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Student Opinion

Should We Get Rid of Homework?

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

should schools abolish homework argumentative essay

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

Why I Think All Schools Should Abolish Homework

Two brothers work on laptop computers at home

H ow long is your child’s workweek? Thirty hours? Forty? Would it surprise you to learn that some elementary school kids have workweeks comparable to adults’ schedules? For most children, mandatory homework assignments push their workweek far beyond the school day and deep into what any other laborers would consider overtime. Even without sports or music or other school-sponsored extracurriculars, the daily homework slog keeps many students on the clock as long as lawyers, teachers, medical residents, truck drivers and other overworked adults. Is it any wonder that,deprived of the labor protections that we provide adults, our kids are suffering an epidemic of disengagement, anxiety and depression ?

With my youngest child just months away from finishing high school, I’m remembering all the needless misery and missed opportunities all three of my kids suffered because of their endless assignments. When my daughters were in middle school, I would urge them into bed before midnight and then find them clandestinely studying under the covers with a flashlight. We cut back on their activities but still found ourselves stuck in a system on overdrive, returning home from hectic days at 6 p.m. only to face hours more of homework. Now, even as a senior with a moderate course load, my son, Zak, has spent many weekends studying, finding little time for the exercise and fresh air essential to his well-being. Week after week, and without any extracurriculars, Zak logs a lot more than the 40 hours adults traditionally work each week — and with no recognition from his “bosses” that it’s too much. I can’t count the number of shared evenings, weekend outings and dinners that our family has missed and will never get back.

How much after-school time should our schools really own?

In the midst of the madness last fall, Zak said to me, “I feel like I’m working towards my death. The constant demands on my time since 5th grade are just going to continue through graduation, into college, and then into my job. It’s like I’m on an endless treadmill with no time for living.”

My spirit crumbled along with his.

Like Zak, many people are now questioning the point of putting so much demand on children and teens that they become thinly stretched and overworked. Studies have long shown that there is no academic benefit to high school homework that consumes more than a modest number of hours each week. In a study of high schoolers conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), researchers concluded that “after around four hours of homework per week, the additional time invested in homework has a negligible impact on performance.”

In elementary school, where we often assign overtime even to the youngest children, studies have shown there’s no academic benefit to any amount of homework at all.

Our unquestioned acceptance of homework also flies in the face of all we know about human health, brain function and learning. Brain scientists know that rest and exercise are essential to good health and real learning . Even top adult professionals in specialized fields take care to limit their work to concentrated periods of focus. A landmark study of how humans develop expertise found that elite musicians, scientists and athletes do their most productive work only about four hours per day .

Yet we continue to overwork our children, depriving them of the chance to cultivate health and learn deeply, burdening them with an imbalance of sedentary, academic tasks. American high school students , in fact, do more homework each week than their peers in the average country in the OECD, a 2014 report found.

It’s time for an uprising.

Already, small rebellions are starting. High schools in Ridgewood, N.J. , and Fairfax County, Va., among others, have banned homework over school breaks. The entire second grade at Taylor Elementary School in Arlington, Va., abolished homework this academic year. Burton Valley Elementary School in Lafayette, Calif., has eliminated homework in grades K through 4. Henry West Laboratory School , a public K-8 school in Coral Gables, Fla., eliminated mandatory, graded homework for optional assignments. One Lexington, Mass., elementary school is piloting a homework-free year, replacing it with reading for pleasure.

More from TIME

Across the Atlantic, students in Spain launched a national strike against excessive assignments in November. And a second-grade teacher in Texas, made headlines this fall when she quit sending home extra work , instead urging families to “spend your evenings doing things that are proven to correlate with student success. Eat dinner as a family, read together, play outside and get your child to bed early.”

It is time that we call loudly for a clear and simple change: a workweek limit for children, counting time on the clock before and after the final bell. Why should schools extend their authority far beyond the boundaries of campus, dictating activities in our homes in the hours that belong to families? An all-out ban on after-school assignments would be optimal. Short of that, we can at least sensibly agree on a cap limiting kids to a 40-hour workweek — and fewer hours for younger children.

Resistance even to this reasonable limit will be rife. Mike Miller, an English teacher at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Va., found this out firsthand when he spearheaded a homework committee to rethink the usual approach. He had read the education research and found a forgotten policy on the county books limiting homework to two hours a night, total, including all classes. “I thought it would be a slam dunk” to put the two-hour cap firmly in place, Miller said.

But immediately, people started balking. “There was a lot of fear in the community,” Miller said. “It’s like jumping off a high dive with your kids’ future. If we reduce homework to two hours or less, is my kid really going to be okay?” In the end, the committee only agreed to a homework ban over school breaks.

Miller’s response is a great model for us all. He decided to limit assignments in his own class to 20 minutes a night (the most allowed for a student with six classes to hit the two-hour max). His students didn’t suddenly fail. Their test scores remained stable. And they started using their more breathable schedule to do more creative, thoughtful work.

That’s the way we will get to a sane work schedule for kids: by simultaneously pursuing changes big and small. Even as we collaboratively press for policy changes at the district or individual school level, all teachers can act now, as individuals, to ease the strain on overworked kids.

As parents and students, we can also organize to make homework the exception rather than the rule. We can insist that every family, teacher and student be allowed to opt out of assignments without penalty to make room for important activities, and we can seek changes that shift practice exercises and assignments into the actual school day.

We’ll know our work is done only when Zak and every other child can clock out, eat dinner, sleep well and stay healthy — the very things needed to engage and learn deeply. That’s the basic standard the law applies to working adults. Let’s do the same for our kids.

Vicki Abeles is the author of the bestseller Beyond Measure: Rescuing an Overscheduled, Overtested, Underestimated Generation, and director and producer of the documentaries “ Race to Nowhere ” and “ Beyond Measure. ”

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Homework Should Be Abolished Argumentative Essay

One of the longest arguments in history has everything to do with school. Should homework stay or go? As a parent, it can be difficult to understand why today’s children shouldn’t be learning exactly how they did as a child. 20 years ago, people learned strictly by the book, therefore everyone did the same thing. It’s time to branch out and create new norms. Many argue that homework is beneficial to the process of learning by teaching students how to work independently. They could even argue that homework gives students much-needed responsibility. These points appear great until you look at the fine print. When you look deep into the effects of homework you realize just how bad it can become. Homework should be abolished across the globe because it is hurting students’ mental health, there are much better ways to benchmark academic progress, and homework is stealing real-world experiences from the growing youth.

Presently, Students are extremely overworked and it will cause detrimental effects in the future. There have been considerable amounts of studies conducted on children’s mental health, and the results are not promising. A study conducted by The American College Health Association found “stress as the No.1 ‘impediment to student performance’, and found that nearly one in 10 students had seriously considered suicide”(Alex). These statistics are horrifying! Everyone can agree that mental health comes before anything. Suicide and depression should not be common traits between students. These statistics are backed up by students who report “that homework causes them to sleep less than they should and leads to ‘headaches, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, weight loss, and stomach problems’ as well as a lack of balance in their lives”(Strauss). Here is another common theme, but not only between one school but students all over the world. In the real world, when a large group of individuals is negatively affected by something, people come together to reform and revise. In the 1960s the women’s rights movement was created to give women a more comfortable and fair life. So why aren’t we standing up for our youth the way we do for adults? Children are the future of this world. We do not want to kick them down before they even have the chance to stand up.

Not only is homework negatively affecting students, but it is also completely unnecessary. Many people argue that homework is an excellent way for teachers to see how well students can handle the curriculum on their own. However, there are flaws with this logic. The first flaw is that when most students hit a roadblock while doing homework they head right to the internet to look up the answers. By cheating, students aren’t learning anything. The second flaw is that there are more conventional ways to benchmark a student’s progress in the classroom, without cutting into their much-needed free time. So what are those ways? The main ways teachers can benchmark a student’s academic progress is through tests, quizzes, labs, papers, and projects. When students are assigned in-classroom work, they are able to seek help through teachers and build a strong understanding of the topic, unlike homework. In fact, studies have proven that students perform much better when they are not assigned homework on a regular basis. Researchers who worked closely with students on a performance study in Australia recommended “that less homework should be given and the assignments chosen for students should be of higher quality, eliminating the drill and practice work”(Asbury Park Press). Given the fact that academic professionals advise against homework, it is pretty clear that homework is harmful instead of helpful. However, this concept can still be foggy when you just have an opinion and not true results. A school in New York decided that it was time for change and they completely threw homework out the window. Following this bold move, other schools jumped on the bandwagon, consequently “the schools that [had] given up assigning homework report uniformly fabulous results”(Suhay). This statement from a professional, Alfie Kohn, who has conducted studies and even wrote a book on this topic, is truly eye-opening. Not only do you have experts left and right saying that homework is useless, but you also have statistics explaining that homework does little to nothing for students. If we want our youth to perform at their highest potential, we need change.

Not only is homework unnecessary, but it is also taking up too much of students’ free time that could be used to build real-world experience. Almost every parent and teacher have seen these effects first hand. In an interview, Buckberry, a Michigan school board member emphasizes the problems they have seen throughout their student body, “we leave no unoccupied time in their day. We’re raising kids who don’t know how to sit under a tree and think about things”(Frerking). Buckberry has a great point. By putting so much structure into a child’s life, they grow up and never learn how to effectively manage their time. When given the chance, children should be able to just sit down to relax and think. Not about what homework they need to get done or what grade they have in their class, but about how they are feeling and what they need more of in life. Not only are students lacking this beneficial exercise, but researchers at the University of Colorado in Boulder have also found that “children who spend more time in less-structured activities (such as reading, drawing, free play or social outings) are better at setting and accomplishing their own goals than those whose pursuits were more scripted”(Abeles). The foundation of success comes from self-motivation and organization. Without the ability to effectively work on your own, you will never learn anything or go anywhere in life. When you can make your own goals and set yourself up for success, you can learn and do anything you want. So let’s set the future up for success and let our children explore and learn how they navigate life best. 

Given the incredible information provided by these professionals, homework should be abolished across the globe because it is hurting students’ mental health, there are much better ways to benchmark academic progress, and homework is stealing real-world experiences from the growing youth. There is countless research on the worsening mental health pandemic across the world’s youth, and it all connects back to homework. Something so useless and small is creating extremely large issues across the globe. It’s time we take a trip back to the drawing board and help the growing youth live up to their greatest potential. 

Works Cited

Abeles, Vicki. "Workaholic Students." Los Angeles Times, 29 Jan 2016. SIRS Issues

Researcher,  https://explore.proquest.com/sirsissuesresearcher/document/2262553910?accountid=3643.

Alex, Patricia. "Students with Mental Troubles on Rise." The Record, 25 Jun 2007. SIRS   

Issues Researcher,  

https://explore.proquest.com/sirsissuesresearcher/document/2262313769?accountid=3643.

"Does Homework Work?" Asbury Park Press, 10 Sep 2013. SIRS Issues Researcher,  

https://explore.proquest.com/sirsissuesresearcher/document/2265930177?accountid=36 43.

Frerking, Beth. "The Problem with Homework." Plain Dealer, Feb 1999. SIRS Issues  

Researcher,  

https://explore.proquest.com/sirsissuesresearcher/document/2267918509?accountid=36 43.

Strauss, Valerie. "Homework Hurts High-Achieving Students, Study Says." Washington Post -  

Blogs, 13 Mar 2014. SIRS Issues Researcher,  

https://explore.proquest.com/sirsissuesresearcher/document/2265915805?accountid=36 43.

Suhay, Lisa. "New York School Abolishes Homework. does Homework do any Good?"  

Christian Science Monitor, 06 Mar 2015. SIRS Issues Researcher,  

https://explore.proquest.com/sirsissuesresearcher/document/2266054709?accountid=36 43.

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The Pros and Cons of Homework

The-Pros-and-Cons-Should-Students-Have-Homework

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.

A college student completely swamped with homework.

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.

A female student who doesn’t want to do homework.

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.

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Are You Down With or Done With Homework?

  • Posted January 17, 2012
  • By Lory Hough

Sign: Are you down with or done with homework?

The debate over how much schoolwork students should be doing at home has flared again, with one side saying it's too much, the other side saying in our competitive world, it's just not enough.

It was a move that doesn't happen very often in American public schools: The principal got rid of homework.

This past September, Stephanie Brant, principal of Gaithersburg Elementary School in Gaithersburg, Md., decided that instead of teachers sending kids home with math worksheets and spelling flash cards, students would instead go home and read. Every day for 30 minutes, more if they had time or the inclination, with parents or on their own.

"I knew this would be a big shift for my community," she says. But she also strongly believed it was a necessary one. Twenty-first-century learners, especially those in elementary school, need to think critically and understand their own learning — not spend night after night doing rote homework drills.

Brant's move may not be common, but she isn't alone in her questioning. The value of doing schoolwork at home has gone in and out of fashion in the United States among educators, policymakers, the media, and, more recently, parents. As far back as the late 1800s, with the rise of the Progressive Era, doctors such as Joseph Mayer Rice began pushing for a limit on what he called "mechanical homework," saying it caused childhood nervous conditions and eyestrain. Around that time, the then-influential Ladies Home Journal began publishing a series of anti-homework articles, stating that five hours of brain work a day was "the most we should ask of our children," and that homework was an intrusion on family life. In response, states like California passed laws abolishing homework for students under a certain age.

But, as is often the case with education, the tide eventually turned. After the Russians launched the Sputnik satellite in 1957, a space race emerged, and, writes Brian Gill in the journal Theory Into Practice, "The homework problem was reconceived as part of a national crisis; the U.S. was losing the Cold War because Russian children were smarter." Many earlier laws limiting homework were abolished, and the longterm trend toward less homework came to an end.

The debate re-emerged a decade later when parents of the late '60s and '70s argued that children should be free to play and explore — similar anti-homework wellness arguments echoed nearly a century earlier. By the early-1980s, however, the pendulum swung again with the publication of A Nation at Risk , which blamed poor education for a "rising tide of mediocrity." Students needed to work harder, the report said, and one way to do this was more homework.

For the most part, this pro-homework sentiment is still going strong today, in part because of mandatory testing and continued economic concerns about the nation's competitiveness. Many believe that today's students are falling behind their peers in places like Korea and Finland and are paying more attention to Angry Birds than to ancient Babylonia.

But there are also a growing number of Stephanie Brants out there, educators and parents who believe that students are stressed and missing out on valuable family time. Students, they say, particularly younger students who have seen a rise in the amount of take-home work and already put in a six- to nine-hour "work" day, need less, not more homework.

Who is right? Are students not working hard enough or is homework not working for them? Here's where the story gets a little tricky: It depends on whom you ask and what research you're looking at. As Cathy Vatterott, the author of Rethinking Homework , points out, "Homework has generated enough research so that a study can be found to support almost any position, as long as conflicting studies are ignored." Alfie Kohn, author of The Homework Myth and a strong believer in eliminating all homework, writes that, "The fact that there isn't anything close to unanimity among experts belies the widespread assumption that homework helps." At best, he says, homework shows only an association, not a causal relationship, with academic achievement. In other words, it's hard to tease out how homework is really affecting test scores and grades. Did one teacher give better homework than another? Was one teacher more effective in the classroom? Do certain students test better or just try harder?

"It is difficult to separate where the effect of classroom teaching ends," Vatterott writes, "and the effect of homework begins."

Putting research aside, however, much of the current debate over homework is focused less on how homework affects academic achievement and more on time. Parents in particular have been saying that the amount of time children spend in school, especially with afterschool programs, combined with the amount of homework given — as early as kindergarten — is leaving students with little time to run around, eat dinner with their families, or even get enough sleep.

Certainly, for some parents, homework is a way to stay connected to their children's learning. But for others, homework creates a tug-of-war between parents and children, says Liz Goodenough, M.A.T.'71, creator of a documentary called Where Do the Children Play?

"Ideally homework should be about taking something home, spending a few curious and interesting moments in which children might engage with parents, and then getting that project back to school — an organizational triumph," she says. "A nag-free activity could engage family time: Ask a parent about his or her own childhood. Interview siblings."

Illustration by Jessica Esch

Instead, as the authors of The Case Against Homework write, "Homework overload is turning many of us into the types of parents we never wanted to be: nags, bribers, and taskmasters."

Leslie Butchko saw it happen a few years ago when her son started sixth grade in the Santa Monica-Malibu (Calif.) United School District. She remembers him getting two to four hours of homework a night, plus weekend and vacation projects. He was overwhelmed and struggled to finish assignments, especially on nights when he also had an extracurricular activity.

"Ultimately, we felt compelled to have Bobby quit karate — he's a black belt — to allow more time for homework," she says. And then, with all of their attention focused on Bobby's homework, she and her husband started sending their youngest to his room so that Bobby could focus. "One day, my younger son gave us 15-minute coupons as a present for us to use to send him to play in the back room. … It was then that we realized there had to be something wrong with the amount of homework we were facing."

Butchko joined forces with another mother who was having similar struggles and ultimately helped get the homework policy in her district changed, limiting homework on weekends and holidays, setting time guidelines for daily homework, and broadening the definition of homework to include projects and studying for tests. As she told the school board at one meeting when the policy was first being discussed, "In closing, I just want to say that I had more free time at Harvard Law School than my son has in middle school, and that is not in the best interests of our children."

One barrier that Butchko had to overcome initially was convincing many teachers and parents that more homework doesn't necessarily equal rigor.

"Most of the parents that were against the homework policy felt that students need a large quantity of homework to prepare them for the rigorous AP classes in high school and to get them into Harvard," she says.

Stephanie Conklin, Ed.M.'06, sees this at Another Course to College, the Boston pilot school where she teaches math. "When a student is not completing [his or her] homework, parents usually are frustrated by this and agree with me that homework is an important part of their child's learning," she says.

As Timothy Jarman, Ed.M.'10, a ninth-grade English teacher at Eugene Ashley High School in Wilmington, N.C., says, "Parents think it is strange when their children are not assigned a substantial amount of homework."

That's because, writes Vatterott, in her chapter, "The Cult(ure) of Homework," the concept of homework "has become so engrained in U.S. culture that the word homework is part of the common vernacular."

These days, nightly homework is a given in American schools, writes Kohn.

"Homework isn't limited to those occasions when it seems appropriate and important. Most teachers and administrators aren't saying, 'It may be useful to do this particular project at home,'" he writes. "Rather, the point of departure seems to be, 'We've decided ahead of time that children will have to do something every night (or several times a week). … This commitment to the idea of homework in the abstract is accepted by the overwhelming majority of schools — public and private, elementary and secondary."

Brant had to confront this when she cut homework at Gaithersburg Elementary.

"A lot of my parents have this idea that homework is part of life. This is what I had to do when I was young," she says, and so, too, will our kids. "So I had to shift their thinking." She did this slowly, first by asking her teachers last year to really think about what they were sending home. And this year, in addition to forming a parent advisory group around the issue, she also holds events to answer questions.

Still, not everyone is convinced that homework as a given is a bad thing. "Any pursuit of excellence, be it in sports, the arts, or academics, requires hard work. That our culture finds it okay for kids to spend hours a day in a sport but not equal time on academics is part of the problem," wrote one pro-homework parent on the blog for the documentary Race to Nowhere , which looks at the stress American students are under. "Homework has always been an issue for parents and children. It is now and it was 20 years ago. I think when people decide to have children that it is their responsibility to educate them," wrote another.

And part of educating them, some believe, is helping them develop skills they will eventually need in adulthood. "Homework can help students develop study skills that will be of value even after they leave school," reads a publication on the U.S. Department of Education website called Homework Tips for Parents. "It can teach them that learning takes place anywhere, not just in the classroom. … It can foster positive character traits such as independence and responsibility. Homework can teach children how to manage time."

Annie Brown, Ed.M.'01, feels this is particularly critical at less affluent schools like the ones she has worked at in Boston, Cambridge, Mass., and Los Angeles as a literacy coach.

"It feels important that my students do homework because they will ultimately be competing for college placement and jobs with students who have done homework and have developed a work ethic," she says. "Also it will get them ready for independently taking responsibility for their learning, which will need to happen for them to go to college."

The problem with this thinking, writes Vatterott, is that homework becomes a way to practice being a worker.

"Which begs the question," she writes. "Is our job as educators to produce learners or workers?"

Slate magazine editor Emily Bazelon, in a piece about homework, says this makes no sense for younger kids.

"Why should we think that practicing homework in first grade will make you better at doing it in middle school?" she writes. "Doesn't the opposite seem equally plausible: that it's counterproductive to ask children to sit down and work at night before they're developmentally ready because you'll just make them tired and cross?"

Kohn writes in the American School Board Journal that this "premature exposure" to practices like homework (and sit-and-listen lessons and tests) "are clearly a bad match for younger children and of questionable value at any age." He calls it BGUTI: Better Get Used to It. "The logic here is that we have to prepare you for the bad things that are going to be done to you later … by doing them to you now."

According to a recent University of Michigan study, daily homework for six- to eight-year-olds increased on average from about 8 minutes in 1981 to 22 minutes in 2003. A review of research by Duke University Professor Harris Cooper found that for elementary school students, "the average correlation between time spent on homework and achievement … hovered around zero."

So should homework be eliminated? Of course not, say many Ed School graduates who are teaching. Not only would students not have time for essays and long projects, but also teachers would not be able to get all students to grade level or to cover critical material, says Brett Pangburn, Ed.M.'06, a sixth-grade English teacher at Excel Academy Charter School in Boston. Still, he says, homework has to be relevant.

"Kids need to practice the skills being taught in class, especially where, like the kids I teach at Excel, they are behind and need to catch up," he says. "Our results at Excel have demonstrated that kids can catch up and view themselves as in control of their academic futures, but this requires hard work, and homework is a part of it."

Ed School Professor Howard Gardner basically agrees.

"America and Americans lurch between too little homework in many of our schools to an excess of homework in our most competitive environments — Li'l Abner vs. Tiger Mother," he says. "Neither approach makes sense. Homework should build on what happens in class, consolidating skills and helping students to answer new questions."

So how can schools come to a happy medium, a way that allows teachers to cover everything they need while not overwhelming students? Conklin says she often gives online math assignments that act as labs and students have two or three days to complete them, including some in-class time. Students at Pangburn's school have a 50-minute silent period during regular school hours where homework can be started, and where teachers pull individual or small groups of students aside for tutoring, often on that night's homework. Afterschool homework clubs can help.

Some schools and districts have adapted time limits rather than nix homework completely, with the 10-minute per grade rule being the standard — 10 minutes a night for first-graders, 30 minutes for third-graders, and so on. (This remedy, however, is often met with mixed results since not all students work at the same pace.) Other schools offer an extended day that allows teachers to cover more material in school, in turn requiring fewer take-home assignments. And for others, like Stephanie Brant's elementary school in Maryland, more reading with a few targeted project assignments has been the answer.

"The routine of reading is so much more important than the routine of homework," she says. "Let's have kids reflect. You can still have the routine and you can still have your workspace, but now it's for reading. I often say to parents, if we can put a man on the moon, we can put a man or woman on Mars and that person is now a second-grader. We don't know what skills that person will need. At the end of the day, we have to feel confident that we're giving them something they can use on Mars."

Read a January 2014 update.

Homework Policy Still Going Strong

Illustration by Jessica Esch

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Argumentative Essay on Grading System in Schools Should Be Abolished

It’s the middle of the school year. You have been gone from school for almost 2 weeks because you are dealing with the death of a loved one. You come back to attending school hoping to get the stress of the past month off your mind, only to find out that you need to make up 4 tests, do 10 homework assignments, and read 5 chapters of a book. Then, you check your grade book and see you are now failing every class. Your stress has now been needlessly increased. Unfortunately, this issue can be the harsh reality of our current grading system. Students can get flooded to the brink of exhaustion with tests and other school work while trying to balance real-life issues. And the main reason students feel the need to stress over schoolwork is because of grades. Students work to get good grades to feel accomplished and productive. This idea can put students in a terrible mindset and an unhealthy work ethic. The current grading system in schools should be abolished because it is harmful to the health of students and impacts the way students comprehend the material they are taught.

The first reason why the grading system should be forgotten is that grades can damage a student’s mental health. I believe this because as a student, I have had many times where I am constantly thinking about how I can improve my grades. I feel as if I must have an A to “pass” the class. This ideology has put me in many bad mental states before and has made school a burden rather than something I look forward to. According to education reporter Amelia Harper, “Ditching traditional letter grades reduces stress levels and competition among students'' (Harper par. 1). This quote tells us that students are being put under unnecessary stress because of grades. Students are competing against each other to have a better grade instead of learning together. Next up, students have a harder time learning the material because of the grade book. We’ve all said or heard the infamous quote, “Is this going to be on the test”. While it seems silly at first, it is a sad reality because many students are only willing to learn and memorize things that they will be tested on because they think getting a good grade is more important than learning the material. According to an article published by think.org, “Grades force students to memorize those details necessary to pass a test, often disregarding true comprehension of the subject matter. In this process, the student’s personal development is becoming a footnote, overshadowed by the imperative significance of grades” (3 Reasons Grades Are Bad For Education par. 11). This quote shows that the grading system forces many students to only care and memorize material that they know will be on a test. Because they are so focused on only learning tested materials, it costs them the ability to fully understand the things that they are being taught. This shows that true understanding of concepts is secondary to letters that students see as crucial to their success.

Some others may disagree and argue that grades are a good way to keep students in check and make sure they get their work done on time. They think this way because they believe that students will be more motivated to do work and complete activities on time if they have a bad grade. The supporters of this idea could believe that the risk of having a low grade is beneficial to students so they know they have responsibilities. According to thebestschools.org, “Supporters argue that grades hold students accountable for their work, and provide a simple frame of reference for their standing in class” (Thompson par. 4). I disagree with this view because there doesn’t have to be a grading system to make students feel accountable for their work. A simple pass/fail system works just as well as a normal grading system. It still motivates students to keep up in class while also giving students breathing room and not having to worry about “their standing in the class”. Students shouldn’t need to know their “standing” in class because a grade does not properly resemble the student’s true ability to learn.

Overall, the grading system is no longer needed in schools. As a student, I get a first-hand look into how grades affect me and others. I know that I have had many instances where I get overwhelmed with school because of my grades. I overwork myself because I feel like I have to get a good grade to be successful. I also know many other people who struggle with school because once they see they have bad grades, they feel as if they might as well give up. We can all help this issue, however. We can attend school meetings and talk to higher-ups in the district about these issues. By supporting this cause, we can help so many who feel useless and lose interest in education based on a simple letter.

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Should homework be abolished?

A Q&A with Thierry Karsenti, Canada Research Chair in technologies in education, on why we should hold off on banning homework.

The usefulness and effectiveness of homework is a question that comes around at the start of every school year. Some Québec school boards have gone so far as to abolish it, a move viewed with regret by Thierry Karsenti, professor of education sciences at the Université de Montréal. Dr. Karsenti, holder of the Canada Research Chair in technologies in education, reviewed 300 studies on the question. He chose just over 200 for his book entitled Homework: What the research says  (Original title in French:  Les devoirs  : ce que dit la recherche les stratégies gagnantes, l’impact des technologies ), which aims at providing a better understanding of the issue in order to help teachers, parents and students make homework “a positive, beneficial experience,” the author told University Affairs .

University Affairs : Why did you take an interest in the homework question?

Thierry   Karsenti : It’s currently a hot topic. Students don’t like homework, and parents see it as a source of conflict at home. Teachers don’t quite know where to stand – we often forget, but homework can saddle teachers with an excessive workload.

Several school boards in Québec have come out against homework, claiming that it doesn’t help students to succeed. But is it possible that more work is not good for success? We asked ourselves the question, and we wanted to get to the bottom of the matter, to find out whether or not homework has an impact on success. We also wanted to understand all the nuances surrounding the question of school homework.

What conclusions did you come to? Is homework beneficial?

T.K. : Overall, homework does have a positive impact on success. When we separate primary from secondary school, homework becomes one of the factors that has the greatest impact on kids’ success. In one of the larger meta-analyses on the subject, the author, John Hattie, talks of a 0.64 fact impact in high school. To simplify, homework explains about 46 percent of academic success in high school; that’s a lot. In primary school, the connection is much weaker, but it’s still positive. Some media have misinterpreted this finding: Hattie did not say that the impact of homework in primary school was negative, or zero; he said that the impact was “around zero.” But “around zero” does not mean “negative ”! And to be able to do homework in high school, students have to have had some practice, and that’s why it’s important to start homework in primary school.

This is why we wanted to undertake this research. It must be remembered that the guidelines we provide are not to be taken as absolute rules. Teachers’ discernment must come into play. Nevertheless, these studies are important because they provide what we call conclusive data. But both teachers and parents need to understand that “conclusive data” is not always synonymous with irrefutable proof – particularly in human sciences. So we have to find a balance between the data and teachers’ practical knowledge.

Most people ask, “Is homework good, or isn’t it?” We say: that’s not the right question to ask! Homework is good, but it depends on the type, how it is given, and how long it takes.

How can homework be beneficial ?

T.K:  We isolated a dozen factors that are especially important if students are to get the full benefit from their homework. For example, homework must not take too much time, and it must be neither too easy nor too difficult. In addition, social differences must not be highlighted: if we set work that is too difficult, only the most advantaged children, those who have the greatest resources at home, will be able to do it. We have to give homework where children, and not parents, are really in charge of the work (which is not the case when the exercise is too complex). Homework has to motivate children, by giving them choices, by making them feel more competent, which ultimately favours success.

There are also other positive elements to homework. Homework allows teachers to create links with parents, to establish a connection between school and home, and it helps students become more organized. Some improve by collaborating with other students – an important skill to develop, and one which will be useful in secondary school, at CÉGEP and at university.

How do you explain that a country like Finland, where children do practically no homework, can have such a high success rate?

T.K:  Let’s be clear, Finland has never abolished homework. In addition, students in difficulty must participate in remediation, which can be seen as a form of homework.

In your view, what would be the “ideal” quantity or type of homework?

T.K:  This is something that is very complex to determine, but we have designed a table giving time guidelines. Incidentally, a lot of the guidelines were inspired by Finland! These are not rules or laws, but guidelines: the art of teaching, of setting homework, cannot be ruled by research. Research must serve as a reference point to inform practice. So our table is designed to counter the fact that some teachers give much too much (or too little) homework: in grade 5, some students have two hours of homework to do in the evening! This is far too much: research shows that homework that is too time-consuming has a demotivating effect that will transfer onto everything connected with school. In our table, for example, we recommend 30 minutes of homework in grade 6, and not necessarily every evening.

What do you say to critics who assert that it would be better to replace homework with a short period of study or reading?

T.K :   The term “homework” covers a number of things: homework, lessons – they’re the same thing. A short reading period at home is homework! There are a great many studies to show that in primary school, academic success is closely tied to reading. French is the exam with the lowest success rate in Québec; in math, 30 to 35 percent of the mark can be explained by comprehension of the wording. Not enough reading is done at school, so we must read at home. In short, homework is school work that we do at home.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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i feel homework should be abolished

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The ‘Homework Gap’ Is About to Get Worse. What Should Schools Do?

should schools abolish homework argumentative essay

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A program that provides discounted broadband internet service to low-income households is expected to run out of funding by the end of April, a concerning development for school districts with families that relied on the subsidy.

With the Affordable Connectivity Program , eligible families can receive a discount of up to $30 per month toward internet service. For those on qualifying tribal lands, the discount is up to $75 per month. The program also provides a one-time discount to purchase a laptop, desktop computer, or tablet from participating providers.

Nearly 23 million households have enrolled in the program since it launched in 2021, according to the Federal Communications Commission, which runs the program. However, the agency stopped accepting new enrollments as of Feb. 8 and said it will disenroll all households from the program at the end of April, unless Congress provides additional funding.

Schools are increasingly relying on technology for teaching and learning, from learning management systems to multimedia curriculum to internet research. In some cases, schools are turning inclement weather days into remote learning days . So it’s even more imperative that students have sufficient internet connectivity and devices to access learning materials while at home.

‘It’s a huge equity problem’

Educators and advocates say the possible sunsetting of the Affordable Connectivity Program could worsen the so-called “ homework gap ”—a phrase used to describe the inequities between students who have digital devices and reliable internet connectivity at home, and those who don’t and struggle to complete online assignments as a result.

“My fear is that, with this funding running out, we’re going to have either more families not having access to those services, or more families having to go someplace with open Wi-Fi that maybe isn’t as secure as it should be,” said Chantell Manahan, the director of technology for Steuben County schools, a 2,600-student district in rural northeast Indiana. The program’s expiration could also mean more “families away from home, sitting in parking lots like they were during the pandemic, and that’s not a good place for our students and families to be.”

In 2024, [internet access is] not a luxury anymore. This is a necessity to participate in modern society.

The expiration of the Affordable Connectivity Program doesn’t just affect students, but parents, too.

“Many schools rely on online communications platforms to communicate with parents and guardians about their student’s progress, school activities, and other important information. If families lose affordable internet access, this [communication] channel may be compromised,” said Julia Fallon, the executive director of the State Educational Technology Directors Association.

Sometimes, a school-issued device is the only one available to use at home, so parents also use it to look for jobs, do online coursework, or attend telehealth appointments, Manahan said.

“It’s not just a K-12 education problem. It’s a community problem. It’s a huge equity problem,” she added.

Will Congress provide more funding for ACP?

The Affordable Connectivity Program first launched as the Emergency Broadband Benefit, which was part of a pandemic relief package signed by former President Donald Trump in 2020. The next year, the program was codified as part of the bipartisan infrastructure law signed by President Joe Biden.

But the program has run through much of the initial $17.4 billion allocated by Congress, including $14.2 billion from the infrastructure law and $3.2 billion from its emergency predecessor.

Photo of African-American boy working on laptop computer at home.

In January, a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a bill in the Senate and the House of Representatives that would provide $7 billion to keep the Affordable Connectivity Program operational.

It’s unclear how much traction the bill will receive, but several FCC commissioners and advocacy groups have applauded the bill and urged Congress to pass the measure.

Districts look for other solutions

In the meantime, district leaders are having tough conversations about how to provide adequate internet access to students and families who relied on the program.

In Steuben County, Manahan said the district might go back to solutions it used before the Affordable Connectivity Program, such as partnerships with local businesses and organizations that would let families come in and use their Wi-Fi for virtual learning.

The district has Wi-Fi hotspot devices it can lend to students, too, though Manahan is unsure how many of those devices the district can keep after funding runs out. The devices were originally funded through ESSER and the Emergency Connectivity Fund , both of which are also expiring this year.

High angle shot of a man assisting his students at computers

Fortunately, Manahan said, the FCC’s E-rate funding will now cover putting Wi-Fi on school buses .

“It’ll be much more cost-effective for the district to be able to outfit all the buses,” she said. “We know there are some places where we might be able to park those buses and have internet access available.”

Along with school bus Wi-Fi, the district could also extend the reach of the Wi-Fi on school buildings so students, families, and staff can use it in the parking lot, she said.

“I can only hope that if we do see both ACP and ECF sunsetting that they’re going to divert those funds to other programs [that would provide] internet access into all our homes,” Manahan said. “In 2024, it’s not a luxury anymore. This is a necessity to participate in modern society.”

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Should schools eliminate homework

Should Schools Eliminate Homework?

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Recently, some schools districts in New York, Vermont, Florida, and Pennsylvania decided to ban homework. They claim that a student's time can be better spent reading, engaged in a sport/activity, or bonding with family members. Is it possible for kids to still process what they're taught at school and receive a solid, well-rounded education without doing any  homework? At FamilyEducation we weighed the pros and cons of homework.

It Applies to Real Life

eliminating homework yes or no

Parents Can Reinforce Concepts

Homework gives parents a glimpse of what their kids are being taught in the classroom--and armed with that knowledge, says Ridner, parents should become advocates for their child's learning. "Involve kids in cooking to help them practice math skills, have them help with gardening to introduce basic science principles, or take them on short educational outings after school to encourage learning."

Don't Rule Out Screentime

Introduce kids to educational apps. "Short, animated video lessons can keep your child engaged and teach them new material, or help them brush up on information they learned in class," says Ridner.

Kids Learn Differently

According to Ridner, it's important to remember that kids have different learning styles; some may be visual learners while others favor written words. "Some kids may need that extra time at home to master certain subjects, while for others, class time is sufficient. Helping your child learn at home allows you to experiment with different learning techniques and determine what works best for your child." Adds educator Franklin Schargel : "Homework allows students to deepen their learning and to raise questions about the work they do not understand." That's where supervised online research at home may come into play.

Consider "Splitting Up" Assignments

To help prevent "brain drain", Schargel suggests elementary school teachers 'break up' work to do at home; so every night is a different subject. "Monday can be Science, Tuesday -- English, Wednesday -- Math, Thursday -- History and so on," he says. Barbara Hershey, Executive Director, Parents, Teachers and Advocates, Inc., recommends 15-20 minutes of assignments for Kindergarten to 3rd grade, 4 times a week; and 20-45 minutes for grades 4 to 8, 4 times a week, plus test prep.

Lesson Concepts Should be Done at School

Karen M. Ricks, a certified Montessori elementary teacher and chef at OurKitchenClassroom.com argues that homework makes "no contribution to academic achievement for elementary children, and may only moderately impact performance for older students." She believes that the introduction, practice, and review of lesson concepts and objectives can and should be done at school during regular elementary school hours. "This allows children the remainder of the day for exploration of other extracurricular interests."

Consider the Mental Separation, and Leisure Time

Homework elimination, adds Ricks, gives young children plenty of free time after school in which to pursue music, art, sports, and leisure; provides adequate time for family meals, reading (independent and/or with a parent), and rest, and ensures ongoing enthusiasm for learning by allowing sufficient mental separation from academic activity. "Rather than resulting in laziness and a lack of desire, I believe homework elimination has exactly the opposite effect, motivating children to dive more deeply into activities which most interest them."

Kids Can Only Process So Much

eliminating homework yes or no

Remember: Parents Cannot Always "Help" With Homework

"Some students have a parent at home who knows how to support them, and some don't," says Robinson. "Factoring homework into a student's grade is unfair at such a young age because it is so dependent on what a parent is able to do." At Robinson's school, those who agreed with homework elimination felt like it reduced stress at home, allowed families to spend more quality time together, and made their children happier. "Those that disagreed felt like they weren't as tapped into how their students were doing academically and wanted the extra push for their children."

Students Can Still Learn Responsibility

"Students can learn about responsibility in a variety of ways," explains Robinson, "and if you as a parent are nagging your child to do their work each night and find yourself in a constant battle, are you really teaching them to be responsible anyway?"

Nancy Gretzinger, EdD, an Arizona-based retired teacher, feels homework should be given as extra credit. "I don't believe kids will become lazy without homework, however, they will be unprepared for the responsibility, discipline, and amount of homework in middle and high school," she argues. "By middle school and especially high school, it can be hours of assignments per night."

Reading is a Solid Alternative

"I would highly recommend reading for 10 -30 minutes a night," says Gretzinger, who suggests schools supply a reading log documenting what kids are reading, and for how long. "Families might consider a group silent reading time for all members for several reasons, such as, it would give the family 'together time,' and illustrate the importance of reading. An alternative would be some type of game or puzzle, which can also be logged."

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Should homework be banned?

Social media has sparked into life about whether children should be given homework - should students be freed from this daily chore? Dr Gerald Letendre, a professor of education at Pennsylvania State University, investigates.

We’ve all done it: pretended to leave an essay at home, or stayed up until 2am to finish a piece of coursework we’ve been ignoring for weeks. Homework, for some people, is seen as a chore that’s ‘wrecking kids’ or ‘killing parents’, while others think it is an essential part of a well-rounded education. The problem is far from new: public debates about homework have been raging since at least the early-1900s, and recently spilled over into a Twitter feud between Gary Lineker and Piers Morgan.

Ironically, the conversation surrounding homework often ignores the scientific ‘homework’ that researchers have carried out. Many detailed studies have been conducted, and can guide parents, teachers and administrators to make sensible decisions about how much work should be completed by students outside of the classroom.

So why does homework stir up such strong emotions? One reason is that, by its very nature, it is an intrusion of schoolwork into family life. I carried out a study in 2005, and found that the amount of time that children and adolescents spend in school, from nursery right up to the end of compulsory education, has greatly increased over the last century . This means that more of a child’s time is taken up with education, so family time is reduced. This increases pressure on the boundary between the family and the school.

Plus, the amount of homework that students receive appears to be increasing, especially in the early years when parents are keen for their children to play with friends and spend time with the family.

Finally, success in school has become increasingly important to success in life. Parents can use homework to promote, or exercise control over, their child’s academic trajectory, and hopefully ensure their future educational success. But this often leaves parents conflicted – they want their children to be successful in school, but they don’t want them to be stressed or upset because of an unmanageable workload.

François Hollande says homework is unfair, as it penalises children who have a difficult home environment © Getty Images

However, the issue isn’t simply down to the opinions of parents, children and their teachers – governments also like to get involved. In the autumn of 2012, French president François Hollande hit world headlines after making a comment about banning homework, ostensibly because it promoted inequality. The Chinese government has also toyed with a ban, because of concerns about excessive academic pressure being put on children.

The problem is, some politicians and national administrators regard regulatory policy in education as a solution for a wide array of social, economic and political issues, perhaps without considering the consequences for students and parents.

Does homework work?

Homework seems to generally have a positive effect for high school students, according to an extensive range of empirical literature. For example, Duke University’s Prof Harris Cooper carried out a meta-analysis using data from US schools, covering a period from 1987 to 2003. He found that homework offered a general beneficial impact on test scores and improvements in attitude, with a greater effect seen in older students. But dig deeper into the issue and a complex set of factors quickly emerges, related to how much homework students do, and exactly how they feel about it.

In 2009, Prof Ulrich Trautwein and his team at the University of Tübingen found that in order to establish whether homework is having any effect, researchers must take into account the differences both between and within classes . For example, a teacher may assign a good deal of homework to a lower-level class, producing an association between more homework and lower levels of achievement. Yet, within the same class, individual students may vary significantly in how much homework improves their baseline performance. Plus, there is the fact that some students are simply more efficient at completing their homework than others, and it becomes quite difficult to pinpoint just what type of homework, and how much of it, will affect overall academic performance.

Over the last century, the amount of time that children and adolescents spend in school has greatly increased

Gender is also a major factor. For example, a study of US high school students carried out by Prof Gary Natriello in the 1980s revealed that girls devote more time to homework than boys, while a follow-up study found that US girls tend to spend more time on mathematics homework than boys. Another study, this time of African-American students in the US, found that eighth grade (ages 13-14) girls were more likely to successfully manage both their tasks and emotions around schoolwork, and were more likely to finish homework.

So why do girls seem to respond more positively to homework? One possible answer proposed by Eunsook Hong of the University of Nevada in 2011 is that teachers tend to rate girls’ habits and attitudes towards work more favourably than boys’. This perception could potentially set up a positive feedback loop between teacher expectations and the children’s capacity for academic work based on gender, resulting in girls outperforming boys. All of this makes it particularly difficult to determine the extent to which homework is helping, though it is clear that simply increasing the time spent on assignments does not directly correspond to a universal increase in learning.

Can homework cause damage?

The lack of empirical data supporting homework in the early years of education, along with an emerging trend to assign more work to this age range, appears to be fuelling parental concerns about potential negative effects. But, aside from anecdotes of increased tension in the household, is there any evidence of this? Can doing too much homework actually damage children?

Evidence suggests extreme amounts of homework can indeed have serious effects on students’ health and well-being. A Chinese study carried out in 2010 found a link between excessive homework and sleep disruption: children who had less homework had better routines and more stable sleep schedules. A Canadian study carried out in 2015 by Isabelle Michaud found that high levels of homework were associated with a greater risk of obesity among boys, if they were already feeling stressed about school in general.

For useful revision guides and video clips to assist with learning, visit BBC Bitesize . This is a free online study resource for UK students from early years up to GCSEs and Scottish Highers.

It is also worth noting that too much homework can create negative effects that may undermine any positives. These negative consequences may not only affect the child, but also could also pile on the stress for the whole family, according to a recent study by Robert Pressman of the New England Centre for Pediatric Psychology. Parents were particularly affected when their perception of their own capacity to assist their children decreased.

What then, is the tipping point, and when does homework simply become too much for parents and children? Guidelines typically suggest that children in the first grade (six years old) should have no more that 10 minutes per night, and that this amount should increase by 10 minutes per school year. However, cultural norms may greatly affect what constitutes too much.

A study of children aged between 8 and 10 in Quebec defined high levels of homework as more than 30 minutes a night, but a study in China of children aged 5 to 11 deemed that two or more hours per night was excessive. It is therefore difficult to create a clear standard for what constitutes as too much homework, because cultural differences, school-related stress, and negative emotions within the family all appear to interact with how homework affects children.

Should we stop setting homework?

In my opinion, even though there are potential risks of negative effects, homework should not be banned. Small amounts, assigned with specific learning goals in mind and with proper parental support, can help to improve students’ performance. While some studies have generally found little evidence that homework has a positive effect on young children overall, a 2008 study by Norwegian researcher Marte Rønning found that even some very young children do receive some benefit. So simply banning homework would mean that any particularly gifted or motivated pupils would not be able to benefit from increased study. However, at the earliest ages, very little homework should be assigned. The decisions about how much and what type are best left to teachers and parents.

As a parent, it is important to clarify what goals your child’s teacher has for homework assignments. Teachers can assign work for different reasons – as an academic drill to foster better study habits, and unfortunately, as a punishment. The goals for each assignment should be made clear, and should encourage positive engagement with academic routines.

Parents who play an active role in homework routines can help give their kids a more positive experience of learning © Getty Images

Parents should inform the teachers of how long the homework is taking, as teachers often incorrectly estimate the amount of time needed to complete an assignment, and how it is affecting household routines. For young children, positive teacher support and feedback is critical in establishing a student’s positive perception of homework and other academic routines. Teachers and parents need to be vigilant and ensure that homework routines do not start to generate patterns of negative interaction that erode students’ motivation.

Likewise, any positive effects of homework are dependent on several complex interactive factors, including the child’s personal motivation, the type of assignment, parental support and teacher goals. Creating an overarching policy to address every single situation is not realistic, and so homework policies tend to be fixated on the time the homework takes to complete. But rather than focusing on this, everyone would be better off if schools worked on fostering stronger communication between parents, teachers and students, allowing them to respond more sensitively to the child’s emotional and academic needs.

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Argumentative Essay: Where There’s no Need for Homework in High School

Here I intend to express argumentative reasons as to why homework in high school is not necessary. I intend to show that homework is part of an old system that is now no longer relevant when it comes to learning concepts and testing student learning and such.

Getting someone else to do your homework is a time tested trick

This is something that students have been doing since before America was colonized by New Worlders. It is a trick that ancient British people were using long before digital plagiarism and other such things. The fact is that students are going to cheat when it comes to homework in high school. So why not have all the learning done in schools and forget the homework bit?

Homework is what happens when schools fail

After all, isn’t homework just an expression of how school is failing children? For example, if a worker takes work home then it is often because it was not finished at work. This either indicates that poor quality and insufficient work was done in the workplace and may mean the workplace is being poorly run. So isn’t homework just a way of saying that the child has not learned enough at school so has to take his or her time at home to do it? Homework should be removed in place of longer hours at school or a better quality of teaching. If the child learnt enough at school then homework would not be needed.

Getting someone else to do your homework is cheating

It is true that students are going to find ways of not doing their homework, but that is called cheating. It is up to the parents to explain the difference between right and wrong. It is up to the parent to explain why cheating is bad. The school cannot be held accountable if the student breaks the rules in the same way that the government cannot be blamed if its citizens break the law.

You can rewrite online content to finish your homework

There are now tools that allow students to cheat with consummate ease. There are even math completion tools that do the math for a student. This means that homework cannot be used to test the knowledge of a child. It is therefore something that needs to be gotten rid of in the place of something else.

A student should be honest in order to learn better

Instead of using online tools to complete homework, the student should have more integrity and complete the given tasks as instructed.

Students are forced to learn and so remaining honest is impossible. This means that homework probably is a bad idea but it should be replaced and not removed. Either the school hours should be lengthened to fit in the learning that would have taken place whilst homework was being done, or the school should adopt new and more efficient ways of teaching so that a child does not need homework in order to reinforce learning.

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Home — Essay Samples — Education — Homework — Reasons Why Homework Should be Banned From School

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Reasons Why Homework Should Be Banned from Schools

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Published: Apr 29, 2022

Words: 493 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Good Hook Examples for “Why Homework Should Be Banned” Essay

  • The Never-Ending Battle: “Every evening, the battle begins. The battleground? The kitchen table. The weapons? Pencils, textbooks, and the relentless enemy known as homework. It’s time to question: Should homework be banned?”
  • The Stress Epidemic: “Stressed-out students, sleepless nights, and shrinking childhoods – all symptoms of the modern-day plague called homework. Is it time to eradicate this source of academic stress?”
  • A Lost Childhood: “As the backpacks grow heavier and the free time dwindles, one must ponder: Is childhood slipping away in the clutches of homework assignments? Let’s explore why banning homework might be the path to reclaiming our children’s lost moments.”
  • Breaking the Chains of Tradition: “Homework has been an age-old tradition in education, but does tradition always equate to effectiveness? It’s time to break free from the chains of old norms and consider why homework should no longer be the norm.”
  • The Elusive Work-Life Balance: “In a world where work-life balance is preached as essential, why are students deprived of this balance due to an excess of homework? Is it not time to advocate for a life beyond the books?”

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should schools abolish homework argumentative essay

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No More Homework: 12 Reasons We Should Get Rid of It Completely

Last Updated: February 16, 2024 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by wikiHow staff writer, Finn Kobler . Finn Kobler graduated from USC in 2022 with a BFA in Writing for Screen/Television. He is a two-time California State Champion and record holder in Original Prose/Poetry, a 2018 finalist for the Los Angeles Youth Poet Laureate, and he's written micro-budget films that have been screened in over 150 theaters nationwide. Growing up, Finn spent every summer helping his family's nonprofit arts program, Showdown Stage Company, empower people through accessible media. He hopes to continue that mission with his writing at wikiHow. There are 12 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 95,179 times. Learn more...

The amount of homework students are given has increased dramatically in the 21st century, which has sparked countless debates over homework’s overall value. While some have been adamant that homework is an essential part of a good education, it’s been proven that too much homework negatively affects students’ mood, classroom performance, and overall well-being. In addition, a heavy homework load can stress families and teachers. Here are 12 reasons why homework should be banned (or at least heavily reduced).

School is already a full-time job.

Students already spend approximately seven hours a day at school.

  • For years, teachers have followed the “10-minute rule” giving students roughly 10 minutes of homework per grade level. However, recent studies have shown students are completing 3+ hours of homework a night well before their senior years even begin. [2] X Trustworthy Source American Psychological Association Leading scientific and professional organization of licensed psychologists Go to source

Homework negatively affects students’ health.

Homework takes a toll physically.

Homework interferes with student’s opportunities to socialize.

Childhood and adolescence are extraordinary times for making friends.

Homework hinders students’ chances to learn new things.

Students need time to self-actualize.

Homework lowers students’ enthusiasm for school.

Homework makes the school feel like a chore.

Homework can lower academic performance.

Homework is unnecessary and counterproductive for high-performing students.

Homework cuts into family time.

Too much homework can cause family structures to collapse.

Homework is stressful for teachers.

Homework can also lead to burnout for teachers.

Homework is often irrelevant and punitive.

Students who don’t understand the lesson get no value from homework.

  • There are even studies that have shown homework in primary school has no correlation with classroom performance whatsoever. [9] X Research source

Homework encourages cheating.

Mandatory homework makes cheating feel like students’ only option.

Homework is inequitable.

Homework highlights the achievement gap between rich and poor students.

Other countries have banned homework with great results.

Countries like Finland have minimal homework and perform well academically.

  • There are even some U.S. schools that have adopted this approach with success. [13] X Research source

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  • ↑ https://www.edutopia.org/no-proven-benefits
  • ↑ https://www.apa.org/monitor/2016/03/homework
  • ↑ https://healthier.stanfordchildrens.org/en/health-hazards-homework/
  • ↑ https://teensneedsleep.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/galloway-nonacademic-effects-of-homework-in-privileged-high-performing-high-schools.pdf
  • ↑ https://time.com/4466390/homework-debate-research/
  • ↑ https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00220485.2022.2075506?role=tab&scroll=top&needAccess=true&journalCode=vece20
  • ↑ https://kappanonline.org/teacher-stress-balancing-demands-resources-mccarthy/
  • ↑ https://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/ct-life-homework-pros-cons-20180807-story.html
  • ↑ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6294446/
  • ↑ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/06/homework-inequality-parents-schedules-grades/485174/
  • ↑ https://www.bbc.com/news/education-37716005
  • ↑ https://www.wsj.com/articles/no-homework-its-the-new-thing-in-u-s-schools-11544610600

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The student news site of Mount Carmel High School

The Caravan

Students shouldn’t have homework on weekends.

Jonathan Kuptel '22 , Staff Writer | November 7, 2021

MC+senior+Imari+Price+works+on+a+assignment+for+21st-Century+Media+class.

Jonathan Kuptel

MC senior Imari Price works on a assignment for 21st-Century Media class.

Teachers and students have different opinions about homework. Saying it is not fair is the usual argument, but being fair is not the issue. It is about students being prepared. Daily homework assignments can be difficult, and weekends homework assignments are worse. Students operate best when they are well-rested and ready to go. A weekend with no homework would help them to be fresh and ready on Monday morning. Weekend assignments tend to be longer and more difficult. 

The students have a difficult day with classes, practices, and going to school. By Friday, (test day) they are near exhaustion. Most tests are given on Fridays. Homework on Monday-Thursday is time-consuming. Some weekends will include assignments in more than 1 class. Those who go to Mount Carmel are near the end of their rope by 2:40 PM on Friday. I have had other discussions with the senior class and we all feel pretty tired at the end of the day at 2:40 PM. A free weekend helps to get prepared for the next grind to start. No homework weekends assures better sleep cycles and a body that has recovered and refreshed. Weekends include chores around the house and family commitments. This plus weekends assignments lead to a lack of sleep. This means Monday will have a positive attitude. No homework on weekends also means more family time. This is a bonus. 

Alfie Kohn in his book The Homework Myth: Why Are Kids Get Too Much Of A Bad Thing says, “There is no evidence to demonstrate that homework benefits students.” The homework on weekends starts in elementary school and continues throughout high school. 

Mr. Kohn states that homework on weekends starts in elementary school and continues throughout high school. This supports the argument that weekend homework starts in elementary school and now students at Mount Carmel High School have to deal with weekend assignments. The weekend assignments take too much time and are a waste of students’ time. 

Nancy Kalish , author of The Case Against Homework: How Homework Is Hurting Our Children And What We Can Do About It, says “simply busy work” makes learning “a chore rather than a positive, constructive experience.” 

Receiving weekend homework that is not discussed in class and counts only as “busy work” is counterproductive. Students finish the assignments because they are required to be done. When the homework is not reviewed on Monday, it leads to frustration. Busy homework that serves no purpose is never a good idea. 

Gerald LeTender of Penn State’s Education Policy Studies Department points out the “shotgun approach to homework when students receive the same photocopied assignment which is then checked as complete rather than discussed is not very effective.” Some teachers discuss the homework assignments and that validates the assignment. Some teachers however just check homework assignments for completion. LeTender goes on to say, “If there’s no feedback and no monitoring, the homework is probably not effective.” Researchers from the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia had similar findings in their study “ When Is Homework Worth The Time?” Researchers reported no substantive difference in the grades of students who had homework completion. Adam Maltese, a researcher , noted , “Our results hint that maybe homework is not being used as well as it could be. Even one teacher who assigns busy shotgun homework is enough to be a bad idea. 

Students come to know when homework is the “shotgun approach.” They find this kind of assignment dull. Students have no respect for assignments like this. Quality assignments are appreciated by students. 

Etta Kralovec and John Buell in their book How Homework Disrupts Families, Overburdens Children, And Limits Learning assert that homework contributes to a corporate style, competitive U.S. culture that overvalued work to the detriment of personal and familial well being. They go on to call for an end to homework, but to extend the school day. 

Cooper, Robinson, and Patalc, in 2006 warned that homework could become counter productive. Homework is counterproductive when it is a (shotgun) assignment. To reiterate, not all homework is bad. Bad homework which is not reviewed in class just plain “busy work” is not positive and could be counterproductive. 

Sara Croll, Literacy Coach and Author, believes too much homework causes stress for students. Diana Stelin, teacher, artist, and mother says, “I’m absolutely in favor of this ban. Homework is homework, it doesn’t matter what class it comes from. What it does is create negative associations in students of all ages, takes away their innate desire to learn, and makes the subject a dreaded chore.” 

When students come to dread their homework, they do not do a great job on these assignments. Making students do a lot of homework isn’t beneficial because they get drowsy when they work at it for hours and hours at a time. It is hard for the brain to function properly when it is tired and boring. 

Pat Wayman, Teacher and CEO of HowtoLearn.com says, “Many kids are working as many hours as their overscheduled parents and it is taking a toll.” “Their brains and their bodies need time to be curious, have fun, be creative and just be a kid.” 

No homework on weekends is not just a wish, but it is supported by all of these educators and authors. They all champion limiting homework are totally opposed to homework assignments. Educators and students agree that no homework on weekends is a good idea. Meaningful homework, a longer school day, and discussion of homework are what these educators and authors encourage. 

Mrs. Kristina Luster and other counselors already speak to upperclassmen about how to go about their college searches. Perhaps there could be an addition of financial planning and/or life skills beyond MC.

Students would benefit from financial planning, life skills

should schools abolish homework argumentative essay

Nothing beats events in the Alumni Gym

Dr. King speaks at a press conference in 1964. (Library of Congress)

MLK exemplified the values of Mt. Carmel

should schools abolish homework argumentative essay

The Caravan Cup should make a return

Many MC students came out to support the varsity football team when they played Wendell Phillips Academy in 2021. The student section needs to return to this level of dedication to MC athletics.

It’s time to return to packing the stands, Caravan fans

Mrs. Kristina Luster and other counselors already speak to upperclassmen about how to go about their college searches. Perhaps there could be an addition of financial planning and/or life skills beyond MC.

In this season of thankfulness, it’s great to have The Caravan back

Senior Matt Potters Helping Hands handwear drive is advertised in several posters around campus.

Matt Potter putting on the gloves to help others

MC junior Leonard Siegal speaks to assembled veterans and the MC community at the Veterans Day gathering.

MC shows appreciation at Veterans Day assembly

The mural on the wall of in first floor hallway features some current and past alumni staff.

The importance of Caravan alums coming back to serve

Mr. Tony Panatera mans the Security Office much of the school day besides his substitute teaching duties.

Coach Panatera, everyone’s favorite sub

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My son's alternative school doesn't have grades, tests, or homework. Kids decide what they're interested in learning.

  • I decided to send my son, Jasper, to a K-12 school called the Arts and Ideas Sudbury School.
  • The school is based on a philosophy that allow kids to make their own decisions about education.
  • It has no grades, tests, or homework.

Insider Today

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Adrienne Bergthold. It has been edited for length and clarity.

When my youngest son, Jasper, was getting ready for kindergarten, I was struggling with where to send him to school. I'd always viewed school as an opportunity to instill a love of learning, and I felt like public school was too stressful for kids because of all the pressure around grades, homework, and tests. Private school is expensive , and I didn't have the patience to homeschool. So I started to consider affordable alternative schooling options in our area.

I first heard about a local K-12 school called the Arts and Ideas Sudbury School from another mom I was talking to at the park when Jasper was little. I didn't think much of it until I happened to hear the founder talking about the school on the radio. The principles of giving kids the freedom to learn about what they're interested in, without the added stress of grades and tests, really resonated with me.

Arts and Ideas seemed like the right school for Jasper

I looked into it a bit more, and Arts and Ideas seemed like the perfect fit. It was only five minutes from our house, and it was much more affordable than private schools in our area. Before making a decision, I signed up Jasper for the visiting week for families to check out the school before enrolling . After a week of visiting, he was telling me about fractions and holding doors open for me.

He started kindergarten there in 2010 and graduated just last year, in 2023. From kindergarten on, Jasper had so many opportunities to learn how to live in the real world. Arts and Ideas is a Sudbury School , which is a worldwide educational philosophy that allows kids to make decisions about their own education. Along with making and enforcing the school rules together, students can choose what they want to learn about and how.

It's not formatted like a traditional school

At Arts and Ideas, there's no curriculum or formal classrooms. Kids learn by playing and doing what they're interested in. Rather than "teachers," the school has staff members who guide the students in what they want to learn. Instead of sitting in a classroom all day, students have the freedom to play outside, work on a project, or attend workshops on topics they want to learn about, including creative writing, acting, math, and coding.

There's a bulletin board in the hallway where kids can sign up for activities to participate in. If the kids express interest in something they want to learn, the staff and students will work together to organize new workshops. Sometimes, the workshops are at school, and other times they're field trips. Baltimore and the surrounding area have a lot to offer, so the opportunities feel endless.

For example, my son was interested in cooking from a young age because his dad was a baker. Jasper was involved in the school's Kitchen Corp, which cooked hot lunch every Friday. The students would work together to find out what everyone wanted to eat, plan the meals, take field trips to get ingredients at the local grocery store, and cook in the school kitchen for all the students. Jasper got to pursue his interest in cooking, but he also learned important real-life skills like organization, budgeting, math, and teamwork.

There are no grades, tests, homework , or other requirements, which takes stress out of the equation so kids can really fall in love with learning. The only requirement is that students need to attend school for five consecutive hours, including the "core hours" of 11–3 p.m. Students are totally free to do what they want during the school day, except for a few scheduled activities, such as daily chores and school-wide meetings.

Because there are no traditional classrooms , students are with kids who are both older and younger than them all day, which I believe helps everyone learn. Younger kids can learn from older students, and older students have the opportunity to help and mentor younger ones. When my son attended visiting week, for example, he learned fractions from kids who knew math.

To receive a diploma, students write and defend a thesis about how they've prepared to enter the real world. My son graduated in 2023, and he's currently taking a gap year before attending college. His experience at Arts and Ideas helped him get ready for life in the real world.

But more than that, Arts and Ideas gave Jasper a happy childhood and helped him grow into a secure adult. We have so many opportunities to do the work throughout our lives, and childhood should be about joy. Because of his education, I can say my son experienced a childhood free from the stress of anything but getting to know himself.

should schools abolish homework argumentative essay

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  1. Argumentative Essay on Should Homework Be Banned From School?

    The articles "Down With Homework" by Alfie Kohn, "Why I Think All Schools Should Abolish Homework" by Vicki Abeles, "Education Inequity: Homework and its Negative Impacts on Kids" by Joseph Lathan, and "The Benefits of Having Homework" by Knogi.com, substantiate the argument that homework should be banned from schools.

  2. Homework Pros and Cons

    In the early 1900s, progressive education theorists, championed by the magazine Ladies' Home Journal, decried homework's negative impact on children's physical and mental health, leading California to ban homework for students under 15 from 1901 until 1917.

  3. Should We Get Rid of Homework?

    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...

  4. Why Homework Should Be Banned From Schools

    In a study of high schoolers conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), researchers concluded that "after around four hours of homework per week, the...

  5. Homework Should Be Abolished Argumentative Essay

    / Samples / Education Homework Should Be Abolished Argumentative Essay Get sample for $1 One of the longest arguments in history has everything to do with school. Should homework stay or go?

  6. The Pros and Cons: 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.

  7. Are You Down With or Done With Homework?

    Posted January 17, 2012 By Lory Hough The debate over how much schoolwork students should be doing at home has flared again, with one side saying it's too much, the other side saying in our competitive world, it's just not enough. [caption id="attachment_5366" align="alignleft" width="319" caption="Illustration by Jessica Esch"] [/caption]

  8. Argumentative Essay on Grading System in Schools Should Be Abolished

    The current grading system in schools should be abolished because it is harmful to the health of students and impacts the way students comprehend the material they are taught. The first reason why the grading system should be forgotten is that grades can damage a student's mental health. I believe this because as a student, I have had many ...

  9. Should homework be abolished?

    T.K.: Overall, homework does have a positive impact on success. When we separate primary from secondary school, homework becomes one of the factors that has the greatest impact on kids' success. In one of the larger meta-analyses on the subject, the author, John Hattie, talks of a 0.64 fact impact in high school.

  10. Should homework be banned? The big debate

    And for secondary age students, 90 minutes of homework a day is the ideal amount for improving academic performance. Schools and parents must ensure that homework doesn't interfere with a healthy balance of exercise, family time and downtime - especially after a difficult year of online learning and limited social interaction.

  11. Should Homework Be Abolished?

    Homework is an ongoing argument between parents and teachers whether it should take it out of the system, or if they should keep it in the system. There has been an enormous amount of research and studies done on if homework helps with academic learning, or if it is just a way to put more stress onto students and teachers.

  12. The 'Homework Gap' Is About to Get Worse. What Should Schools Do?

    "Many schools rely on online communications platforms to communicate with parents and guardians about their student's progress, school activities, and other important information. If families ...

  13. Should Schools Eliminate Homework?

    Consider the Mental Separation, and Leisure Time. Homework elimination, adds Ricks, gives young children plenty of free time after school in which to pursue music, art, sports, and leisure; provides adequate time for family meals, reading (independent and/or with a parent), and rest, and ensures ongoing enthusiasm for learning by allowing ...

  14. Should homework be banned?

    Social media has sparked into life about whether children should be given homework - should students be freed from this daily chore? Dr Gerald Letendre, a professor of education at Pennsylvania State University, investigates.

  15. Argumentative Essay: Where There's no Need for Homework in High School

    Argumentative Essay: Where There's no Need for Homework in High School Here I intend to express argumentative reasons as to why homework in high school is not necessary. I intend to show that homework is part of an old system that is now no longer relevant when it comes to learning concepts and testing student learning and such.

  16. Reasons Why Homework Should Be Banned from Schools

    Published: Apr 29, 2022 Listen Details Homework is defined as tasks assigned to students by school teachers that are intended to be carried out during nonschool hours.Homework was invented by Robert Nevilis in 1905. He was a teacher who thought students needed more practice at home to understand about the lesson.

  17. 12 Reasons Why Homework Should Be Banned

    It's essential that students are given the proper time and opportunity to socialize through after-school programs and extracurriculars. Increased time spent on homework means decreased time spent on these communal activities which can be detrimental to students' attitudes and social skills. [4] 4.

  18. Free Essay: Homework Should Be Abolished

    Tools Settings Filter Results It is a common emotion to students regarding the distaste of homework, but legions of teachers know better because they recognize the importance of homework in the success of students in school and outside of school. I completely disagree with the statement that homework should be abolished.

  19. Students shouldn't have homework on weekends

    Mr. Kohn states that homework on weekends starts in elementary school and continues throughout high school. This supports the argument that weekend homework starts in elementary school and now students at Mount Carmel High School have to deal with weekend assignments. The weekend assignments take too much time and are a waste of students' time.

  20. Debate on Homework Should be Abolished

    Debate on Homework Should be Abolished: Homework takes up a major part of a child's life. The 21st century has been a period where students are troubled with homework given on various days for various subjects. Children go through days and evenings on book reports, numerical statements, writing papers, and making science posters or projects. […]

  21. Argumentative Essay Homework Should Be Abolished

    Argumentative Essay Homework should be abolished - Read online for free.

  22. Why I Think All Schools Should Abolish Homework Analysis

    In her article "Why I Think All Schools Should Abolish Homework", Vicky Abeles argues that schools should abolish, if not limit, the amount of homework given to students because there aren't many proven benefits, and instead will harm students in some aspects. She backs her argument with the fact that studies have shown there "is no ...

  23. Argumentative Essay: Should Homework Be Banned?

    Argumentative Essay: Should Homework Be Banned? Improved Essays 595 Words 3 Pages Open Document Essay Sample Check Writing Quality Show More Homework has been linked to achieving better results and better grades, so why are some schools banning it?

  24. Homework Should Be Abolished Free Essay Example

    Download Essay, Pages 3 (541 words) Views 26295 It is a common emotion to students regarding the distaste of homework, but legions of teachers know better because they recognize the importance of homework in the success of students in school and outside of school. I completely disagree with the statement that homework should be abolished.

  25. Alternative School Has No Grades, Tests, Homework; Here's How It Works

    The only requirement is that students need to attend school for five consecutive hours, including the "core hours" of 11-3 p.m. Students are totally free to do what they want during the school ...