an opportunity to practice and refine their skills.
• We give homework because our parents demand it.
• Our community equates homework with rigor.
• Homework is a rite of passage.
• design quality homework tasks;
• differentiate homework tasks;
• move from grading to checking;
• decriminalize the grading of homework;
• use completion strategies; and
• establish homework support programs.
• Always ask, “What learning will result from this homework assignment?” The goal of your instruction should be to design homework that results in meaningful learning.
• Assign homework to help students deepen their understanding of content, practice skills in order to become faster or more proficient, or learn new content on a surface level.
• Check that students are able to perform required skills and tasks independently before asking them to complete homework assignments.
• When students return home, is there a safe and quite place for them to do their homework? I have talked to teachers who tell me they know for certain the home environments of their students are chaotic at best. Is it likely a student will be able to complete homework in such an environment? Is it possible for students to go to an after school program, possibly at the YMCA or a Boys and Girls Club. Assigning homework to students when you know the likelihood of them being able to complete the assignment through little fault of their own doesn’t seem fair to the learner.
• Consider parents and guardians to be your allies when it comes to homework. Understand their constraints, and, when home circumstances present challenges, consider alternative approaches to support students as they complete homework assignments (e.g., before-or after-school programs, additional parent outreach).

Howard Pitler is a dynamic facilitator, speaker, and instructional coach with a proven record of success spanning four decades. With an extensive background in professional development, he works with schools and districts internationally and is a regular speaker at national, state, and district conferences and workshops.

Pitler is currently Associate Professor at Emporia State University in Kansas. Prior to that, he served for 19 years as an elementary and middle school principal in an urban setting. During his tenure, his elementary school was selected as an Apple Distinguished Program and named "One of the Top 100 Schools in America" by Redbook Magazine. His middle school was selected as "One of the Top 100 Wired Schools in America" by PC Magazine. He also served for 12 years as a senior director and chief program officer for McREL International, and he is currently serving on the Board of Colorado ASCD. He is an Apple Distinguished Educator, Apple Teacher, National Distinguished Principal, and Smithsonian Laureate.

He is a published book author and has written numerous magazine articles for  Educational Leadership ® magazine,  EdCircuit , and  Connected Educator , among others.

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The Value of Homework

Are teachers assigning too much homework.

Posted September 5, 2016 | Reviewed by Ekua Hagan

• Studies show that the benefits of homework peak at about one hour to 90 minutes, and then after that, test scores begin to decline.
• Research has found that high school teachers (grades 9-12) report assigning an average of 3.5 hours’ worth of homework a week.
• While homework is necessary, there needs to be balance as well as communication between teachers about the amount of homework being assigned.

The value of homework has been the subject of debate over the years. In regards to research, the jury is still out as to whether homework positively impacts a student's academic achievement.

In the past, I have written a couple of posts on homework and whether or not it is being used or abused by educators. I am always amazed at what some of my young readers share about sleepless nights, not participating in extracurricular events, and high levels of stress —all of which are attributed to large and daunting amounts of homework .

There have been studies that show that doing homework in moderation improves test performance. So we can’t rule out the value of homework if it’s conducive to learning. However, studies have also shown that the benefits of homework peak at about one hour to 90 minutes, and then after that, test scores begin to decline.

Now, while looking at data, it’s important to review the standard, endorsed by the National Education Association and the National Parent-Teacher Association , known as the "10-minute rule" — 10 minutes of homework per grade level per night. That would mean there would only be 10 minutes of homework in the first grade, and end with 120 minutes for senior year of high school (double what research shows beneficial). This leads to an important question: On average, how much homework do teachers assign?

Typical homework amounts

A Harris Poll from the University of Phoenix surveyed teachers about the hours of homework required of students and why they assign it. Pollsters received responses from approximately 1,000 teachers in public, private, and parochial schools across the United States.

High school teachers (grades 9-12) reported assigning an average of 3.5 hours’ worth of homework a week. Middle school teachers (grades 6-8) reported assigning almost the same amount as high school teachers, 3.2 hours of homework a week. Lastly, K-5 teachers said they assigned an average of 2.9 hours of homework each week. This data shows a spike in homework beginning in middle school.

Why homework is assigned

When teachers were asked why they assign homework, they gave the top three reasons:

• to see how well students understand lessons
• to help students develop essential problem-solving skills
• to show parents what's being learned in school

Approximately, 30 percent of teachers reported they assigned homework to cover more content areas. What’s interesting about this poll was the longer an educator had been in the field the less homework they assigned. Take a look at the breakdown below:

• 3.6 hours (teachers with less than 10 years in the classroom)
• 3.1 hours (teachers with 10 to 19 years in the classroom)
• 2.8 hours (teachers with more than 20 years in the classroom)

The need for balance

While many agree that homework does have a time and place, there needs to be a balance between life and school. There also needs to be communication with other teachers in the school about assignments. Oftentimes, educators get so involved in their subject area, they communicate departmentally, not school-wide. As a result, it’s not uncommon for teens to have a project and a couple of tests all on the same day. This dump of work can lead to an overwhelming amount of stress.

Questions for educators

Educators, how can you maximize the benefit of homework? Use the questions below to guide you in whether or not to assign work outside of the classroom. Ask yourself:

• Do I need to assign homework or can this be done in class?
• Does this assignment contribute and supplement the lesson reviewed in class?
• Do students have all of the information they need to do this assignment? In others words, are they prepared to do the homework?
• What are you wanting your students to achieve from this assignment? Do you have a specific objective and intended outcome in mind?
• How much time will the assignment take to complete? Have you given your students a sufficient amount of time?
• Have you taken into account other coursework that your students have due?
• How can you incorporate student choice and feedback into your classroom?
• How can you monitor whether or not you are overloading your students?

What kids think of homework

Educators: As a conclusion, I have provided a few of the many comments, that I have received below. I think it’s important to look at the age/grade level and messages these teens have shared. Take time to read their words and reflect on ways you can incorporate their perspective into course objectives and content. I believe the solution to the homework dilemma can be found in assigning work in moderation and finding a balance between school, home, and life.

“I am a 7th grader in a small school in Michigan. I think one of the main problems about what teachers think about homework is that they do not think about what other classes are assigned for homework. Throughout the day, I get at least two full pages of homework to complete by the next day. During the school year, I am hesitant to sign up for sports because I am staying up after a game or practice to finish my homework.”

“I'm 17 and I'm in my last year of high school. I can honestly tell you that from 7 p.m. to 12 a.m. (sometimes 1 or 2 a.m.) I am doing homework. I've been trying to balance my homework with my work schedule, work around my house, and my social life with no success. So if someone were to ask me if I think kids have too much homework, I would say yes they do. My comment is based solely on my personal experience in high school.”

“I am 13 and I have a problem: homework. I can’t get my homework done at home because it is all on my school MacBook. I don’t own my own personal computer, only an Amazon Fire tablet. What’s the problem with my tablet? There are no middle or high school apps for it. You are might be wondering, “Why not bring the MacBook home?” Well, I am not allowed to, so what is the punishment ? Four late assignments, and 1 late argument essay. And 90% of the homework I get is on my MacBook. This is a mega stresser!"

Raychelle Cassada Lohman n , M.S., LPC, is the author of The Anger Workbook for Teens .

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Should We Get Rid of Homework?

Some educators are pushing to get rid of homework. Would that be a good thing?

By Jeremy Engle and Michael Gonchar

Do you like doing homework? Do you think it has benefited you educationally?

Has homework ever helped you practice a difficult skill — in math, for example — until you mastered it? Has it helped you learn new concepts in history or science? Has it helped to teach you life skills, such as independence and responsibility? Or, have you had a more negative experience with homework? Does it stress you out, numb your brain from busywork or actually make you fall behind in your classes?

Should we get rid of homework?

In “ The Movement to End Homework Is Wrong, ” published in July, the Times Opinion writer Jay Caspian Kang argues that homework may be imperfect, but it still serves an important purpose in school. The essay begins:

Do students really need to do their homework? As a parent and a former teacher, I have been pondering this question for quite a long time. The teacher side of me can acknowledge that there were assignments I gave out to my students that probably had little to no academic value. But I also imagine that some of my students never would have done their basic reading if they hadn’t been trained to complete expected assignments, which would have made the task of teaching an English class nearly impossible. As a parent, I would rather my daughter not get stuck doing the sort of pointless homework I would occasionally assign, but I also think there’s a lot of value in saying, “Hey, a lot of work you’re going to end up doing in your life is pointless, so why not just get used to it?” I certainly am not the only person wondering about the value of homework. Recently, the sociologist Jessica McCrory Calarco and the mathematics education scholars Ilana Horn and Grace Chen published a paper, “ You Need to Be More Responsible: The Myth of Meritocracy and Teachers’ Accounts of Homework Inequalities .” They argued that while there’s some evidence that homework might help students learn, it also exacerbates inequalities and reinforces what they call the “meritocratic” narrative that says kids who do well in school do so because of “individual competence, effort and responsibility.” The authors believe this meritocratic narrative is a myth and that homework — math homework in particular — further entrenches the myth in the minds of teachers and their students. Calarco, Horn and Chen write, “Research has highlighted inequalities in students’ homework production and linked those inequalities to differences in students’ home lives and in the support students’ families can provide.”

Mr. Kang argues:

But there’s a defense of homework that doesn’t really have much to do with class mobility, equality or any sense of reinforcing the notion of meritocracy. It’s one that became quite clear to me when I was a teacher: Kids need to learn how to practice things. Homework, in many cases, is the only ritualized thing they have to do every day. Even if we could perfectly equalize opportunity in school and empower all students not to be encumbered by the weight of their socioeconomic status or ethnicity, I’m not sure what good it would do if the kids didn’t know how to do something relentlessly, over and over again, until they perfected it. Most teachers know that type of progress is very difficult to achieve inside the classroom, regardless of a student’s background, which is why, I imagine, Calarco, Horn and Chen found that most teachers weren’t thinking in a structural inequalities frame. Holistic ideas of education, in which learning is emphasized and students can explore concepts and ideas, are largely for the types of kids who don’t need to worry about class mobility. A defense of rote practice through homework might seem revanchist at this moment, but if we truly believe that schools should teach children lessons that fall outside the meritocracy, I can’t think of one that matters more than the simple satisfaction of mastering something that you were once bad at. That takes homework and the acknowledgment that sometimes a student can get a question wrong and, with proper instruction, eventually get it right.

Students, read the entire article, then tell us:

Should we get rid of homework? Why, or why not?

Is homework an outdated, ineffective or counterproductive tool for learning? Do you agree with the authors of the paper that homework is harmful and worsens inequalities that exist between students’ home circumstances?

Or do you agree with Mr. Kang that homework still has real educational value?

When you get home after school, how much homework will you do? Do you think the amount is appropriate, too much or too little? Is homework, including the projects and writing assignments you do at home, an important part of your learning experience? Or, in your opinion, is it not a good use of time? Explain.

In these letters to the editor , one reader makes a distinction between elementary school and high school:

Homework’s value is unclear for younger students. But by high school and college, homework is absolutely essential for any student who wishes to excel. There simply isn’t time to digest Dostoyevsky if you only ever read him in class.

What do you think? How much does grade level matter when discussing the value of homework?

Is there a way to make homework more effective?

If you were a teacher, would you assign homework? What kind of assignments would you give and why?

Want more writing prompts? You can find all of our questions in our Student Opinion column . Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate them into your classroom.

Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.

Jeremy Engle joined The Learning Network as a staff editor in 2018 after spending more than 20 years as a classroom humanities and documentary-making teacher, professional developer and curriculum designer working with students and teachers across the country. More about Jeremy Engle

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What’s the Right Amount of Homework?

Decades of research show that homework has some benefits, especially for students in middle and high school—but there are risks to assigning too much.

Many teachers and parents believe that homework helps students build study skills and review concepts learned in class. Others see homework as disruptive and unnecessary, leading to burnout and turning kids off to school. Decades of research show that the issue is more nuanced and complex than most people think: Homework is beneficial, but only to a degree. Students in high school gain the most, while younger kids benefit much less.

The National PTA and the National Education Association support the “ 10-minute homework guideline ”—a nightly 10 minutes of homework per grade level. But many teachers and parents are quick to point out that what matters is the quality of the homework assigned and how well it meets students’ needs, not the amount of time spent on it.

The guideline doesn’t account for students who may need to spend more—or less—time on assignments. In class, teachers can make adjustments to support struggling students, but at home, an assignment that takes one student 30 minutes to complete may take another twice as much time—often for reasons beyond their control. And homework can widen the achievement gap, putting students from low-income households and students with learning disabilities at a disadvantage.

However, the 10-minute guideline is useful in setting a limit: When kids spend too much time on homework, there are real consequences to consider.

Small Benefits for Elementary Students

As young children begin school, the focus should be on cultivating a love of learning, and assigning too much homework can undermine that goal. And young students often don’t have the study skills to benefit fully from homework, so it may be a poor use of time (Cooper, 1989 ; Cooper et al., 2006 ; Marzano & Pickering, 2007 ). A more effective activity may be nightly reading, especially if parents are involved. The benefits of reading are clear: If students aren’t proficient readers by the end of third grade, they’re less likely to succeed academically and graduate from high school (Fiester, 2013 ).

For second-grade teacher Jacqueline Fiorentino, the minor benefits of homework did not outweigh the potential drawback of turning young children against school at an early age, so she experimented with dropping mandatory homework. “Something surprising happened: They started doing more work at home,” Fiorentino writes . “This inspiring group of 8-year-olds used their newfound free time to explore subjects and topics of interest to them.” She encouraged her students to read at home and offered optional homework to extend classroom lessons and help them review material.

Moderate Benefits for Middle School Students

As students mature and develop the study skills necessary to delve deeply into a topic—and to retain what they learn—they also benefit more from homework. Nightly assignments can help prepare them for scholarly work, and research shows that homework can have moderate benefits for middle school students (Cooper et al., 2006 ). Recent research also shows that online math homework, which can be designed to adapt to students’ levels of understanding, can significantly boost test scores (Roschelle et al., 2016 ).

There are risks to assigning too much, however: A 2015 study found that when middle school students were assigned more than 90 to 100 minutes of daily homework, their math and science test scores began to decline (Fernández-Alonso, Suárez-Álvarez, & Muñiz, 2015 ). Crossing that upper limit can drain student motivation and focus. The researchers recommend that “homework should present a certain level of challenge or difficulty, without being so challenging that it discourages effort.” Teachers should avoid low-effort, repetitive assignments, and assign homework “with the aim of instilling work habits and promoting autonomous, self-directed learning.”

In other words, it’s the quality of homework that matters, not the quantity. Brian Sztabnik, a veteran middle and high school English teacher, suggests that teachers take a step back and ask themselves these five questions :

• How long will it take to complete?
• Have all learners been considered?
• Will an assignment encourage future success?
• Will an assignment place material in a context the classroom cannot?
• Does an assignment offer support when a teacher is not there?

More Benefits for High School Students, but Risks as Well

By the time they reach high school, students should be well on their way to becoming independent learners, so homework does provide a boost to learning at this age, as long as it isn’t overwhelming (Cooper et al., 2006 ; Marzano & Pickering, 2007 ). When students spend too much time on homework—more than two hours each night—it takes up valuable time to rest and spend time with family and friends. A 2013 study found that high school students can experience serious mental and physical health problems, from higher stress levels to sleep deprivation, when assigned too much homework (Galloway, Conner, & Pope, 2013 ).

Homework in high school should always relate to the lesson and be doable without any assistance, and feedback should be clear and explicit.

Teachers should also keep in mind that not all students have equal opportunities to finish their homework at home, so incomplete homework may not be a true reflection of their learning—it may be more a result of issues they face outside of school. They may be hindered by issues such as lack of a quiet space at home, resources such as a computer or broadband connectivity, or parental support (OECD, 2014 ). In such cases, giving low homework scores may be unfair.

Since the quantities of time discussed here are totals, teachers in middle and high school should be aware of how much homework other teachers are assigning. It may seem reasonable to assign 30 minutes of daily homework, but across six subjects, that’s three hours—far above a reasonable amount even for a high school senior. Psychologist Maurice Elias sees this as a common mistake: Individual teachers create homework policies that in aggregate can overwhelm students. He suggests that teachers work together to develop a school-wide homework policy and make it a key topic of back-to-school night and the first parent-teacher conferences of the school year.

Parents Play a Key Role

Homework can be a powerful tool to help parents become more involved in their child’s learning (Walker et al., 2004 ). It can provide insights into a child’s strengths and interests, and can also encourage conversations about a child’s life at school. If a parent has positive attitudes toward homework, their children are more likely to share those same values, promoting academic success.

But it’s also possible for parents to be overbearing, putting too much emphasis on test scores or grades, which can be disruptive for children (Madjar, Shklar, & Moshe, 2015 ). Parents should avoid being overly intrusive or controlling—students report feeling less motivated to learn when they don’t have enough space and autonomy to do their homework (Orkin, May, & Wolf, 2017 ; Patall, Cooper, & Robinson, 2008 ; Silinskas & Kikas, 2017 ). So while homework can encourage parents to be more involved with their kids, it’s important to not make it a source of conflict.

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More than two hours of homework may be counterproductive, research suggests.

A Stanford education researcher found that too much homework can negatively affect kids, especially their lives away from school, where family, friends and activities matter.   "Our findings on the effects of homework challenge the traditional assumption that homework is inherently good," wrote Denise Pope , a senior lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and a co-author of a study published in the Journal of Experimental Education .   The researchers used survey data to examine perceptions about homework, student well-being and behavioral engagement in a sample of 4,317 students from 10 high-performing high schools in upper-middle-class California communities. Along with the survey data, Pope and her colleagues used open-ended answers to explore the students' views on homework.   Median household income exceeded $90,000 in these communities, and 93 percent of the students went on to college, either two-year or four-year.   Students in these schools average about 3.1 hours of homework each night.   "The findings address how current homework practices in privileged, high-performing schools sustain students' advantage in competitive climates yet hinder learning, full engagement and well-being," Pope wrote.   Pope and her colleagues found that too much homework can diminish its effectiveness and even be counterproductive. They cite prior research indicating that homework benefits plateau at about two hours per night, and that 90 minutes to two and a half hours is optimal for high school.   Their study found that too much homework is associated with:   • Greater stress : 56 percent of the students considered homework a primary source of stress, according to the survey data. Forty-three percent viewed tests as a primary stressor, while 33 percent put the pressure to get good grades in that category. Less than 1 percent of the students said homework was not a stressor.   • Reductions in health : In their open-ended answers, many students said their homework load led to sleep deprivation and other health problems. The researchers asked students whether they experienced health issues such as headaches, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, weight loss and stomach problems.   • Less time for friends, family and extracurricular pursuits : Both the survey data and student responses indicate that spending too much time on homework meant that students were "not meeting their developmental needs or cultivating other critical life skills," according to the researchers. Students were more likely to drop activities, not see friends or family, and not pursue hobbies they enjoy.   A balancing act   The results offer empirical evidence that many students struggle to find balance between homework, extracurricular activities and social time, the researchers said. Many students felt forced or obligated to choose homework over developing other talents or skills.   Also, there was no relationship between the time spent on homework and how much the student enjoyed it. The research quoted students as saying they often do homework they see as "pointless" or "mindless" in order to keep their grades up.   "This kind of busy work, by its very nature, discourages learning and instead promotes doing homework simply to get points," said Pope, who is also a co-founder of Challenge Success , a nonprofit organization affiliated with the GSE that conducts research and works with schools and parents to improve students' educational experiences..   Pope said the research calls into question the value of assigning large amounts of homework in high-performing schools. Homework should not be simply assigned as a routine practice, she said.   "Rather, any homework assigned should have a purpose and benefit, and it should be designed to cultivate learning and development," wrote Pope.   High-performing paradox   In places where students attend high-performing schools, too much homework can reduce their time to foster skills in the area of personal responsibility, the researchers concluded. "Young people are spending more time alone," they wrote, "which means less time for family and fewer opportunities to engage in their communities."   Student perspectives   The researchers say that while their open-ended or "self-reporting" methodology to gauge student concerns about homework may have limitations – some might regard it as an opportunity for "typical adolescent complaining" – it was important to learn firsthand what the students believe.   The paper was co-authored by Mollie Galloway from Lewis and Clark College and Jerusha Conner from Villanova University.

Clifton B. Parker is a writer at the Stanford News Service .

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The learning network | do teachers assign too much homework.

Do Teachers Assign Too Much Homework?

Questions about issues in the news for students 13 and older.

• See All Student Opinion »

When you get home after school, how much homework will you do? Will it keep you up late at night? Will it cause stress in your family? Or do you have homework under control?

Do teachers assign too much homework?

In the article “The Homework Squabbles,” Bruce Feiler writes:

Homework has a branding problem. Or, to be a little less pointy-headed about it, everybody hates homework. Scan through the parenting shelves, and the frustration is palpable: “The Case Against Homework,” “The Homework Trap,” “The End of Homework.” Glance through glossy magazines, and the enmity is ubiquitous: “The Homework Wars” (The Atlantic), “The Myth About Homework” (Time), “Do Kids Have Too Much Homework?” (Smithsonian). Heck, just drop the word into any conversation with families and watch the temperature rise. Some of this is cyclical, of course. Homework goes back to the onset of formal schooling in America and was popular in an era when the brain was viewed as a muscle to be strengthened. The first backlash began in the early 20th century as repetitive drilling came under attack, and by the ’40s, homework had lost favor. The launch of Sputnik in 1957 generated hysteria that we were losing ground to the Soviet Union, and more homework was one response, but the practice again waned in the 1960s. Homework came roaring back after “A Nation at Risk” in the 1980s as Americans again feared their children were falling behind. Today’s tension echoes this back and forth. “The Chinese do six hours of homework before breakfast — we have to keep up” versus “Play is more important than make-work. Google wants people who are ‘creative’.”

Students: Read the entire article, then tell us …

— Do your teachers assign too much homework? Or do you have just the right amount?

— Does homework cause stress and tension in your family ? Or does it create opportunities to work together with your parents or siblings?

— Does it get in the way of sleep or extracurricular activities? Or are you able to manage the right balance?

— How do you usually get your homework done? At home or at school? In a quiet room, or with family or friends around? Do you tend to work alone, or do your parents or friends help?

— Is homework, including projects and writing assignments you do at home, an important part of your learning experience? Or is it not a good use of time, in your opinion? Explain.

Students 13 and older are invited to comment below. Please use only your first name . For privacy policy reasons, we will not publish student comments that include a last name.

Comments are no longer being accepted.

when i get home i do AT LEAST 2 hours of homework and since i got into 7th grade i have no time for hobbies or fun. in a word, it just stinks.

I personally believe that teachers do give a fair amount of homework. Yes some days we do have more homework than others, also some teachers give more homework than others. A page or two of homework for each class is not a big deal but when each teacher assigns two pages of homework a night that’s about ten pages to do when you get home. Children also have after school activity’s, with some children not getting out until late. When you have hours of homework that can be stressful and hard as well. Taking the child out of the after school activity you say could be beneficial to the students education, on the other hand what could is do for them physically. Once they get done with homework would they spend their time on social media and technology? Everything you can do about homework is going to have something you will have to lose. Not saying homework does not help the student but also takes a way sleep and rest for the student as well. Making a child go to school non well rested could damage there learning. Falling asleep in class, not paying attention, and focusing on something else, perhaps unfinished homework for another class. Homework is a good thing and in some ways not so much, just depending on how much is assigned and how much time you have to do it.

I think there are teachers who give just the right amount but i also think there are teachers that dont relise we have homework from other teachers to and theres no way we could finish that all in one night. I think it gets in the way of my sleep all the time and i never have time for extracurriculars any more. I usually do my homework in my room with no one else arond because they get me destracted and i never get finished.

When I have homework, I normally do it wherever I am and I have time to do it. But, it is more difficult for me to do my homework when it’s loud, so I usually prefer to be somewhere quiet. I also prefer working alone because then I stay focused and can do my work without any disruption. On the topic of homework, I also do think that my teachers are assigning too much homework every night. I don’t think some teachers keep the students that do extracurricular activities, like myself, in mind when they are giving homework. They need to consider the student’s life because we wake up very early to go to school for 7 hours, and then after school some students go to a sport practice or a meeting for the club they are in, and then being expected to do at least 3 or more hours of homework is ridiculous. Students are loosing sleep more and more every day, making it harder for students to listen and focus in class. Too much homework is like a domino effect for many students.

I believe teachers do assign too much homework for students. It causes us to become stressed when we have a lot of homework to do. I have stayed up really late just to finish my homework and the lack of sleep effects me a lot the next day. I have a hard time staying awake and the lack of sleep just keeps building. Students have other things to do after school besides homework, like sports practices or games. They get home later then usual and they are expected to do their homework and be ready to go the next day. I believe the amount of homework given to students is too much with all of the other stuff going on in their lives.

In my opinion, I think it’s not entirely the teacher’s fault for giving us much homework because sometimes kids just fall behind in class work and that makes homework for them. One issue though is when each class has homework for you. For me it’s difficult to do all 5 classes homework because most of the time, one assignment is more important than another and sometime they contradict each other. Homework can be quite stressful when it’s mainly sitting down for hours at a time thinking, writing, and clarifying. Most parents look at homework and think, “I don’t know anything about this”. Honestly, the curriculum has changed that much that not even our parents understand it. Mainly math and science, and even physics. It can be quite annoying when you need help and get distressed over homework. I was up until 1am doing homework and I had to stop because my back hurt, I was tired, and I didn’t even get the chance to study for a test because I was just exhausted. I didn’t even get to sleep until near 2 in the morning. Talk about sleep deprivation.

Homework is a very controversial topic. Some kids say it helps with learning on there own. Others believe that its a waste of time. To me, it depends on what class the homework is for and how much homework it is. I’m okay with fifteen to thirty minutes of homework, but that about it. Being a high schooler, you are expected to do lots of homework. But I don’t believe that. We spend 7 hours of our day already in classes and I don’t think doing another hour of homework is helpful. It adds more stress onto an already stressful lifestyle. If you get home at 6 from sports, and start your homework at 7, and you are up until 12, I don’t think that is fair to students. Everyone has there opinion on homework. Some love it, some hate it. Some think its quicker to finish while laying in bed, and some think its better to do at the kitchen table. It all depends on your lifestyle and how you see fit.

I think that each teacher gives out the right amount of homework, but the reason it seems like a lot is because each teacher gives out homework. Say if you only get your average amount math homework, but no other classes, that’s fine, right? but adding in the average amount for every class, and it’s a lot. Homework does get in the way of my sleep because I usually go to sleep at 10 but if I get 3 different homework assignments, which is what I tend to get now, I have to stay up until 11:30. I also do track as an extracurricular acivity, track meets usually go from 3:00 pm and end at around 9:30 pm. on normal days I start my homework at 6:00 and end at 10:30 but if I got home at 9:30 and couldn’t do my homework at the meet then I will end up having to get it done at 1:30 but of course I’ll stop at 11:00 and do the rest in the morning and during lunch break. I think the teachers are giving the right amount eahc, but not all together.

Does it get in the way of sleep or extracurricular activities? Or are you able to manage the right balance?

Coming from a very small school, I see that almost every student is involved in some type of extracurricular activity which take places outside of school hours. Personally when I get back later in the day from practice or a game, the last thing I want to do is spend hours on homework. I think teachers should give students homework if they feel it is important to practice what they are being taught; however, I think some teachers give an excessive amount and it is unnecessary. I think it would be best if each teacher only gave an assignment that at tops would take 15-20 to complete. This way it would be enough to get some practice in without taking a long time and not focusing the whole time.

Teachers do assign to much homework and i think that they shouldn’t assign any, we go to school to learn not to just bring the learning and work home. Homework does get in the way of sleep and extracurricular activities, i just don’t have the time to finish or even start my homework, i could stay up and do my homework but then i would be tired for the next day. I feel that by doing projects and writing assignments at home is not a productive way of learning because why would i want to do something at home where i can’t ask a teacher any questions.

In my thoughts, I believe homework does help the criteria of learning, but too much of it doesn’t. When I have to stay up all night just trying to finish my homework is ridiculous. If I’m not getting enough sleep, then I’m going to be dreading on the next day of school and I’m not going to be focused. Plus, I play year round sports and I have practice every day after school, and games at least twice a week. I do my homework alone in my room, because I tend to work better where it’s quiet and where I’m working alone. Teacher’s and coaches say to do your homework on a bus, but that’s nearly impossible when it’s dark and loud and the bus is not nearly stable. In my opinion, it doesn’t help me when they give a boat load of homework every single night, to where you’re not getting any sleep, or to where you can barely function the next day.

Homework has always been a burden for me and now that I am a 10th grader it has been even more of a hassle getting in the way with my sport(running) and friends. I have a Spanish teacher who gives homework daily that usually is easy as long as I keep up with class and I know what I am doing. The homework that I get from other teachers can vary and comes mostly in chunks. I will have no homework one day and then 3 days worth the next. After coming home from practice that can end as late as 7 pm to 5 pm (the earliest) it is hard and stressful to keep up. I am fine about having homework but it cant be enough to not let me sleep or have some free time.

I think, for the most part, teachers give too much homework. Homework causes a lot of stress and tension in my family. It’s a pain having to listen to my parents and siblings argue with each other about doing homework every single night. Some nights when I have a lot of stuff going on that’s not school related, I have to miss out on sleep to get my homework done, or I’ll blow off my homework and my grade will lower, all because I was tired and wanted to sleep. I do understand that if you want to learn, you need to study and practice, but teachers should give students more time in school to do work so they have time outside of school to do activities that they really enjoy and make them happy. Homework causes so much unnecessary stress that students shouldn’t have to go through.

Over the four years that I have been in high school, I’ve had my fair share of homework. Of course there have been days where I have very little, but then there are other days where each teachers continuously add to my work load. If teachers found a good way to balance out the work with each class, homework and the stress it carries with it would not be as bad. But that often doesn’t happen. For me, the reason it becomes so stressful is simply because of how busy I am. It’s not because I don’t care about my grades, or I see homework as totally pointless, but being involved in sports takes up a lot of my time, and I often have to hurry through homework, not really retaining the true purpose of it. However, when I do have enough time, I find that homework can help me understand new concepts better, because the more repetition I have with something, the better I get at it. Overall, I have mixed feelings about the idea of homework. It’s really only beneficial if there is not a surplus of it, and kids take the time to really focus. I also feel like homework should not be such a pressured thing, and it’s a better practice for teachers not to grade it, but simply go over it in class to reward the kids who did their work, but not punish them if they didn’t understand the concept and got problems wrong.

I’m conflicted about the homework subject, and I have become more conflicted as I have seen my own fourth-grade son struggle to keep up with his assignments this year. I think homework is important to build effective work habits and discipline. However, I don’t think all homework is created equal. I currently think that my fourth grader is being given too much homework. I particularly don’t like the assignment of writing 20 spelling words five times each. I still encourage him to do it, because I want him to have good habits.

I believe that teachers do assign too much homework and it can be hard for some students to keep up. Some students participate in after school activities such as sports, clubs, and music lessons, may have problems keeping up because of the amount of homework they are given. I believe that my teachers do assign too much homework and it is hard for me to get it all done and still be able to participate in the activities I love. For students in advanced classes a large amount of homework is okay and should be expected but having too much homework in their other classes can make it hard to stay caught up. Last year I had the opportunity of taking an advanced class and it was causing stress within my family. I get off the bus later than most students and then I have to watch my brother after school so it can be hard for me to get homework done when he is being loud. It can also be hard to get help from my parents when I don’t understand something because they don’t get home from work until late and homework can get in the way of family time.

i think homework is a good way to keep your mind in “school mode” but too much causes stress. I think schools should give less homework, but only an hour’s worth max.

Wake up at 6, come home at 4. Then after-school activities, then homework for 2 hours, then sleep for 8 hours. Then if you have chores, or jobs to do, then you have no time left at all to do anything else. Of course this causes stress.

For my school i do my H.W. until almost 12:00 at night and i get home around 2:30

My school rarely give us homework that make us stay up too late. But my little brother has tons of homework and hes only in 2nd grade. Some teachers are giving way too muchh homework to kids. they should give them less.

i think that kids do get too much homework. Its not fair to the students.

I think homework is good because it grows your brain even though we all hate it we need it but I think that we get too much. As a 8th grade student it causes a lot of stress and barely gives you time to talk,play.or sometimes even sleep. When I reach home I eat a snack then start my homework. Sometimes I don’t even finish until 8 and later. Our homework tasks are to finish essays do projects worksheets etc I do my homework on my own honestly I think they should keep homework but just not give out too much r at least make us do it in class

i think that when teachers give alot of homework it gives us students no time to have fun . When a teachers give us alot of homewok , we cant get to other activity’s like studying or exerciseing or hanging out with our friends .

I believe that some teachers assign a lot of homework but also some don’t. It just depends on what class the student is in. Homework doesn’t cause stress in my family because I do my homework alone in my room or else in the library during school. Sometimes when I have a lot of textbook homework I find myself with less time in the afternoon. I usually get my homework done at home in my room but I also like working in the library. I think students should do projects at school instead of home because we also have so much other homework to do.

Doing homework with your kids is less helpful than you think. You don’t actually, often, remember the material!! Encourage your kids to work with their friends, they will bounce ideas off each other, correct each others work, and learn better overall.

Does your kid have an iPhone? Try HuddleUp, a free homework collaboration app. It allows kids to work together remotely. They will feel like they are getting one over on you, yet instead they are learning and educating themselves.

What's Next

What Is Homework?

Homework is work that teachers give students to complete outside of the school day. Homework is meant to provide students with practice for what was learned in school or an extension of what was done in class. Students are expected to complete the homework and return to school with the completed homework assignment.

Why Do Teachers Give Homework?

Most teachers give students homework so that they can practice something that was taught to them during class.

For example, if a teacher is teaching students how to add decimal numbers then the homework assignment would be for students to try adding decimals at home independently.

In my science class I never give my students homework that isn’t meaningful or practice towards a learning standard.

Gone are the days of giving homework that is “busy work”.

Also, when students return the following day their homework assignment is incorporated into the lesson so they quickly figure out that completing homework is necessary.

Some teachers, myself included, will use homework as a formative assessment.

If you are unsure what formative assessments are then you need to check out this article I wrote recently.

What Does Homework Look Like?

Homework can be almost anything.

Some examples of homework may include a simple worksheet to complete, a long term project, research, reading, a journal entry, completing something online, a drawing, or the continuation of something started in school, and just about anything else.

Homework isn’t limited to one specific thing.

With my eight grade students I have assigned videos for them to watch, creating a slideshow, completing a CER (more about the CER here) , conduct a survey for data collection, and more.

I have even had them collect leaves to identify the following day in our science class!

If you are a teacher reading this make sure to make your homework assignments interesting and worthwhile, don’t just assign homework as busy work.

Do Teachers Have To Give Homework?

No, teachers don’t have to give homework.

Usually teachers have discretion whether or not they are going to assign homework.

Personally, the principal or school district I work for has no idea how often I assign homework or what I assign for homework.

This decision to give or not give homework solely comes down to the classroom teacher.

The Importance Of Homework

The importance of homework is a heavily debated topic these days.

On one hand you have teachers that will say it is necessary that students continue learning outside the classroom in order to be more successful inside the classroom.

On the other hand some teachers will say that homework isn’t necessary as long as students are working hard during the school day.

Another reason homework is seen as not necessary is because students these days are so busy out of school that they don’t have time to complete homework.

Who is right?

I’d say it’s probably somewhere in the middle.

There is nothing wrong with a little homework for students but it shouldn’t be assigned every night.

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I (Allen) am currently teaching at a public school in a western suburb of Chicago. My teaching career started in 2004. Some of my interests outside of teaching is being with my family, biking, playing video games, travelling, and making the Teacher Adviser website.

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A Teacher's Defense of Homework

If I didn't assign it, I'd never get through all the material I need to cover in a year. Plus, giving kids projects and deadlines is an essential way of preparing them for adulthood.

I am a parent, and I struggle daily with making sure my daughter does her homework. I can certainly identify with the anxiety Karl Taro Greenfeld describes in his essay “ My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me .” Here, however, I’d like to speak as a teacher rather than a parent. I’d like to explain why, in my professional opinion, American kids need homework.

I teach biology at the Charles School, a five-year early-college high school in Columbus, Ohio. I believe that my job is to prepare my students for college. In order to do that, I teach a wide variety of topics including cells, genetics, evolution, and ecology, using the National Science Standards . I teach each topic in depth so that the students understand and appreciate the information. I teach them about the scientific method, lab procedures, and scientific writing, all skills they will need in college. It’s a lot to fit into one short year, and my class requires a lot of effort from my students.

I require my students to read one chapter out of their textbook each week, and to complete a short take-home quiz on the material. It helps to supplement the notes I give in class, so that I can spend more class time on labs and other hands-on activities. I learned in college that hands-on work is the best way for students to learn, and that’s certainly true. However, it’s definitely not the most efficient way. So, if I’m going to offer interactive activities in class, I need students to put in some time and effort studying outside of class as well.

Other than the reading, most of the homework students bring home from my class is left over from the day’s activity. I often give time at the end of class so that students can begin on work when I’m there to help them. Our dean calls it “buying in”:  Students are much more likely to finish an assignment at home if I can convince them to start it in class. Unfortunately, many kids choose to socialize when I give them time to work on their own.  The students always say, “I’ll just do this for homework” and neglect to get much, if any, of the assignment done in class.  Then, they come home with a pile of homework, which many parents assume the teachers assigned at the end of class.

A few times a year, I require students to write a scientific paper. We spend a significant amount of time on these assignments at school, but effort outside of class is required as well. And I think that’s great. Schoolwork prepares students for work-related tasks, financial planning, and any project that ends with the feeling of a job well done. Long-term planning, projects, and deadlines are a key part of adulthood.

Nevertheless, some parents think their kids are getting too much work. One argument, which Greenfeld uses, is to compare American students with those in other countries. In his article, Greenfeld cites the fact that students in many overseas countries are scoring higher than American children, while being assigned less homework. He uses Japan as an example. In 2011, Japan was ranked fourth in science scores in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study . But according to a study cited in Greenfeld’s article, Japanese students are actually assigned less homework by their teachers. Why, then, do they achieve more? The answer comes when you look at the differences in our cultures and our views on education. Japanese teachers may not be assigning much homework, but it turns out that Japanese kids are doing plenty of homework anyway.   

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I spoke with Chris Spackman, who is the English as a Second Language coordinator at my school. Chris taught for 13 years in Japan, and served on the Board of Education in the city of Kanazawa. I asked him why Japanese kids are scoring so high on achievement tests despite having relatively little homework. “Because Japanese kids go to juku ,” he answered. He went on to explain that juku is a common after-school program that prepares Japanese kids for achievement testing. In Japan, senior high school is not required or guaranteed.  Instead, students compete for spots at prestigious high schools by scoring high on achievement tests.  “Some schools are for art, or college prep,” says Chris.  “You have to study hard in junior high to get into the high school that you want.”  In high school, Japanese kids continue to go to juku so that they can get into the college they want as well. So, Japanese kids do academic work outside of school, just not necessarily work assigned by their classroom teacher.

There is room for compromise on the homework debate. In their book Reforming Homework , Richard Walker and Mike Horsley state that while homework isn’t very beneficial for younger kids, it’s still beneficial for older students. I agree. I’ve learned, while preparing my students to start college early, that study skills become much more important than they were in primary school.  It’s also important for teachers to assign work that’s high in quality, instead of quantity.  The vast majority of teachers I know are careful to only assign work that’s important for student success.  Remember, teachers have to grade all of these assignments – we wouldn’t want to spend extra time grading papers that have no value.

In the comments on Greenfeld’s article, some readers assume that teachers don’t have our students’ best interests at heart. But usually, teachers who aren’t incredibly devoted to their students don’t last in the profession. The teachers who do stay are committed to giving the best education to their students. We wouldn’t be assigning that homework, giving that test, or reading that book if we didn’t truly believe it was worthwhile. All we ask is that you trust us, just a little.

Should Kids Get Homework?

Homework gives elementary students a way to practice concepts, but too much can be harmful, experts say.

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Effective homework reinforces math, reading, writing or spelling skills, but in a way that's meaningful.

How much homework students should get has long been a source of debate among parents and educators. In recent years, some districts have even implemented no-homework policies, as students juggle sports, music and other activities after school.

Parents of elementary school students, in particular, have argued that after-school hours should be spent with family or playing outside rather than completing assignments. And there is little research to show that homework improves academic achievement for elementary students.

But some experts say there's value in homework, even for younger students. When done well, it can help students practice core concepts and develop study habits and time management skills. The key to effective homework, they say, is keeping assignments related to classroom learning, and tailoring the amount by age: Many experts suggest no homework for kindergartners, and little to none in first and second grade.

Value of Homework

Homework provides a chance to solidify what is being taught in the classroom that day, week or unit. Practice matters, says Janine Bempechat, clinical professor at Boston University 's Wheelock College of Education & Human Development.

"There really is no other domain of human ability where anybody would say you don't need to practice," she adds. "We have children practicing piano and we have children going to sports practice several days a week after school. You name the domain of ability and practice is in there."

Homework is also the place where schools and families most frequently intersect.

"The children are bringing things from the school into the home," says Paula S. Fass, professor emerita of history at the University of California—Berkeley and the author of "The End of American Childhood." "Before the pandemic, (homework) was the only real sense that parents had to what was going on in schools."

Harris Cooper, professor emeritus of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University and author of "The Battle Over Homework," examined more than 60 research studies on homework between 1987 and 2003 and found that — when designed properly — homework can lead to greater student success. Too much, however, is harmful. And homework has a greater positive effect on students in secondary school (grades 7-12) than those in elementary.

"Every child should be doing homework, but the amount and type that they're doing should be appropriate for their developmental level," he says. "For teachers, it's a balancing act. Doing away with homework completely is not in the best interest of children and families. But overburdening families with homework is also not in the child's or a family's best interest."

Negative Homework Assignments

Not all homework for elementary students involves completing a worksheet. Assignments can be fun, says Cooper, like having students visit educational locations, keep statistics on their favorite sports teams, read for pleasure or even help their parents grocery shop. The point is to show students that activities done outside of school can relate to subjects learned in the classroom.

But assignments that are just busy work, that force students to learn new concepts at home, or that are overly time-consuming can be counterproductive, experts say.

Homework that's just busy work.

Effective homework reinforces math, reading, writing or spelling skills, but in a way that's meaningful, experts say. Assignments that look more like busy work – projects or worksheets that don't require teacher feedback and aren't related to topics learned in the classroom – can be frustrating for students and create burdens for families.

"The mental health piece has definitely played a role here over the last couple of years during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the last thing we want to do is frustrate students with busy work or homework that makes no sense," says Dave Steckler, principal of Red Trail Elementary School in Mandan, North Dakota.

Homework on material that kids haven't learned yet.

With the pressure to cover all topics on standardized tests and limited time during the school day, some teachers assign homework that has not yet been taught in the classroom.

Not only does this create stress, but it also causes equity challenges. Some parents speak languages other than English or work several jobs, and they aren't able to help teach their children new concepts.

" It just becomes agony for both parents and the kids to get through this worksheet, and the goal becomes getting to the bottom of (the) worksheet with answers filled in without any understanding of what any of it matters for," says professor Susan R. Goldman, co-director of the Learning Sciences Research Institute at the University of Illinois—Chicago .

Homework that's overly time-consuming.

The standard homework guideline recommended by the National Parent Teacher Association and the National Education Association is the "10-minute rule" – 10 minutes of nightly homework per grade level. A fourth grader, for instance, would receive a total of 40 minutes of homework per night.

But this does not always happen, especially since not every student learns the same. A 2015 study published in the American Journal of Family Therapy found that primary school children actually received three times the recommended amount of homework — and that family stress increased along with the homework load.

Young children can only remain attentive for short periods, so large amounts of homework, especially lengthy projects, can negatively affect students' views on school. Some individual long-term projects – like having to build a replica city, for example – typically become an assignment for parents rather than students, Fass says.

"It's one thing to assign a project like that in which several kids are working on it together," she adds. "In (that) case, the kids do normally work on it. It's another to send it home to the families, where it becomes a burden and doesn't really accomplish very much."

Private vs. Public Schools

Do private schools assign more homework than public schools? There's little research on the issue, but experts say private school parents may be more accepting of homework, seeing it as a sign of academic rigor.

Of course, not all private schools are the same – some focus on college preparation and traditional academics, while others stress alternative approaches to education.

"I think in the academically oriented private schools, there's more support for homework from parents," says Gerald K. LeTendre, chair of educational administration at Pennsylvania State University—University Park . "I don't know if there's any research to show there's more homework, but it's less of a contentious issue."

How to Address Homework Overload

First, assess if the workload takes as long as it appears. Sometimes children may start working on a homework assignment, wander away and come back later, Cooper says.

"Parents don't see it, but they know that their child has started doing their homework four hours ago and still not done it," he adds. "They don't see that there are those four hours where their child was doing lots of other things. So the homework assignment itself actually is not four hours long. It's the way the child is approaching it."

But if homework is becoming stressful or workload is excessive, experts suggest parents first approach the teacher, followed by a school administrator.

"Many times, we can solve a lot of issues by having conversations," Steckler says, including by "sitting down, talking about the amount of homework, and what's appropriate and not appropriate."

Study Tips for High School Students

Tags: K-12 education , students , elementary school , children

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Reflections on Teaching

Should Teacher’s Assign Homework?

Teaching and research go hand in hand. Teachers study and discuss research every day in their classes. In the future when I’m a teacher I will be researching information that I can integrate into my lessons and then studying and discussing it with my students.

There is a debate on whether or not students should be given homework. After doing some research of my own I believe that most homework should simply be work that did not get completed in class. Since I am an English Education major and plan on teaching at the high school level I understand that it is necessary to assign a certain level of homework. For example, papers are a necessary assignment because it is my job to teach my students how to write critically. However, it is not necessary to assign a two page paper every week. Instead, four papers per year is sufficient enough to teach the student the skills that they need and for the students to improve upon those skills. The homework that would be assigned on a day-to-day basis would be reading parts of a book that the class did not finish during class.

The reason I think homework should be limited is because too much of it can be detrimental to a student since many have extracurricular activities. According to Natalie Wolchover in her article, Too Much Homework is Bad for Kids , “data shows that in countries where more time is spent on homework, students score lower on a standardized test called the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA”. The article also talks about how the study came to the same conclusions about students who spend more time on their homework. There are many more studies out there like this that prove giving students a lot of homework does not improve their grades and ability to master the subject, and in fact more homework can have a negative impact on the students’ work.

Brock, Cynthia H (2007). Does Homework Matter? An Investigation of Teacher Perceptions About Homework Practices for Children From Nondominant Backgrounds, Vol. 42 (4). 349-372. https://libproxy.uww.edu:4053/10.1177/0042085907304277

Hinchey, Pat. Why Kids Say They Don’t Do Homework, Vol. 69 (4).

Jianzhong, Xu (2009). Homework Purpose Scale for High School Students: A Validation Study, Vol. 70 (3). 459-476. https://libproxy.uww.edu:4053/10.1177/0013164409344517

Natalie Wolchover. (2012, March 30). Too Much Homework Is Bad For Kids. Retrieved February 6, 2017, from Live Science, http://www.livescience.com/19379-homework-bad-kids.html

One thought on “Should Teacher’s Assign Homework?”

I completely agree with you that homework should be limited. I think it is important for students to be able to still be kids and have time for extracurricular activities. I understand that for some classes some homework is necessary, but I wonder if teachers who pile on the homework are being as effective as they can be in the classroom? As a future art teacher I will rarely assign homework because most of the work will be done in class. I think it is important for teachers to reflect on if the homework they are assigning is too much and if it is actually significant in their learning. Ohanian (2007) brings up the question “what’s all this homework overload doing to kids’ psyches?” (p. 41). I agree with you that too much homework can have negative affects on students and found the research you provided enlightening.

References Ohanian, S. (2007). The homework revolution. Encounter, 20(4), 40-43.

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Why more and more teachers are joining the anti-homework movement

The word homework doesn’t just elicit groans from students. Many veteran educators aren’t fans of it either.

Barbara Tollison, a high school English teacher with nearly four decades in the classroom, stopped assigning homework five years ago. In lieu of writing papers, she asks her 10th graders in San Marcos, California, to read more books before bed.

“For the kids who understand the information, additional practice is unnecessary,” she told TODAY Parents . “The kids who need more support are going to go home and not do it right. It's just going to confuse them more. They don’t have the understanding and they need guidance.”

Tollison is part of a growing movement that believes learners can thrive academically without homework. According to Alfie Kohn, author of “ The Homework Myth ,” there’s never a good excuse for making kids work a second shift of academics in elementary and middle school.

“In high school, it’s a little more nuanced,” Kohn told TODAY Parents . “Some research has found a tiny correlation between doing more homework and doing better on standardized tests . But No. 1, standardized tests are a lousy measure of learning. No. 2, the correlation is small. And No. 3, it doesn’t prove a causal relationship. In other words, just because the same kids who get more homework do a little better on tests, doesn’t mean the homework made that happen.”

Kohn noted that “newer, better” studies are showing that the downside of homework is just as profound in 16-year-olds as it is in 8-year-olds, in terms of causing causing anxiety, a loss of interest in learning and family conflict.

Parents Is homework robbing your family of joy? You're not alone

“For my book, I interviewed high school teachers who completely stopped giving homework and there was no downside, it was all upside,” he shared.

“There just isn’t a good argument in favor of homework,” Kohn said.

Katie Sluiter, an 8th grade teacher in Michigan, couldn’t agree more. She believes that the bulk of instruction and support should happen in the classroom.

“What I realized early on in my career is that the kids who don’t need the practice are the only ones doing their homework,” Sluiter told TODAY Parents .

Sluiter added that homework is stressful and inequitable. Many children, especially those from lower-income families, have little chance of being successful with work being sent home.

“So many things are out of the student’s control, like the ability to have a quiet place to do homework,” Sluiter explained. “In my district, there are many parents that don’t speak any English, so they’re not going to be able to help with their child’s social studies homework. Some kids are responsible for watching their younger siblings after school.”

Parents Too much homework? Study shows elementary kids get 3 times more than they should

Sluiter also doesn’t want to add “an extra pile of stress” to already over-scheduled lives.

“Middle school is hard enough without worrying, ‘Did I get my conjunctions sheet done?’” she said. “It’s ridiculous. It’s just too much. We need to let them be kids."

Kohn, who has written 14 books on parenting and education, previously told TODAY that moms and dads should speak up on behalf of their children.

"If your child's teacher never assigns homework, take a moment to thank them for doing what's in your child's best interest — and for acknowledging that families, not schools, ought to decide what happens during family time," he said. "If your child is getting homework, organize a bunch of parents to meet with the teacher and administrators — not to ask, 'Why so much?' but, given that the research says it's all pain and no gain, to ask, 'Why is there any?'"

Related video:

Rachel Paula Abrahamson is a lifestyle reporter who writes for the parenting, health and shop verticals. Her bylines have appeared in The New York Times, Good Housekeeping, Redbook, and elsewhere. Rachel lives in the Boston area with her husband and their two daughters. Follow her on Instagram .

School Life Balance , Tips for Online Students

The Pros and Cons of Homework

Updated: December 7, 2023

Published: January 23, 2020

Homework is a word that most students dread hearing. After hours upon hours of sitting in class , the last thing we want is more schoolwork over our precious weekends. While it’s known to be a staple of traditional schooling, homework has also become a rather divise topic. Some feel as though homework is a necessary part of school, while others believe that the time could be better invested. Should students have homework? Have a closer look into the arguments on both sides to decide for yourself.

Photo by  energepic.com  from  Pexels

Why should students have homework, 1. homework encourages practice.

Many people believe that one of the positive effects of homework is that it encourages the discipline of practice. While it may be time consuming and boring compared to other activities, repetition is needed to get better at skills. Homework helps make concepts more clear, and gives students more opportunities when starting their career .

2. Homework Gets Parents Involved

Homework can be something that gets parents involved in their children’s lives if the environment is a healthy one. A parent helping their child with homework makes them take part in their academic success, and allows for the parent to keep up with what the child is doing in school. It can also be a chance to connect together.

3. Homework Teaches Time Management

Homework is much more than just completing the assigned tasks. Homework can develop time management skills , forcing students to plan their time and make sure that all of their homework assignments are done on time. By learning to manage their time, students also practice their problem-solving skills and independent thinking. One of the positive effects of homework is that it forces decision making and compromises to be made.

4. Homework Opens A Bridge Of Communication

Homework creates a connection between the student, the teacher, the school, and the parents. It allows everyone to get to know each other better, and parents can see where their children are struggling. In the same sense, parents can also see where their children are excelling. Homework in turn can allow for a better, more targeted educational plan for the student.

5. Homework Allows For More Learning Time

Homework allows for more time to complete the learning process. School hours are not always enough time for students to really understand core concepts, and homework can counter the effects of time shortages, benefiting students in the long run, even if they can’t see it in the moment.

6. Homework Reduces Screen Time

Many students in North America spend far too many hours watching TV. If they weren’t in school, these numbers would likely increase even more. Although homework is usually undesired, it encourages better study habits and discourages spending time in front of the TV. Homework can be seen as another extracurricular activity, and many families already invest a lot of time and money in different clubs and lessons to fill up their children’s extra time. Just like extracurricular activities, homework can be fit into one’s schedule.

The Other Side: Why Homework Is Bad

1. homework encourages a sedentary lifestyle.

Should students have homework? Well, that depends on where you stand. There are arguments both for the advantages and the disadvantages of homework.

While classroom time is important, playground time is just as important. If children are given too much homework, they won’t have enough playtime, which can impact their social development and learning. Studies have found that those who get more play get better grades in school , as it can help them pay closer attention in the classroom.

Children are already sitting long hours in the classroom, and homework assignments only add to these hours. Sedentary lifestyles can be dangerous and can cause health problems such as obesity. Homework takes away from time that could be spent investing in physical activity.

2. Homework Isn’t Healthy In Every Home

While many people that think homes are a beneficial environment for children to learn, not all homes provide a healthy environment, and there may be very little investment from parents. Some parents do not provide any kind of support or homework help, and even if they would like to, due to personal barriers, they sometimes cannot. Homework can create friction between children and their parents, which is one of the reasons why homework is bad .

3. Homework Adds To An Already Full-Time Job

School is already a full-time job for students, as they generally spend over 6 hours each day in class. Students also often have extracurricular activities such as sports, music, or art that are just as important as their traditional courses. Adding on extra hours to all of these demands is a lot for children to manage, and prevents students from having extra time to themselves for a variety of creative endeavors. Homework prevents self discovery and having the time to learn new skills outside of the school system. This is one of the main disadvantages of homework.

4. Homework Has Not Been Proven To Provide Results

Endless surveys have found that homework creates a negative attitude towards school, and homework has not been found to be linked to a higher level of academic success.

The positive effects of homework have not been backed up enough. While homework may help some students improve in specific subjects, if they have outside help there is no real proof that homework makes for improvements.

It can be a challenge to really enforce the completion of homework, and students can still get decent grades without doing their homework. Extra school time does not necessarily mean better grades — quality must always come before quantity.

Accurate practice when it comes to homework simply isn’t reliable. Homework could even cause opposite effects if misunderstood, especially since the reliance is placed on the student and their parents — one of the major reasons as to why homework is bad. Many students would rather cheat in class to avoid doing their homework at home, and children often just copy off of each other or from what they read on the internet.

5. Homework Assignments Are Overdone

The general agreement is that students should not be given more than 10 minutes a day per grade level. What this means is that a first grader should be given a maximum of 10 minutes of homework, while a second grader receives 20 minutes, etc. Many students are given a lot more homework than the recommended amount, however.

On average, college students spend as much as 3 hours per night on homework . By giving too much homework, it can increase stress levels and lead to burn out. This in turn provides an opposite effect when it comes to academic success.

The pros and cons of homework are both valid, and it seems as though the question of ‘‘should students have homework?’ is not a simple, straightforward one. Parents and teachers often are found to be clashing heads, while the student is left in the middle without much say.

It’s important to understand all the advantages and disadvantages of homework, taking both perspectives into conversation to find a common ground. At the end of the day, everyone’s goal is the success of the student.

Related Articles

The Liberty Champion

The official student newspaper of Liberty University

Is Homework Really Necessary?

Did you get all your homework done?

We’ve all heard that phrase one too many times before, and now it triggers your fight-or-flight response. Every waking thought is about an assignment you should be doing or that project you really should start but you just can’t bring yourself to face it. Is all this homework really necessary?  

Unfortunately, it just might be. Is the homework itself the problem, or is it the amount we end up with after classes are over for the day and your bed is looking really comfy? To figure all this out we have to remember why we get homework in the first place and what school would be like without it.  

In the very early 1900s, homework was actually considered unhealthy for children and was classified as child labor because it interfered with their ability to do chores around the house. The U.S. Department of Education called homework a tool for “boosting educational quality” when it was reinstated, and it became mandatory in 1986 after being rejected for so long, as recorded by the University of San Diego.  

It’s always good to look at the pros and cons of something when deciding how you feel about it. So, what does homework do for us? Quite a few things actually.  

First let’s address the elephant in the room. No one enjoys homework unless you’re a camp and outdoor adventure leadership (COAL) major. We all have something we would rather spend our time on; that’s just the way it is.  

However, when that test rolls around, most of us are glad we stayed late at the library until we understood what we were reading. According to the University of San Diego, students only absorb 50% of what they hear in a class lecture. If that’s all you had to learn from, keeping your GPA above a 3.5 would be considered a superpower.  

Whether we like it or not, homework helps us retain important information and truly grasp the concepts we are studying. Hearing about it once from your professor is great, but life as a college student is so busy that your chances of remembering everything you heard in all of your classes are next to none. Repetition is the key to retention, and other than experience training, studying the material you were given and doing your homework is how you’re going to graduate.  

Then why is it such a problem? Why is it affecting people so negatively? No degree is worth your mental health; it’s time to look at the cons of homework.  

I believe the real problem with homework is the amount of it. Yes, we need it to learn, but our brains can only handle so much at a time. Oftentimes the standard college workload demands that we push our minds past the limit or face a late penalty. This is what causes the exhaustion and resentment that we constantly push through for the sake of good grades and gold chords.  

 Studies conducted by the American Psychological Association and the U.S. Department of Health say shorter study sessions per day and more consistency over a longer period of time is the best way to retain information while not pushing yourself to your mental limit. However, there is so much to be done that studying for a mere three hours a day isn’t even practical.  

Students would actually be able to study in a healthy way and retain information long term if we were not assigned and asked to complete in one week what psychological studies say should take at least two.   

So, to answer the question: Yes, homework is definitely necessary. The real problem is how much we are required to process in such a short time.   

As finals inch closer by the day, make a point to take care of your mind and give yourself breaks not only while studying but also from other things that can cloud your brain like social media. Coping with huge workloads is a process, so make lists, take deep breaths and get to bed on time. We’re gonna make it; I promise.  

Barber is the off-campus news editor for the Liberty Champion

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Surprisingly, these burned-out workers don’t fear AI—they welcome it

T here are plenty of legitimate fears about AI taking over the world. But you know who isn’t so worried? Teachers. That’s not because teachers don’t care if their students use AI to write all their essays or complete their algebra homework —they do. But they’re also seriously burned out and turning to AI to give them some assistance.

According to a new Canva survey of 1,000 U.S.-based kindergarten-through-grade-12 teachers, educators are struggling. That comes as no huge surprise. And judging by the numbers, teachers need more than apples to feel appreciated. Most teachers (83%) are experiencing burnout on at least some days. And over a third (35%) are feeling it on all or most days.

But while we’ve heard concern from teachers regarding their students using AI, the new survey also shows that teachers are more optimistic about AI than previously thought—at least, when it comes to its ability to lighten their loads.

There are a lot of culprits for teachers’ stress. For starters, about half (46%) of teachers report that classroom and student management responsibilities (which are more all-encompassing than they once were) are to blame. Almost as many (42%) say a lack of administrative support is driving burnout. Another 38% say their low compensation drives burnout, and 37% describe the need to work outside of their school hours as taxing.

However, there’s a pretty big correlation between AI use and job satisfaction in teaching. About 42% of K-12 teachers used AI in their classrooms over the past school year, and 92% of the AI users said it was helpful for work efficiency and helping to decrease burnout, as well as promoting creativity and visual communication. Of teachers who said they were satisfied with their jobs, 46% used AI, compared to 26% of their unsatisfied counterparts.

“We often hear from our teacher communities about needing to achieve more with less,” said Carly Daff, head of teams and education at Canva. “Teaching stress is complex and can’t be solved with any one tool. Still, it’s encouraging to see that teachers benefit from AI in alleviating their workloads, saving time, and unlocking their creativity.”

While many teachers haven’t yet begun using AI in the classroom, even those teachers are more hopeful than concerned about its impact: 56% of those who haven’t tried AI believe it can reduce burnout. In particular, 63% of Gen Z and millennial teachers and 75% of teachers with less than five years of experience believe it to be a good thing. Certainly, it looks like the tide is turning when it comes to teachers embracing the technology, with 68% reporting that they are likely to try AI for curriculum and planning.

With the majority of teachers (a staggering 57%) saying they’ve considered switching schools or quitting teaching altogether, almost no educator is immune to feeling depleted. But while there are plenty of reasons to worry about how students may use AI to phone in their assignments, it seems that teachers are looking at the technology through a less skeptical lens than ever. How do you like them apples?

This post originally appeared at fastcompany.com

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