International comparisons offer no reassurance. In describing the results of their analysis of student performance across 50 countries, which was published last year, Pennsylvania State University researchers David Baker and Gerald Letendre said: “Not only did we fail to find any positive relationships,” but “the overall correlations between national average student achievement and national averages in [amount of homework assigned] . . . are all negative.”
* Finally, not a single study has ever supported the claim that homework teaches good work habits or develops positive character traits such as self-discipline and independence. These assumptions could be described as urban myths except for the fact that they’re still taken seriously in suburban and rural areas, too.
In short, the research provides no reason to think that students would be at any sort of disadvantage if they got much less homework – or maybe even none at all. And the accounts I’ve heard from teachers and schools that have abolished after-school assignments, yet whose students are succeeding brilliantly (while maintaining their enthusiasm about learning) offer evidence of a different sort.
Yet these schools are in the minority, to say the least. As a rule, homework is assigned not merely on those occasions when the teacher really believes it might help, but on a regular schedule that’s been determined ahead of time. And the homework load is growing fastest for younger children, which is precisely where the supporting evidence isn’t just shaky – it’s nonexistent.
It’s time for us to stop taking the value, and existence, of homework for granted. Rather than confining ourselves to peripheral questions – “What types of binders should kids have?” “Is x minutes enough time for this assignment?” – we should ask what really matters: Is the kind of homework our kids are getting worth doing in any amount? What evidence exists to show that daily homework is necessary for children to become better thinkers or more engaged learners?
And: What if, after spending six or seven hours a day at school, we let them have their afternoons and evenings just to be kids?