Does Homework Help America's Students?

One of the most controversial topics in education today is homework. This debate has been going on for decades, as teachers, administrators, and parents disagree on whether homework should be assigned, and if assigned, then what the right amount of homework should be. The time students spend on homework has increased over the years. “High school students get assigned up to 17.5 hours of homework per week, according to a survey of 1,000 teachers” (Bidwell). Recently, more fuel has been added in this debate because younger students in particular are receiving much more homework than before. Alfie Kohn, author of The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing, states that “The amount of homework that younger kids – ages 6 to 9 – have

“Homework is arguably the worst punishment inflicted upon the student body.” One would think this extreme statement would come from the 10-year boys and girls who complain to their parents about the homework they have to complete. However, Rodney Jones starts of his argument against homework using this statement. He argues that homework does not help children taking up all their time. Continuing, he explains how parents should extend child’s knowledge out of school instead of homework and in the end these assignments do not help students grade. However, in contrast of Jones’ beliefs homework indeed benefits children’s learning through the small amounts of extra practice it gives to help the students excel.

The debate regarding exactly how much homework is too much homework has been an ongoing debate for years. As of right now, there seems to be no end in sight for this debate. Various adults believe that if children do not obtain homework, then they are not learning properly. However, numerous children are obtaining a substantial amount of homework per night, as well as per each class. Once a child exceeds a certain amount of homework, then it is no longer beneficial for the child’s education. An excessive amount of homework can essentially become harmful to the child’s education. As a result, teachers are struggling with finding the right amount of homework to assign to students. The National Education Association as well as the National Parent-Teacher Association endorse the “10-minute rule” for teachers to follow when assigning homework to students. If a child is assigned an excessive amount of homework, then the child might experience more harm than good when attempting to complete the assigned homework.

David Mills’s article published in Healthline, “Is Too Much Homework Bad for Kids’ Health?” is a piece focused upon the extensive amount of time consumed by homework by students of all ages as well as the subsequent health effects that typically result from the issue. With the assistance of multiple studies, Mills argues that current students are highly exceeding the national standard of allotted time for homework and instead recommends several alternatives to the problem, such as primarily focusing upon the assignments that they deem as of appropriate and beneficial quality. Although he specifically asserts that refusing to do the work altogether is one of the best methods to easily relieve the increasing pressure felt by students in vigorous schooling systems, it actually has the opposite effect: by delaying the work until later, students fall into an endless cycle of being

Homework has never been a super popular thing to do after school, but some principals started noticing that it maybe taking up the time they usually use for activities they love to do. “... If we believe in developing kids' passions, we need to give them time." said Kirsten Walker, principal at Acacia(Moore). Kirsten Walker a principal for Acacia Elementary schools wanted to help kids grow their passions more by giving them the time they would usually use for homework to do so. Reading is a skill that will help any kid easily excel in their school work. If their ability to practice it is taken away They could end up even worse than where they started. “New York City’s P.S. 116 elementary school made news last year when its principal Jane Hsu abolished homework and asked families to read instead”(Schumaker). New york city realized that homework was taking away from kid’s after school activities and even extra reading time that they were losing when they have excessive amounts of homework. Homework takes up time in kids everyday lives which they could be using to get outside and have fun. “At the start of the 2013-14 school year, the Fentress County School District in Tennessee announced that it would enforce a district-wide ban on graded homework assignments because of the large amount of time it takes up”(Graham). After the realization that most kids do not have the time at

The survey of 1,000 K-12 teachers found that on average, they assign 3.5 hours of homework each week. For high school students who typically have seven classes with different teachers, that’s approximately 24.5 hours each week. Students spend approximately 35 hours a week at school and around 25 hours on homework. This lengthens each school day from around 7 hours to 10 hours. Now add the time students spend on extracurricular activities and sleep. They are faced with such packed schedules, and yet we wonder why they are struggling. Homework consumes an excessive amount of their time, and if we banned it, their schedules would be far more tolerable. The questionability of homework causes it to be one of the most

A longitudinal analysis of NAEP data by the Brookings Institution’s Tom Loveless in 2014 found that more 9-year-olds were regularly doing homework than their parents' generation: In 1984, 35% of students reported no homework the previous night. By 2012, that had shrunk to 22%. But the share of 9-year-olds reporting an hour or more of homework was also down by two percentage points in that same period, from 19% to 17%. The percentage reporting less than an hour of homework had risen from 41% to 57%. Loveless also found that 27% of 17-year-olds reported having no homework. And the share of 17-year-olds who spent more than two hours a night on homework remained unchanged at 13%. This shows that a lot of students are having homework. Kirkwood High School was trying an experiment for the sake of student and teacher mental health. Some schools across the country have already tried discarding homework, and many reports success and positive feedback from students and

For the most part, education in the United States has revolved around the idea of a “work hard, and succeed” system. Educators strongly push for this idea and are in a way obliged to extend learning by assigning more work, which they are unable to complete in a school setting. In turn, they rely on homework to expand knowledge beyond the classroom. Homework has become what may seem a positive influence on education and test scores in the United States. However, It has also become one the biggest burdens on high school students.This burden fails to reflect today’s advancing technological society. It needs to conform to a more individualized and purposeful approach for students.

Every fall, students head back to school, their backpacks slowly starting to overflow with the one thing they dread the most: homework. Imagine pages upon pages of an endless reading assignment, rows upon rows of math questions; it’s every students’ nightmare. Now it may seem like homework can help the teens, improving time management and responsibility. Afterall, that’s the point of homework. But some teachers have begun to abuse the idea, assigning their students several hours of homework every night. This should not be allowed. Schools need to place a limit on the amount of homework teachers are allowed to assign because too much homework can cause stress and prevent students from living a balanced life.

In today’s day and age, a most common belief by most members of society is that homework is a great way to engrave what you learned in class that day into your brain. Many people believe that taking home a worksheet that covers what you learned in class today not only engraves it into your brain, but it keeps your brain thinking and in turn you will do better on tests and quizzes. It is my belief that we are assigned too much homework. Not only does the school expect us to show up and attend class every day, but they also expect us to take home worksheets and work on them when most of us don’t really have time to do school work at home. There are tons of us who have other commitments outside of school, many of us play a club sport, are involved in our community and a great number of us have jobs and work after school.

Most students are probably thinking “no homework is stupid” . But, believe it or not, homework is good for you. Homework creates a bridge between school and home. Homework allows your parents to keep up with what you're doing in class. Studying is also another form of homework. In fact, according to “Is Homework Good For Kids?” it states that “Children should spend time studying each day, even if they don't have any homework” (Reilly 1). Even though some kids may say that homework doesn't leave them enough time to do other things at home, they should still receive it because it can help them practice what they are learning, develop work ethic skills, and learn time management.

In 2016 the average high schooler was doing three or more hours of homework each night. Studies from the National Education Association show that this may have a connection to illnesses and the lack of balance teens have in their lives. But they also show that by learning the valuable lessons of time management and organization, it can lead to a more successful future. This leaves one question: are students receiving too much homework? Within the past three years, the amount of school work students do outside of school has reached its’ peak, but thanks to new modern day technology almost every student has easy access to all of their homework, just within the click of a button. The differences between arguments for more or less schoolwork are striking, and they deserve thorough examination.

Homework has been the long dreaded mundane assignment that students worldwide have to suffer from. It increases at an exponential rate as one progresses up the ladder called grade school. In the typical American high school, teachers become known not for who they are as a person, but rather the workload they assign. Often students don’t get the chance to receive proper feedback on their homework, and isn’t graded until after several days or weeks after the due date, therefore rendering homework as a waste of time. Take Dylan for example. After a long day of school, he is sitting at his desk at 12:17 A.M, struggling with his AP Chemistry homework. He knows Chemistry forwards and backwards, but having to do 45 conceptual and repetitive problems is a whole different story. Getting very frustrated, he shut his book and made his way to his bed, away from the mental torture, knowing that it’s not gaining him any benefit, and deciding that getting a zero would be a bitter pill to swallow, especially when his knowledge of Chemistry is inaccurately reflected by a letter on his report card. Although homework gives students a chance to succeed in a very competitive world, it takes up a lot of time in the day, it doesn’t help students grow academically, and it also takes a toll on the personal lives and the health of many students.

Late nights, eyes only kept open by ungodly amounts of coffee, and never ending piles of paper: these are all symptoms of the nation-sweeping homework epidemic. Students are assigned hours upon hours of after school homework every day — but is it really necessary? Oftentimes, homework causes more harm than good on the mental, physical, and social health of students; therefore, after school assignments should be limited to the four core classes, minimizing those loads as much as possible, because more homework does not necessarily lead to highly successful students, immense amounts of stress are put on students every day, and an eight hour school day should be enough to disseminate the information needed.

Homework, that terrible word that gives any high school or college graduate PTSD. Homework is a daily thing in a student life and it can become overwhelming. Its standard in school, but in recent years its become overly stressful and the workload has increased. The average high school student in the U.S. has about 17.5 hours of homework a week, divide that by 5 days in a week is 3.5 hours of homework each night, and if the average student is at school from around 7:30 to 3:00, that is 7.5 hours at school. Add 7.5 hours at school to 3.5 hours of homework at night you have spent 11 hours in school. Health studies say that teenagers should be getting around 9 -9 ½ hours of sleep. Now, remember there are 24 hours in a day. So 11 plus 9 is 19 hours that leaves 5 hours in the day for eating, sports, relaxing, or even working if you have a job. This is a statistic from 2017. In 2011 studies showed the average student spent about 6.8 hours doing homework, and in 1994 a survey should that the average 17-year-old had about an hour of homework a week. (A WEEK) This increase in hours spent doing homework is a problem. And it is a problem that has dramatically increased in the past 10 years. Many people argue that homework is an essential part to school, while others believe student spend enough time in school already and their time outside of school should be spent with extracurriculars, playing sports, relaxing, spending time with family and getting enough sleep. The debate over