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

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

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

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August 16, 2021

Is it time to get rid of homework? Mental health experts weigh in

by Sara M Moniuszko

It's no secret that kids hate homework. And as students grapple with an ongoing pandemic that has had a wide-range of mental health impacts, is it time schools start listening to their pleas over workloads?

Some teachers are turning to social media to take a stand against homework .

Tiktok user @misguided.teacher says he doesn't assign it because the "whole premise of homework is flawed."

For starters, he says he can't grade work on "even playing fields" when students' home environments can be vastly different.

"Even students who go home to a peaceful house, do they really want to spend their time on busy work? Because typically that's what a lot of homework is, it's busy work," he says in the video that has garnered 1.6 million likes. "You only get one year to be 7, you only got one year to be 10, you only get one year to be 16, 18."

Mental health experts agree heavy work loads have the potential do more harm than good for students, especially when taking into account the impacts of the pandemic. But they also say the answer may not be to eliminate homework altogether.

Emmy Kang, mental health counselor at Humantold, says studies have shown heavy workloads can be "detrimental" for students and cause a "big impact on their mental, physical and emotional health."

"More than half of students say that homework is their primary source of stress, and we know what stress can do on our bodies," she says, adding that staying up late to finish assignments also leads to disrupted sleep and exhaustion.

Cynthia Catchings, a licensed clinical social worker and therapist at Talkspace, says heavy workloads can also cause serious mental health problems in the long run, like anxiety and depression.

And for all the distress homework causes, it's not as useful as many may think, says Dr. Nicholas Kardaras, a psychologist and CEO of Omega Recovery treatment center.

"The research shows that there's really limited benefit of homework for elementary age students, that really the school work should be contained in the classroom," he says.

For older students, Kang says homework benefits plateau at about two hours per night.

"Most students, especially at these high-achieving schools, they're doing a minimum of three hours, and it's taking away time from their friends from their families, their extracurricular activities. And these are all very important things for a person's mental and emotional health."

Catchings, who also taught third to 12th graders for 12 years, says she's seen the positive effects of a no homework policy while working with students abroad.

"Not having homework was something that I always admired from the French students (and) the French schools, because that was helping the students to really have the time off and really disconnect from school ," she says.

The answer may not be to eliminate homework completely, but to be more mindful of the type of work students go home with, suggests Kang, who was a high-school teacher for 10 years.

"I don't think (we) should scrap homework, I think we should scrap meaningless, purposeless busy work-type homework. That's something that needs to be scrapped entirely," she says, encouraging teachers to be thoughtful and consider the amount of time it would take for students to complete assignments.

The pandemic made the conversation around homework more crucial

Mindfulness surrounding homework is especially important in the context of the last two years. Many students will be struggling with mental health issues that were brought on or worsened by the pandemic, making heavy workloads even harder to balance.

"COVID was just a disaster in terms of the lack of structure. Everything just deteriorated," Kardaras says, pointing to an increase in cognitive issues and decrease in attention spans among students. "School acts as an anchor for a lot of children, as a stabilizing force, and that disappeared."

But even if students transition back to the structure of in-person classes, Kardaras suspects students may still struggle after two school years of shifted schedules and disrupted sleeping habits.

"We've seen adults struggling to go back to in-person work environments from remote work environments. That effect is amplified with children because children have less resources to be able to cope with those transitions than adults do," he explains.

'Get organized' ahead of back-to-school

In order to make the transition back to in-person school easier, Kang encourages students to "get good sleep, exercise regularly (and) eat a healthy diet."

To help manage workloads, she suggests students "get organized."

"There's so much mental clutter up there when you're disorganized... sitting down and planning out their study schedules can really help manage their time," she says.

Breaking assignments up can also make things easier to tackle.

"I know that heavy workloads can be stressful, but if you sit down and you break down that studying into smaller chunks, they're much more manageable."

If workloads are still too much, Kang encourages students to advocate for themselves.

"They should tell their teachers when a homework assignment just took too much time or if it was too difficult for them to do on their own," she says. "It's good to speak up and ask those questions. Respectfully, of course, because these are your teachers. But still, I think sometimes teachers themselves need this feedback from their students."

©2021 USA Today Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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Is homework a necessary evil?

After decades of debate, researchers are still sorting out the truth about homework’s pros and cons. One point they can agree on: Quality assignments matter.

By Kirsten Weir

March 2016, Vol 47, No. 3

Print version: page 36

• Schools and Classrooms

Homework battles have raged for decades. For as long as kids have been whining about doing their homework, parents and education reformers have complained that homework's benefits are dubious. Meanwhile many teachers argue that take-home lessons are key to helping students learn. Now, as schools are shifting to the new (and hotly debated) Common Core curriculum standards, educators, administrators and researchers are turning a fresh eye toward the question of homework's value.

But when it comes to deciphering the research literature on the subject, homework is anything but an open book.

The 10-minute rule

In many ways, homework seems like common sense. Spend more time practicing multiplication or studying Spanish vocabulary and you should get better at math or Spanish. But it may not be that simple.

Homework can indeed produce academic benefits, such as increased understanding and retention of the material, says Duke University social psychologist Harris Cooper, PhD, one of the nation's leading homework researchers. But not all students benefit. In a review of studies published from 1987 to 2003, Cooper and his colleagues found that homework was linked to better test scores in high school and, to a lesser degree, in middle school. Yet they found only faint evidence that homework provided academic benefit in elementary school ( Review of Educational Research , 2006).

Then again, test scores aren't everything. Homework proponents also cite the nonacademic advantages it might confer, such as the development of personal responsibility, good study habits and time-management skills. But as to hard evidence of those benefits, "the jury is still out," says Mollie Galloway, PhD, associate professor of educational leadership at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. "I think there's a focus on assigning homework because [teachers] think it has these positive outcomes for study skills and habits. But we don't know for sure that's the case."

Even when homework is helpful, there can be too much of a good thing. "There is a limit to how much kids can benefit from home study," Cooper says. He agrees with an oft-cited rule of thumb that students should do no more than 10 minutes a night per grade level — from about 10 minutes in first grade up to a maximum of about two hours in high school. Both the National Education Association and National Parent Teacher Association support that limit.

Beyond that point, kids don't absorb much useful information, Cooper says. In fact, too much homework can do more harm than good. Researchers have cited drawbacks, including boredom and burnout toward academic material, less time for family and extracurricular activities, lack of sleep and increased stress.

In a recent study of Spanish students, Rubén Fernández-Alonso, PhD, and colleagues found that students who were regularly assigned math and science homework scored higher on standardized tests. But when kids reported having more than 90 to 100 minutes of homework per day, scores declined ( Journal of Educational Psychology , 2015).

"At all grade levels, doing other things after school can have positive effects," Cooper says. "To the extent that homework denies access to other leisure and community activities, it's not serving the child's best interest."

Children of all ages need down time in order to thrive, says Denise Pope, PhD, a professor of education at Stanford University and a co-founder of Challenge Success, a program that partners with secondary schools to implement policies that improve students' academic engagement and well-being.

"Little kids and big kids need unstructured time for play each day," she says. Certainly, time for physical activity is important for kids' health and well-being. But even time spent on social media can help give busy kids' brains a break, she says.

All over the map

But are teachers sticking to the 10-minute rule? Studies attempting to quantify time spent on homework are all over the map, in part because of wide variations in methodology, Pope says.

A 2014 report by the Brookings Institution examined the question of homework, comparing data from a variety of sources. That report cited findings from a 2012 survey of first-year college students in which 38.4 percent reported spending six hours or more per week on homework during their last year of high school. That was down from 49.5 percent in 1986 ( The Brown Center Report on American Education , 2014).

The Brookings report also explored survey data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which asked 9-, 13- and 17-year-old students how much homework they'd done the previous night. They found that between 1984 and 2012, there was a slight increase in homework for 9-year-olds, but homework amounts for 13- and 17-year-olds stayed roughly the same, or even decreased slightly.

Yet other evidence suggests that some kids might be taking home much more work than they can handle. Robert Pressman, PhD, and colleagues recently investigated the 10-minute rule among more than 1,100 students, and found that elementary-school kids were receiving up to three times as much homework as recommended. As homework load increased, so did family stress, the researchers found ( American Journal of Family Therapy , 2015).

Many high school students also seem to be exceeding the recommended amounts of homework. Pope and Galloway recently surveyed more than 4,300 students from 10 high-achieving high schools. Students reported bringing home an average of just over three hours of homework nightly ( Journal of Experiential Education , 2013).

On the positive side, students who spent more time on homework in that study did report being more behaviorally engaged in school — for instance, giving more effort and paying more attention in class, Galloway says. But they were not more invested in the homework itself. They also reported greater academic stress and less time to balance family, friends and extracurricular activities. They experienced more physical health problems as well, such as headaches, stomach troubles and sleep deprivation. "Three hours per night is too much," Galloway says.

In the high-achieving schools Pope and Galloway studied, more than 90 percent of the students go on to college. There's often intense pressure to succeed academically, from both parents and peers. On top of that, kids in these communities are often overloaded with extracurricular activities, including sports and clubs. "They're very busy," Pope says. "Some kids have up to 40 hours a week — a full-time job's worth — of extracurricular activities." And homework is yet one more commitment on top of all the others.

"Homework has perennially acted as a source of stress for students, so that piece of it is not new," Galloway says. "But especially in upper-middle-class communities, where the focus is on getting ahead, I think the pressure on students has been ratcheted up."

Yet homework can be a problem at the other end of the socioeconomic spectrum as well. Kids from wealthier homes are more likely to have resources such as computers, Internet connections, dedicated areas to do schoolwork and parents who tend to be more educated and more available to help them with tricky assignments. Kids from disadvantaged homes are more likely to work at afterschool jobs, or to be home without supervision in the evenings while their parents work multiple jobs, says Lea Theodore, PhD, a professor of school psychology at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. They are less likely to have computers or a quiet place to do homework in peace.

"Homework can highlight those inequities," she says.

Quantity vs. quality

One point researchers agree on is that for all students, homework quality matters. But too many kids are feeling a lack of engagement with their take-home assignments, many experts say. In Pope and Galloway's research, only 20 percent to 30 percent of students said they felt their homework was useful or meaningful.

"Students are assigned a lot of busywork. They're naming it as a primary stressor, but they don't feel it's supporting their learning," Galloway says.

"Homework that's busywork is not good for anyone," Cooper agrees. Still, he says, different subjects call for different kinds of assignments. "Things like vocabulary and spelling are learned through practice. Other kinds of courses require more integration of material and drawing on different skills."

But critics say those skills can be developed with many fewer hours of homework each week. Why assign 50 math problems, Pope asks, when 10 would be just as constructive? One Advanced Placement biology teacher she worked with through Challenge Success experimented with cutting his homework assignments by a third, and then by half. "Test scores didn't go down," she says. "You can have a rigorous course and not have a crazy homework load."

Still, changing the culture of homework won't be easy. Teachers-to-be get little instruction in homework during their training, Pope says. And despite some vocal parents arguing that kids bring home too much homework, many others get nervous if they think their child doesn't have enough. "Teachers feel pressured to give homework because parents expect it to come home," says Galloway. "When it doesn't, there's this idea that the school might not be doing its job."

Galloway argues teachers and school administrators need to set clear goals when it comes to homework — and parents and students should be in on the discussion, too. "It should be a broader conversation within the community, asking what's the purpose of homework? Why are we giving it? Who is it serving? Who is it not serving?"

Until schools and communities agree to take a hard look at those questions, those backpacks full of take-home assignments will probably keep stirring up more feelings than facts.

Further reading

• Cooper, H., Robinson, J. C., & Patall, E. A. (2006). Does homework improve academic achievement? A synthesis of research, 1987-2003. Review of Educational Research, 76 (1), 1–62. doi: 10.3102/00346543076001001
• Galloway, M., Connor, J., & Pope, D. (2013). Nonacademic effects of homework in privileged, high-performing high schools. The Journal of Experimental Education, 81 (4), 490–510. doi: 10.1080/00220973.2012.745469
• Pope, D., Brown, M., & Miles, S. (2015). Overloaded and underprepared: Strategies for stronger schools and healthy, successful kids . San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Letters to the Editor

• Send us a letter

Does Homework Really Help Students Learn?

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

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

Do your homework.

If only it were that simple.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Senior Contributing Editor

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

She can be reached at [email protected] .

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Boston University moderates comments to facilitate an informed, substantive, civil conversation. Abusive, profane, self-promotional, misleading, incoherent or off-topic comments will be rejected. Moderators are staffed during regular business hours (EST) and can only accept comments written in English. Statistics or facts must include a citation or a link to the citation.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

we have the same name

so they have the same name what of it?

lol you tell her

totally agree

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

homework isn’t that bad

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

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

i totally agree with you. these people are such boomers

why just why

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

why the hell?

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

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

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

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

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

not true it just causes kids to stress

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

homework does help

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

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

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

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

I disagree.

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

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

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

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

Homeowkr is god for stusenrs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

oof i feel bad good luck!

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

thx for the article guys.

Homework is good

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

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

It was published FEb 19, 2019.

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

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

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

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

What lala land do these teachers live in?

Homework gives noting to the kid

Homework is Bad

homework is bad.

why do kids even have homework?

Comments are closed.

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Credit: August de Richelieu

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

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

By Vicky Hallett

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

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

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

What kind of homework training do teachers typically get?

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

Why do students need more interactive homework?

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

Is family engagement really that important?

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

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

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

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

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

Did COVID change how schools and parents view homework?

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

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

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

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

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Homework: An Hour a Day Is All the Experts Say

Too much homework can be counterproductive..

Posted April 20, 2015

How much time does your teen spend doing busy school work each night? According to a recent study, if it's more than one hour… then it's too much. A study from Spain published in the Journal of Educational Psychology by the American Psychological Association found that spending more than one hour on math and science homework can be counterproductive. Students seem to gain the most benefit when a small amount of homework is consistently assigned, rather than large portions assigned at once.

The study examined the performance of 7,725 public and private school students (mean age 13.78 years). Students answered questions about the frequency of homework assigned and how long it took them to complete assignments. Researchers looked at standardized tests to examine academic performance in math and science. They found that students in Spain spent approximately one to two hours per day doing homework. Compare that to studies that indicate American students spent more than three hours a day doing homework!

Researchers found that teachers who assigned 90-100 minutes of homework per day had students who performed poorer on standardized tests than those with less homework. However when teachers consistently assigned small amounts of homework students scored nearly 50 points higher on standardized test than those who had daunting amounts of homework. Another interesting finding from this study was students who were assigned about 70 minutes of homework, of which they needed help from someone else to complete, scored in the 50th percentile on standardized tests. Whereas those who were assigned the same amount of homework, but could do it independently, scored in the 70th percentile. So clearly, not only is the amount of homework assigned of importance, but so is the ability to master it independently.

There are several possible explanations for these findings. First, teachers may be using homework as a means to cover what was not completed in class. So rather than practicing concepts taught in class, students are left to self-teach material not covered in class. Homework should supplement learning, and not be used as a tool to keep up with a curriculum pacing guide. Another explanation for testing gains is those who work to master material independently experience more academic success.

The study out of Spain supports findings from another study published a year ago published in the Journal of Experimental Education which found that too much homework can have a negative impact on teens’ lives outside of the academic setting. In this study, researchers surveyed 4,317 American high school students’ perceptions about homework, in relation to their well-being and behavioral engagement in school work. On average, these students reported spending approximately 3.1 hours of homework each night—a far reach from the hour per night recommendation by the first study.

This second study found that too much homework can be counterproductive and diminish the effectiveness of learning. The negative effects of lots of homework can far outweigh the positive ones. Researchers found that a lot of homework can result in:

Students reported high levels of stress associated with school work. Below is the breakdown of student responses.

56% of students in this study reported that homework was a primary source of stress 43% of students in this study reported that tests were another source of stress 33% of students in this study reported that pressure to get good grades was a source of stress

• Physical Problems:

Students reported that homework led to:

poor sleep frequent headaches gastro intestinal problems weight loss/gain.

• Social life problems.

How can students expect to spend time with others when they are too busy completing homework? Students reported that having too much school work keeps them from spending time with friends and family.

Plus too much school work keep them from participating in extra-curricular activities and engaging in activities they enjoy doing. Interestingly, many students reported that homework was a “pointless” or “mindless” way to keep their grades up. In other words… it was "busy" work.

When is homework beneficial? If homework is used as a tool to facilitate learning and reinforce concepts taught in the classroom then it enriches students academic experience. While homework does serve a purpose, so does having a life outside of school. Sometimes social development can be just as important as academic development. So the answer may be helping youth find a balance between school and social life.

Journal Reference:

Rubén Fernández-Alonso, Javier Suárez-Álvarez, José Muñiz. Adolescents’ Homework Performance in Mathematics and Science: Personal Factors and Teaching Practices. Journal of Educational Psychology, 2015; DOI:10.1037/edu0000032

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

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Education scholar Denise Pope has found that too much homework has negative effects on student well-being and behavioral engagement. (Image credit: L.A. Cicero)

A Stanford researcher found that too much homework can negatively affect kids, especially their lives away from school, where family, friends and activities matter.

“Our findings on the effects of homework challenge the traditional assumption that homework is inherently good,” wrote Denise Pope , a senior lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and a co-author of a study published in the Journal of Experimental Education .

The researchers used survey data to examine perceptions about homework, student well-being and behavioral engagement in a sample of 4,317 students from 10 high-performing high schools in upper-middle-class California communities. Along with the survey data, Pope and her colleagues used open-ended answers to explore the students’ views on homework.

Median household income exceeded $90,000 in these communities, and 93 percent of the students went on to college, either two-year or four-year.

Students in these schools average about 3.1 hours of homework each night.

“The findings address how current homework practices in privileged, high-performing schools sustain students’ advantage in competitive climates yet hinder learning, full engagement and well-being,” Pope wrote.

Pope and her colleagues found that too much homework can diminish its effectiveness and even be counterproductive. They cite prior research indicating that homework benefits plateau at about two hours per night, and that 90 minutes to two and a half hours is optimal for high school.

Their study found that too much homework is associated with:

* Greater stress: 56 percent of the students considered homework a primary source of stress, according to the survey data. Forty-three percent viewed tests as a primary stressor, while 33 percent put the pressure to get good grades in that category. Less than 1 percent of the students said homework was not a stressor.

* Reductions in health: In their open-ended answers, many students said their homework load led to sleep deprivation and other health problems. The researchers asked students whether they experienced health issues such as headaches, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, weight loss and stomach problems.

* Less time for friends, family and extracurricular pursuits: Both the survey data and student responses indicate that spending too much time on homework meant that students were “not meeting their developmental needs or cultivating other critical life skills,” according to the researchers. Students were more likely to drop activities, not see friends or family, and not pursue hobbies they enjoy.

A balancing act

The results offer empirical evidence that many students struggle to find balance between homework, extracurricular activities and social time, the researchers said. Many students felt forced or obligated to choose homework over developing other talents or skills.

Also, there was no relationship between the time spent on homework and how much the student enjoyed it. The research quoted students as saying they often do homework they see as “pointless” or “mindless” in order to keep their grades up.

“This kind of busy work, by its very nature, discourages learning and instead promotes doing homework simply to get points,” Pope said.

She said the research calls into question the value of assigning large amounts of homework in high-performing schools. Homework should not be simply assigned as a routine practice, she said.

“Rather, any homework assigned should have a purpose and benefit, and it should be designed to cultivate learning and development,” wrote Pope.

High-performing paradox

In places where students attend high-performing schools, too much homework can reduce their time to foster skills in the area of personal responsibility, the researchers concluded. “Young people are spending more time alone,” they wrote, “which means less time for family and fewer opportunities to engage in their communities.”

Student perspectives

The researchers say that while their open-ended or “self-reporting” methodology to gauge student concerns about homework may have limitations – some might regard it as an opportunity for “typical adolescent complaining” – it was important to learn firsthand what the students believe.

The paper was co-authored by Mollie Galloway from Lewis and Clark College and Jerusha Conner from Villanova University.

Media Contacts

Denise Pope, Stanford Graduate School of Education: (650) 725-7412, [email protected] Clifton B. Parker, Stanford News Service: (650) 725-0224, [email protected]

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Homework, Sleep, and the Student Brain

At some point, every parent wishes their high school aged student would go to bed earlier as well as find time to pursue their own passions -- or maybe even choose to relax. This thought reemerged as I reread Anna Quindlen's commencement speech, A Short Guide to a Happy Life. The central message of this address, never actually stated, was: "Get a life."

But what prevents students from "getting a life," especially between September and June? One answer is homework.

Favorable Working Conditions

As a history teacher at St. Andrew's Episcopal School and director of the Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning , I want to be clear that I both give and support the idea of homework. But homework, whether good or bad, takes time and often cuts into each student's sleep, family dinner, or freedom to follow passions outside of school. For too many students, homework is too often about compliance and "not losing points" rather than about learning.

Most schools have a philosophy about homework that is challenged by each parent's experience doing homework "back in the day." Parents' common misconception is that the teachers and schools giving more homework are more challenging and therefore better teachers and schools. This is a false assumption. The amount of homework your son or daughter does each night should not be a source of pride for the quality of a school. In fact, I would suggest a different metric when evaluating your child's homework. Are you able to stay up with your son or daughter until he or she finishes those assignments? If the answer is no, then too much homework is being assigned, and you both need more of the sleep that, according to Daniel T. Willingham , is crucial to memory consolidation.

I have often joked with my students, while teaching the Progressive Movement and rise of unions between the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, that they should consider striking because of how schools violate child labor laws. If school is each student's "job," then students are working hours usually assigned to Washington, DC lawyers (combing the hours of the school day, school-sponsored activities, and homework). This would certainly be a risky strategy for changing how schools and teachers think about homework, but it certainly would gain attention. (If any of my students are reading this, don't try it!)

So how can we change things?

The Scientific Approach

In the study "What Great Homework Looks Like" from the journal Think Differently and Deeply , which connects research in how the brain learns to the instructional practice of teachers, we see moderate advantages of no more than two hours of homework for high school students. For younger students, the correlation is even smaller. Homework does teach other important, non-cognitive skills such as time management, sustained attention, and rule following, but let us not mask that as learning the content and skills that most assignments are supposed to teach.

Homework can be a powerful learning tool -- if designed and assigned correctly. I say "learning," because good homework should be an independent moment for each student or groups of students through virtual collaboration. It should be challenging and engaging enough to allow for deliberate practice of essential content and skills, but not so hard that parents are asked to recall what they learned in high school. All that usually leads to is family stress.

But even when good homework is assigned, it is the student's approach that is critical. A scientific approach to tackling their homework can actually lead to deepened learning in less time. The biggest contributor to the length of a student's homework is task switching. Too often, students jump between their work on an assignment and the lure of social media. But I have found it hard to convince students of the cost associated with such task switching. Imagine a student writing an essay for AP English class or completing math proofs for their honors geometry class. In the middle of the work, their phone announces a new text message. This is a moment of truth for the student. Should they address that text before or after they finish their assignment?

Delayed Gratification

When a student chooses to check their text, respond and then possibly take an extended dive into social media, they lose a percentage of the learning that has already happened. As a result, when they return to the AP essay or honors geometry proof, they need to retrace their learning in order to catch up to where they were. This jump, between homework and social media, is actually extending the time a student spends on an assignment. My colleagues and I coach our students to see social media as a reward for finishing an assignment. Delaying gratification is an important non-cognitive skill and one that research has shown enhances life outcomes (see the Stanford Marshmallow Test ).

At my school, the goal is to reduce the barriers for each student to meet his or her peak potential without lowering the bar. Good, purposeful homework should be part of any student's learning journey. But it takes teachers to design better homework (which can include no homework at all on some nights), parents to not see hours of homework as a measure of school quality, and students to reflect on their current homework strategies while applying new, research-backed ones. Together, we can all get more sleep -- and that, research shows, is very good for all of our brains and for each student's learning.

Is it time to get rid of homework? Mental health experts weigh in.

It's no secret that kids hate homework. And as students grapple with an ongoing pandemic that has had a wide range of mental health impacts, is it time schools start listening to their pleas about workloads?

Some teachers are turning to social media to take a stand against homework. 

Tiktok user @misguided.teacher says he doesn't assign it because the "whole premise of homework is flawed."

For starters, he says, he can't grade work on "even playing fields" when students' home environments can be vastly different.

"Even students who go home to a peaceful house, do they really want to spend their time on busy work? Because typically that's what a lot of homework is, it's busy work," he says in the video that has garnered 1.6 million likes. "You only get one year to be 7, you only got one year to be 10, you only get one year to be 16, 18."

Mental health experts agree heavy workloads have the potential do more harm than good for students, especially when taking into account the impacts of the pandemic. But they also say the answer may not be to eliminate homework altogether.

Emmy Kang, mental health counselor at Humantold , says studies have shown heavy workloads can be "detrimental" for students and cause a "big impact on their mental, physical and emotional health."

"More than half of students say that homework is their primary source of stress, and we know what stress can do on our bodies," she says, adding that staying up late to finish assignments also leads to disrupted sleep and exhaustion.

Cynthia Catchings, a licensed clinical social worker and therapist at Talkspace , says heavy workloads can also cause serious mental health problems in the long run, like anxiety and depression. 

And for all the distress homework  can cause, it's not as useful as many may think, says Dr. Nicholas Kardaras, a psychologist and CEO of Omega Recovery treatment center.

"The research shows that there's really limited benefit of homework for elementary age students, that really the school work should be contained in the classroom," he says.

For older students, Kang says, homework benefits plateau at about two hours per night. 

"Most students, especially at these high achieving schools, they're doing a minimum of three hours, and it's taking away time from their friends, from their families, their extracurricular activities. And these are all very important things for a person's mental and emotional health."

Catchings, who also taught third to 12th graders for 12 years, says she's seen the positive effects of a no-homework policy while working with students abroad.

"Not having homework was something that I always admired from the French students (and) the French schools, because that was helping the students to really have the time off and really disconnect from school," she says.

The answer may not be to eliminate homework completely but to be more mindful of the type of work students take home, suggests Kang, who was a high school teacher for 10 years.

"I don't think (we) should scrap homework; I think we should scrap meaningless, purposeless busy work-type homework. That's something that needs to be scrapped entirely," she says, encouraging teachers to be thoughtful and consider the amount of time it would take for students to complete assignments.

The pandemic made the conversation around homework more crucial 

Mindfulness surrounding homework is especially important in the context of the past two years. Many students will be struggling with mental health issues that were brought on or worsened by the pandemic , making heavy workloads even harder to balance.

"COVID was just a disaster in terms of the lack of structure. Everything just deteriorated," Kardaras says, pointing to an increase in cognitive issues and decrease in attention spans among students. "School acts as an anchor for a lot of children, as a stabilizing force, and that disappeared."

But even if students transition back to the structure of in-person classes, Kardaras suspects students may still struggle after two school years of shifted schedules and disrupted sleeping habits.

"We've seen adults struggling to go back to in-person work environments from remote work environments. That effect is amplified with children because children have less resources to be able to cope with those transitions than adults do," he explains.

'Get organized' ahead of back-to-school

In order to make the transition back to in-person school easier, Kang encourages students to "get good sleep, exercise regularly (and) eat a healthy diet."

To help manage workloads, she suggests students "get organized."

"There's so much mental clutter up there when you're disorganized. ... Sitting down and planning out their study schedules can really help manage their time," she says.

Breaking up assignments can also make things easier to tackle.

"I know that heavy workloads can be stressful, but if you sit down and you break down that studying into smaller chunks, they're much more manageable."

If workloads are still too much, Kang encourages students to advocate for themselves.

"They should tell their teachers when a homework assignment just took too much time or if it was too difficult for them to do on their own," she says. "It's good to speak up and ask those questions. Respectfully, of course, because these are your teachers. But still, I think sometimes teachers themselves need this feedback from their students."

More: Some teachers let their students sleep in class. Here's what mental health experts say.

More: Some parents are slipping young kids in for the COVID-19 vaccine, but doctors discourage the move as 'risky'

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By submitting my email address. i certify that i am 13 years of age or older, agree to recieve marketing email messages from the princeton review, and agree to terms of use., homework wars: high school workloads, student stress, and how parents can help.

Studies of typical homework loads vary : In one, a Stanford researcher found that more than two hours of homework a night may be counterproductive. The research , conducted among students from 10 high-performing high schools in upper-middle-class California communities, found that too much homework resulted in stress, physical health problems and a general lack of balance.

Additionally, the  2014 Brown Center Report on American Education , found that with the exception of nine-year-olds, the amount of homework schools assign has remained relatively unchanged since 1984, meaning even those in charge of the curricula don't see a need for adding more to that workload.

But student experiences don’t always match these results. On our own Student Life in America survey, over 50% of students reported feeling stressed, 25% reported that homework was their biggest source of stress, and on average teens are spending one-third of their study time feeling stressed, anxious, or stuck.

The disparity can be explained in one of the conclusions regarding the Brown Report:

Of the three age groups, 17-year-olds have the most bifurcated distribution of the homework burden. They have the largest percentage of kids with no homework (especially when the homework shirkers are added in) and the largest percentage with more than two hours.

So what does that mean for parents who still endure the homework wars at home?

Read More: Teaching Your Kids How To Deal with School Stress

It means that sometimes kids who are on a rigorous college-prep track, probably are receiving more homework, but the statistics are melding it with the kids who are receiving no homework. And on our survey, 64% of students reported that their parents couldn’t help them with their work. This is where the real homework wars lie—not just the amount, but the ability to successfully complete assignments and feel success.

Parents want to figure out how to help their children manage their homework stress and learn the material.

Our Top 4 Tips for Ending Homework Wars

1. have a routine..

Every parenting advice article you will ever read emphasizes the importance of a routine. There’s a reason for that: it works. A routine helps put order into an often disorderly world. It removes the thinking and arguing and “when should I start?” because that decision has already been made. While routines must be flexible to accommodate soccer practice on Tuesday and volunteer work on Thursday, knowing in general when and where you, or your child, will do homework literally removes half the battle.

2. Have a battle plan.

Overwhelmed students look at a mountain of homework and think “insurmountable.” But parents can look at it with an outsider’s perspective and help them plan. Put in an extra hour Monday when you don’t have soccer. Prepare for the AP Chem test on Friday a little at a time each evening so Thursday doesn’t loom as a scary study night (consistency and repetition will also help lock the information in your brain). Start reading the book for your English report so that it’s underway. Go ahead and write a few sentences, so you don’t have a blank page staring at you. Knowing what the week will look like helps you keep calm and carry on.

3. Don’t be afraid to call in reserves.

You can’t outsource the “battle” but you can outsource the help ! We find that kids just do better having someone other than their parents help them —and sometimes even parents with the best of intentions aren’t equipped to wrestle with complicated physics problem. At The Princeton Review, we specialize in making homework time less stressful. Our tutors are available 24/7 to work one-to-one in an online classroom with a chat feature, interactive whiteboard, and the file sharing tool, where students can share their most challenging assignments.

4. Celebrate victories—and know when to surrender.

Students and parents can review completed assignments together at the end of the night -- acknowledging even small wins helps build a sense of accomplishment. If you’ve been through a particularly tough battle, you’ll also want to reach reach a cease-fire before hitting your bunk. A war ends when one person disengages. At some point, after parents have provided a listening ear, planning, and support, they have to let natural consequences take their course. And taking a step back--and removing any pressure a parent may be inadvertently creating--can be just what’s needed.

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Too Much Homework Hurts Your Students. Here’s What to Do Instead.

• Post author: The CTTL
• Post published: February 28, 2019
• Post category: Teaching Strategies

At the CTTL , we’re focused on using the best of Mind, Brain, and Education Science research to help teachers maximize their effectiveness and guide students toward their greatest potential. Doing that often means addressing what we like to call “Learning Myths”—those traditional bits of teaching wisdom that are often accepted without question, but aren’t always true. We also like to introduce new insight that can change the classroom for the better. In our Learning Myths series, we’ll explore true-or-false statements that affect teacher and student performance; for each, we’ll dive into the details that support the facts, leaving teachers with actionable knowledge that they can put to work right away.

True or False? Homework should be given every night, as this routine promotes learning.

Answer: False! Nightly homework is unnecessary—and can actually be harmful.

Homework for homework’s sake, or homework that’s not tied into the classroom experience, is a demotivating waste of your students’ time and energy. The Education Endowment Foundation Teaching and Learning Toolkit puts it this way: “Planned and focused activities are more beneficial than homework, which is more regular, but may be routine or not linked with what is being learned in class.”

How might teachers put this insight into action?

Homework, in itself, isn’t a bad thing. The key is to make sure that every homework assignment is both necessary and relevant—and leaves students with some time to rest and investigate other parts of their lives. Here are four key mindsets to adopt as an educator:

Resist the traditional wisdom that equates hardship with learning. Assigning constant homework is often tied into the idea that the more rigorous a class is, the better it is. However, according to research from Duke University’s Professor Harris Cooper, this belief is mistaken: “too much homework may diminish its effectiveness, or even become counterproductive.” A better guideline for homework, Cooper suggests, is to assign 1-2 hours of total homework in high school, and only up to 1 hour in junior high or middle school. This is based on the understanding that school-aged children are developing quickly in multiple realms of their lives; thus, family, outside interests, and sleep all take an unnecessary and damaging hit if students are spending their evenings on busy work. Even for high schoolers, more than two hours of homework was not associated with greater levels of achievement in Cooper’s study.

Remember that some assignments help learning more than others—and they tend to be simple, connected ones. Research suggests that the more open-ended and unstructured assignments are, the smaller the effect they have on learning. The best kind of homework is made of planned, focused activities that help reinforce what’s been happening in class. Using the spacing effect is one way to help students recall and remember what they’ve been learning: for example, this could include a combination of practice questions from what happened today, three days ago, and five days ago. (You can also consider extending this idea by integrating concepts and skills from other parts of your course into your homework materials). Another helpful approach is to assign an exercise that acts as a simple introduction to material that is about to be taught. In general, make sure that all at-home activities are a continuation of the story that’s playing out in class—in other words, that they’re tied into what happened before the assignment, as well as what will happen next.

When it comes to homework, stay flexible. Homework shouldn’t be used to teach complex new ideas and skills. Because it’s so important that homework is closely tied with current learning, it’s important to prepare to adjust your assignments on the fly: if you end up running out of time and can’t cover all of a planned subject on a given day, nix any homework that relies on it.

Never use homework as a punishment. Homework should never be used as a disciplinary tool or a penalty. It’s important for students to know and trust that what they’re doing at home is a vital part of their learning.

Make sure that your students don’t get stuck before they begin. Teachers tend to under-appreciate one very significant problem when it comes to homework: often, students just don’t know how to do the assignment! Being confused by the instructions—and without the means to remedy the situation—is extremely demotivating. If you find (or suspect) that this might be a problem for your students, one helpful strategy is to give students a few minutes in class to begin their homework, so that you can address any clarifying questions that arise.

In order for students to become high academic achievers, they have to be learning in a way that challenges them at the right level— much like the porridge in the Goldilocks story, it’s got to be just right. Homework is a great tool, but it must be used wisely. Part of our role as teachers is to make sure that the time we ask our students to give us after they leave class is meaningful to their learning; otherwise, the stress and demotivation of “just because” homework can be detrimental to their well-being. As the CTTL’s Dr. Ian Kelleher advises, “The best homework assignments are just 20 minutes long, because those are the ones that the teacher has really planned out carefully.” Put simply: quality beats out quantity, every time.

Here at the CTTL, we’re all about quality over quantity. Case in point: our newest endeavor, Neuroteach Global , helps teachers infuse their classroom practices with research-informed strategies for student success—in just 3-5 minutes a day, on a variety of devices.

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Associations of time spent on homework or studying with nocturnal sleep behavior and depression symptoms in adolescents from Singapore

• Sing Chen Yeo, MSc Sing Chen Yeo Affiliations Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Program in Neuroscience and Behavioral Disorders, Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore Search for articles by this author
• Jacinda Tan, BSc Jacinda Tan Affiliations Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Program in Neuroscience and Behavioral Disorders, Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore Search for articles by this author
• Joshua J. Gooley, PhD Joshua J. Gooley Correspondence Corresponding author: Joshua J. Gooley, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Neuroscience and Behavioral Disorders Program, Duke-NUS Medical School Singapore, 8 College Road, Singapore 117549, Singapore Contact Affiliations Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Program in Neuroscience and Behavioral Disorders, Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore Search for articles by this author

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Study: the downside of too much homework

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A survey of more than 4,000 students from ten high-performing high schools showed that excessive homework produces unhealthy levels of stress, sleep deprivation and related health problems as well as reduced social engagement, a Stanford researcher has found.

Denise Clark Pope, senior lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, co-authored this new study , published in the Journal of Experimental Education. She and her colleagues used open-ended questions to examine perceptions about homework, behavioral engagement and student well-being in 4,317 students in California communities where the median household income exceeded $90,000 a year.

Too much homework can diminish its effectiveness and be counterproductive, said Pope and her colleagues, citing prior research suggesting that homework benefits plateau at about two hours per night and that 90 minutes to two-and-a-half hours is optimal for high school students.

Fifty-six percent of the students surveyed considered homework a primary source of stress, the study said. Forty-three percent viewed tests as a primary stressor, while 33 percent said it was the pressure to get good grades. Less than 1 percent said homework was not a cause of stress.

In their open-ended answers, many students said their homework load led to sleep deprivation and other health problems, including headaches, exhaustion, weight loss and stomach problems.

Pope and her colleagues reported that spending too much time on homework meant students were “not meeting their developmental needs or cultivating other critical life skills,” failing to pursue hobbies they enjoy, dropping activities and not keeping up with family and friends.

“Our findings on the effects of homework challenge the traditional assumption that homework is inherently good,” Pope wrote.

Ideally, homework “should have a purpose and benefit, and it should be designed to cultivate learning and development.

“…Busy work, by its very nature, discourages learning and instead promotes doing homework simply to get points.”

Mollie Galloway of Lewis and Clark College and Jerusha Conner of Villanova University co-authored the paper with Pope. Pope is also the co-founder of Challenge Success, a research-based expansion of the Stressed-Out Students Project at Stanford University that develops curriculum, conferences and other programs for students, schools and parents.

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89 Comments

I never did no homework and I do just fine for myslef.

“90 minutes to two-and-a-half hours is optimal for high school students.” Then our middle and high schools are WAY off base, assigning excessive homework (which we all knew anyway). There is no way Paly and Gunn are going to bring it to this level, although would be fantastic. Also, any AP or honors class adds at least an hour per class. Think of the students who are taking 3-5 APs – torturous sleep deprivation.

The sleep deprivation and “reduced social engagement” are both torturous for our students and affects even students who take no AP or honors classes. Weekends are full of homework for most of our students. Thank you, Ms. Pope, for fighting for the health of our students.

I have two children that went through the Palo Alto school system El Carmelo/JLS/Gunn. We are not “Tiger” parents and I can say that they never had too much homework. I didn’t see any of their peers too stressed out and they all graduated and are in good colleges and doing fine.

I think the problem is more with the adults involved, rather than the students.

Part of the “homework problem” is related to course selection. It is easy to have too much work if you are taking too many / too hard courses. Our younger child doesn’t want the load our older one took, so she is taking less demanding courses. That’s fine with us. This is a Parent Education issue as much as a school issue.

My son has been in two different high-pressure school districts. In the first district, he had so much homework by the first grade that he had no time for play time after school. By the time he finished his homework, it was dark outside. By the end of the school year, he was overweight. Then, because he did not do so well in first grade, the school district there required him to attend summer school, so his physical activity was cut into again by homework from summer school.

My son had, until the end of the first grade year, been a skinny child. By fourth grade, he was bordering on obese and had over three hours of homework per night, including Christmas vacation ( Christmas Day in second grade, spent at his grandparents’ home, was ruined by the fact that he spent most of the day working on reports for school).

I took him out of that district and put him in a private school for two years, which capped homework at one hour per night, and he lost the excess weight . He had more time to play with friends and joined Little League and Cub Scouts.

Then we moved to Palo Alto. Suddenly, my son was inundated with so much homework there was no more time for Little League, Cub Scouts, or friends. In the sixth grade, he was doing four hours of homework, and by his freshman year he was drowning in nearly five-and-half hours of it.

His sophomore year he rebelled BIG time against all this homework! which led to several family talks with his counselor. She got him into two study hall classes per day, which enabled him to finish a lot of the homework and have help to do it. Now, he is losing some of the weight he regained, but he is so burned out on school that he has no interest in AP classes or even college.

Due to the fact that Paly keeps bragging about its college-like atmosphere, my son is afraid that college will simply be a big Paly, and he is refusing to go. He reads a lot, and likes to learn on his own, but he is completely burned out on institutionalized learning, mostly due to PAUSD.

My son will be the first kid in at least four generations NOT to earn a graduate degree. Thanx, Paly, Jordan, and New Haven!

“Fifty-six percent of the students surveyed considered homework a primary source of stress, the study said. Forty-three percent viewed tests as a primary stressor, while 33 percent said it was the pressure to get good grades.”

Let’s see, 56 + 43 + 33 = 132%. Seems wrong, but then I am not a college grad. Is this new math?

The timed idea of homework makes no sense.

One student will take 30 minutes to do an assignment while another takes 15 or another will take 60. Some students fill 2 hours homework time doing review while others will only barely have time to do their assignments.

No a better way to discuss this is the value of homework. I think homework should be for review that the student has understood the material presented in class, for research in subjects like history, or for comparable reading and written assignments to develop opinion in subjects like English. Making a student teach himself a concept through homework is a bad idea, also anything that is designed to decorate the classroom walls is a bad idea.

The value of homework is a big topic and this study does not address homework, just the time it takes to do it. Waste of time as far as I am concerned.

Studies like this might as well be about homework on Mars for all the good they will ever do in penetrating the cult of homework in PAUSD. We have had a takeover of our schools by conservative theorists of the “high test scores” and ‘back to basics’ crowd (Lowell, Mitchell, Townsend, Caswell, Tom, etc.). We have also seen the marginalization of anyone who wanted anything other than bigger, faster, higher, more as “watering down” our “excellent schools” . The net result: some of the most stressed out students anywhere in America.

Where is SHARE? Where is SOS? They were dismantled in favor of PSN, which is nothing but a club for giving out money to block parties. Where are our advocates for less stress in the schools? They all got burned out, beat up, and quit.

Is this who PA is now? Do we even care what is a good or sound educational practice? My answer is no, we do not. We care about our home prices, which are linked to homework and test scores. In a very insidious way we are forcing our own children to work to keep our family home prices up. It is almost a form of child labor.

Contrasting the treatment of the Paly math department and the Paly english department is highly instructive. On the one hand, the math department wrote a letter about how they could not be forced to teach Algebra 2 (not even a very advanced class) to VTP kids because they would have to “dilute” their “standards” to do it. Nothing happened to them and Mr. Toma was not even replaced as the IS. The English department tried to de-lane 9th grade english to the benefit of all students, and they were put in the stocks.

Get to work kids, daddy needs a boat.

Our kids got an intimidating amount of homework from the 6th grade Terman teachers and it continued through with some of the 7th grade teachers (math in particular). They were miserable those years – anxiety was at an all time high. It was totally unnecessary. Other years, including those at Gunn, were not so bad.

It all depends on the teachers the students have, and it’s luck-of-the-draw. So some students might get lucky and have less demanding teachers while others don’t. What ends up happening is the parents do the homework when there is excessive homework that the student can’t complete.

Applause to Denise Pope for opening this conversation through Stanford’s Dept. of Education. However, since the beginning of her crusade (when it was known as SOS, Stressed Out Students), I always found it ironic and hypocritical that this campaign started at Stanford. It’s exactly Ivy League schools like Stanford, where students are literally killing themselves to get in, that drive students’ crazy work load: too many APs, shooting for 5.0 GPAs, every activity in the book. If students were to limit their time doing homework, and accept lower grades for sleep , you can betcha Stanford would not consider their applications! Maybe Denise and her Challenge Success crew should hop off the pulpit and do something that’s not connected to Stanford, the very type of university that drives this insane pressure high school students feel. The pressure comes from the top (colleges) and trickles down!

The district had a homework committee of parents and teachers that unanimously adopted homework time guidelines similar to those supported by Pope’s study: 10 minutes per night per grade, topping out at 120 minutes per night for seniors. Two problems: they don’t apply to honors and AP classes, and the school board adopted the time limits but balked at monitoring whether they are being applied. Guess what? They’re not.

As to Stanford causing the problem: Stanford and the Ivies want our top kids. They don’t care if they kill themselves in high school or not. They’re aren’t going to stop wanting them because they are doing 2 hours of homework a night rather than 6.

This is our problem. We can solve it, or we can blame it on the kids, the parents, Stanford, or the Russians.

Gunn Mom: Blame the Russians, LOL. Regarding homework guidelines, “they don’t apply to honors and AP classes”. SO TRUE. Somehow, the teachers seem to have a YOU ASKED FOR IT attitude. So if our students want balance in their life, they have to avoid accelerated lanes and AP classes. Yet, the colleges want to see AP classes on the transcript. Our capable children can take many AP classes elsewhere and do fine while they have to take regular lanes in PAUSD to keep sane?

In Taiwan, after school and homework many students take additional course work at night in downtown teaching centers. The government last year required the centers to close at 10PM so the students would not stay and study endlessly. That’s why they are successful and the US is 23rd in math and dropping fast. Lazy students that think the world owes them a living and because their parents make a great deal of money that they should be treated differently. Two hours/night of homework is not much.

And “excessive homework produces unhealthy levels of stress, sleep deprivation and related health problems as well as reduced social engagement,” is just nonsense. Reduced Social Engagement??? The students are there to learn, not to make friends or text or use Facebook. Grow up and understand that if we want the student to be working they have to shape up and study- simple as that.

I wish all the colleges would stop accepting AP classes, the problem would be solved. Are these classes really college level anyway? If they are, why not wait until college to take them and enjoy a more “normal” high school life. My son, who chooses a heavier load than we would like, also chooses not to be involved in other after school activities such as sports, volunteering and clubs so he can get his work done in a more relaxed manner. Sadly, I think these choices will effect his life as an adult; he won’t see that sports offer a lifetime of health and other activities offer a more creative life balance. Each of our children approached high school differently and we try to let each make their choices and live with them. But I find it sad they work so hard–there is so much time to work hard in the future. We are squelching their youthful joy and creativity.

Do kids still average 3 hours a day watching television? That’s what the Nielsen studies say. http://www.marketingcharts.com/wp/television/are-young-people-watching-less-tv-24817/

Dear Oriflamme, I was very sad reading your letter. There is absolutely no valid research showing that there is any meaningful benefit to homework prior to 8th grade; yet schools keep piling it on. You only get one chance to be a kid and the social, emotional and healthy physical growth are critical to developing the whole person. When we value grades and achievement over kindness and creativity, we get sharp-elbowed, self centered “citizens”. What a tragedy. My daughter was a mostly happy B student who followed her various interests and got accepted by a lot of colleges, including an excellent liberal arts school which offered her a huge scholarship we didn’t even ask for. I am glad she chose to follow her own path; she has become a young adult of whom we are very proud. She has always been the kid who would stop to talk to a friend who was upset, rather than cramming for the big test next class. I salute those values. i hope your son finds joy in some activity. The best value in education is two years at community college (practically free) and transfer into UC. When he gets his degree from UC, nobody will care that he spent two years at Foothill/DeAnza!! And he will have met a lot of real people from a tremendous number of backgrounds giving him insight.

The problem is that middle school and high school are in session a lot more of the day than college is. Kids in our high schools get hours of homework after being in class about 3 times longer every day than a college student would be.

I do think the schools should get better at getting the kids to learn how to focus and produce during the school day, then relax when they get home and pursue other things – sports, hobbies, science projects, music – after all, that’s pretty good practice for work life! Instead, it’s almost like the day classes are some kind of prelude to the “real” work that will happen “later” at home. It’s very unhealthy.

My kid’s after school life includes high-level music, sports, language, writing and science projects not possible in school, all his choice — in fact, what I see him write at home on his own accord versus what he’s willing to do at school is like night and day. I’m so tired of being a cattle prod to get him to do work he is spending all his home time on at the expense of things he would both be learning from and deriving joy from, and at the expense of his friendships and family time.

I am standing on my chair applauding this work. We do have amazing teaching staff in this district. Now we need a school administration that understands this work and will help our teaching staff incorporate changes to bring our education here to the next level.

I would just like to add…

I think 90 minutes of homework is too long, speaking as one whose child will usually stretch that 90 minutes into 5 hours (of pulling teeth)….

I wonder where that “optimal” designation comes from, and if it would drop if our schools did a more optimal job of getting kids to produce focused work in the middle of the school day…. Like I said, it’s better practice for life!

“Applause to Denise Pope for opening this conversation through Stanford’s Dept. of Education. However, since the beginning of her crusade (when it was known as SOS, Stressed Out Students), I always found it ironic and hypocritical that this campaign started at Stanford. It’s exactly Ivy League schools like Stanford, where students are literally killing themselves to get in, that drive students’ crazy work load: too many APs, shooting for 5.0 GPAs, every activity in the book. If students were to limit their time doing homework, and accept lower grades for sleep , you can betcha Stanford would not consider their applications! Maybe Denise and her Challenge Success crew should hop off the pulpit and do something that’s not connected to Stanford, the very type of university that drives this insane pressure high school students feel. The pressure comes from the top (colleges) and trickles down!”

I agree, Challenge Success is not really challenging the real problem, which is the college board and college industry.

Pressuring the parents and schools will add no further value except to cause anxiety about the politics of reducing homework when schools like Stanford are rewarding the kids who can do “more.”

What is missing is research or an outing of the insane college admissions game which uses silly words like “holistic” to evaluate equally capable candidates. The black box has never been researched.

Why not make a big part of Stanford’s admissions a lottery? What would be the risk?

Time to change the focus of challenge success’ research, and look within.

I’m surprised that kids have any time at all to do homework, between TV and cell phones. Didn’t I hear that they sleep with their phones? Makes for a lot of lost sleep, eh? I’m not sure that I believe that homework is the villain here.

“I’m surprised that kids have any time at all to do homework, between TV and cell phones. Didn’t I hear that they sleep with their phones? Makes for a lot of lost sleep, eh? I’m not sure that I believe that homework is the villain here.”

Though phones and social media are a problem, it could also be the three sports, the three tutors, the viola, the first novel, or finding the cure for something that is making after school like a second or third job.

Any of the leaders of faith communities in Palo Alto can attest to the high level of stress over homework of the youth of our community.

Posted by Ironic, a resident of Midtown 4 hours ago

“Applause to Denise Pope for opening this conversation through Stanford’s Dept. of Education. However, since the beginning of her crusade (when it was known as SOS, Stressed Out Students), I always found it ironic and hypocritical that this campaign started at Stanford. It’s exactly Ivy League schools like Stanford,” Stanford people are trying ultra hard to claim to be Ivy league…but they ‘aint.

And I used to stress over delivering the Palo Alto Times to a hundred customers six afternoons a week. Until I started stressing about my draft lottery number and Vietnam. But stress was a way of life when you grow up cowering under the school desks once a quarter listening to the air-raid sirens that would signal incoming H-bombs. Oh, the halcyon days of my youth. Amazing what one can become inured to.

Having lived on Taiwan for two years, I can attest to the fact that most Taiwanese kids ( as well as Japanese kids) are very overstressed. They have a higher rate of teen suicide there and in Japan than anywhere else in the world. Their parents pressure them so much that they have a high rate of nervous breakdowns that usually go untreated, as to do so would shame the parents. The parents achieve high results from their kids with horrible threats ( such as being disowned or kicked out on the street for a month) which they usually follow through with.

These kids often come over here for college, and away from their parents, they GO WILD with freedom. In Taiwan and Japan, all the real work is in high schools. my cousin is a professor at Tokyo University, where he teaches advanced English. His first semester there he flunked half the class. The dean asked him why he did this, and he replied that half the students never showed up, the other half did sloppy work, so to them he gave Cs. The dean replied, NO! NO! To the ones who attended,you give As. To the ones who never showed, you give Bs. Understand?”

So many excellent comments here. Personally, I am intrigued by those who are “flipping” the classroom, esp AP classes. Teachers video their lecture and that is the homework, plus reading. Then class is spent in discussion, projects, problem-solving. At the end of the day, I don’t think it is homework, but our outdated style of pedagogy that needs to be examined.

Bravo!!! The truth about homework is finally outed. This report should be mandatory reading for the whack job, neurotic parental units in Palo Alto/Los Altos Hills. The 5% fringe group of parents need to digest this research and take it to heart. This will take the pressure off teachers who are trying to accommodate the whims of the crazies (aka parents).

I read a book a while back about the education system in Finland. While they do have a longer school day, they also get more recess time, even at the high school level. Homework is non-existent before 10th grade, at which time it is only one-half hour , the school work gets done IN school, with teachers there to assist.

And Finnish kids are kicking the butts of Asian kids with their scores! Go figure.

I was just about to talk about Europe. We all keep being told about how hard the kids work in Asia, but Europeans tend to have a longer school year, a longer school day and much less homework. They tend to have a central college application process too which makes a lot less stress. They can only apply for 5 or 6, get accepted to no more than 3 and depending on exam results are selected for 1.

It is about time education was simplified and quantified here.

@Think again – In the most recent PISA math scores, FInland ranked 12th. The top 7 were all in Asia:

1: Shanghai-China 2: Singapore 3: Hong Kong 4: Chinese Taipei 5: Korea 6:Macao-China 7: Japan … 31: United States

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/dec/03/pisa-results-country-best-reading-maths-science

I guess my kids are among the 44% students who don’t think homework is overly taxing in PA high schools… My kids took AP classes including in math, science and languages, so they were in high lane classes. However, they refused to take all APs (no AP English or AP history). I’ve never seen them spend that much time studying. They certainly are in bed at a reasonable time every night (between 10 and 11 PM for my senior). And he has a job outside of school and belongs to a club at school.

Honestly, if my kids had less homework, I’d worry that it’s way too little.

So, you can be in high school in PA and not be the stereotypical kid drowning in homework. I think some kids take on too much, either because of parental, or peer pressure, or for college admissions (we circle back to parental and peer pressure on this one).

Parent of a senior: If your children are sailing through the most difficult AP classes doing fine and well-rested, holding a job, it points to one thing: they are supersmart. Don’t give people the wrong impression because not all have it as easy as yours do.

Wouldn’t it be great if Ohlone extended through 8th grade or even high school? After school today my daughter attended play rehersal, built a Lego city, made Jello AND baked a cake with her big sis. Then they played in the back yard until dusk and finished a book before going to sleep at 8:30pm. So much learning happens after school – memorization, fractions, design, reading and so on. Ohlone rocks.

@Paul, Do up you actually know any parents here or are you just one of the whack job trolls who likes to make strong comments about things you don’t have a clue? Or maybe you’re one of the administrators who is so threatened by smart peope you have to anonymously attack parents every chance you get? Because we’ve been to three area schools and still don’t know any of those mythical stress mngerong pa parents.

A totally different era! Grew up long ago (1930s/40s) when TV, cell phones, computers and computer games did not exist. Homework was mostly in math, which took 30-45 min. to complete. Then: stickball, hide & seek, tree climbing, long bike rides, the occasional fight with the neighborhood bully, or reading a book. AP did not exist. I went on to finish college in 2 and a half years, was invited to Phi Beta Kappa, and went on to a great career in a highly competitive field: administration in higher education. Today’s kids face far too many demands on their time and energy; they have little time for unprogrammed fun. No wonder they’re stressed out!

I have 2 kids who went through the entire Paly public school system. They took mostly the same classes up through junior year in high school.

One spent maybe 45 minutes per night on homework. The other one spent probably 2hrs per night on average, but many nights much more than that. Both learned the material although to varying degrees, and they were also better and worse at different subject areas.

Given the differences in kids (even apparently between siblings), “hours of homework” seems like a metric hard to draw conclusions from. Or maybe it’s really argument for lane-ing, yet you can find plenty of people in this district who don’t want lane-ing either.

At the very least, I hope the study came to deeper conclusions than “homework which ‘cultivates learning and development’ is good, but homework which is ‘busy work’ is bad.”

G6od bless the Experimental School of Education! I trust school officials and parents in Asia are paying attention to this!

My oldest child is in 5th grade, both are in elementary school – they have never had homework that couldn’t be completed in under an hour (often far less), and often have no homework nights. Maybe things will change radically in middle school and high school, but so far we have found our school to be a good balance of work and play. I don’t get the depictions of this district as a pressure cooker. It hasn’t been our experience at all.

the problem with classroom flipping is that kids become so dependent on who they are sitting next to. to be effective it also necessitates that teachers enforce a rule that the classroom operates in english only so that kids can’t be excluded by a table group where they are the only english speaker and everyone else speaks spanish or russian or chinese or urdu or farsi. teachers are afraid of being perceived as racist so they usually turn a blind eye to that phenomenon making them, of course, reverse racists.

Yes, things will change radically. Get ready for 8th grade. That’s when the demands really went to 11.

I have a senior at Gunn (Palo Verde/JLS/Gunn) and an 8th grader at JLS. Both kids are rarely overwhelmed by homework and have plenty of time for sports, socializing with friends, and other extracurriculars. My younger child does do more than her brother did, but she is a different student than he is and the assignments take her longer. BUT both my kids (and my husband and I) are OK with Bs, which around here are often considered “bad” grades. My son is graduating Gunn with a GPA that is definitely below their average but we’re in the middle of college acceptance letters and so far he is 6 or 6 in acceptances. His GPA might not have gotten him into MIT, Stanford or Harvard, but there are 1,000s of other colleges out there and 6 very good ones have accepted him. He’s happy, well adjusted and not stressed or sleep deprived.

@pa parent: The study was on high school homework. Elementary schools here don’t have much homework and were easy academically. Middle and high school will be much different unless your children have easy teachers.

Always hard to know if conclusions drawn in reports like this, where all the authors are affiliated with an advocacy group and so are like-mind going into it, are sound. It looks like Galloway and Conner were Pope’s students and involved in Challenge Success’ advocacy efforts before they took jobs at other universities.

Were the survey questions clear and unbiased? When my child took a Challenge Success survey what I heard afterwards was that the questions were confusing and the answers that could be checked were too narrow.

Add to that that the questions were “open-ended,” that leaves lots of room for confirmation bias when interpreting the responses.

Same can be said about the findings. I am confused by Challenge Success’ conclusion: “many students said their homework load led to sleep deprivation and other health problems, including headaches, exhaustion, weight loss and stomach problems”

How many? If it was a high number Challenge Success would likely have noted the percentage like it did in its other findings. Could “many” have been better stated as “not many?” No way to know without more.

I tried to pull up the report through the Weekly’s link but you have to pay to get the details which makes it hard to verify. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00220973.2012.745469 .

On homework, I agree with Another Paly Parent. The same homework assignment can take two students a vastly different amount of time to complete. Homework expectations should be clear at registration so each high school student can select the class mix that will have the right amount of homework for him.

I heard that Paly wanted to take away lanes and make ALL 9th graders take the hardest, most advanced English class. I hope that student choice – and the ability to self-regulate the homework load that comes with that – prevailed in the end.

Agree with Parent: “I wish all the colleges would stop accepting AP classes, the problem would be solved. “ We have never had college level classes in high school back to Russia ( so don’t blame Russians :-), spent about a couple of hours for HW, were accepted to great colleges and got good jobs in competitive Silicon Valley market.

Smooth move, censors, deleting me for commentary about Paul above calling parents “ whack os” but still letting him call them “ crazies”. I’ll bet Paul doesn’t even know any PAUSD parents but just finds it easy to pile on the nasty lobs by a few admins secretly posting their bile against parents on other school threads (kind of obvious, too).

The parents in this district are a dream compared to other places I’ve been. What’s the group word for ad hominem?

@ Mom – Palo Verde resident

Exactly!! I so totally agree. My senior (Palo Verde/JLS/Paly – so our kids were classmates for a long time obviously) followed the same route as yours, and the end results are very similar.

I believe the stress comes from wanting to go to Ivy Leagues or Stanford at any cost. Silly, especially at the undergraduate level.

It’s interesting to me that there are so many more comments on this thread here, than on the Almanac thread with the same article. Many of the Menlo/Atherton/Woodside/PV kids I know are stressed, too, whether they’re in private schools or public.

Maybe, just maybe, it is because Palo Alto parents tend to blame their schools for anything that can possibly be an issue with their kids. Perhaps Menlo/Atherton/Woodside/PV residents have a different outlook on this.

@Mom from Palo Verde – I like your approach. No need blame others – the high schools, the colleges, “Tiger Moms,” etc. – for something that is really under our own control. We too accept Bs (though cheer As), and adjust the lane to the interest and ambition level of our children. Our kids do deal with stress and failure at times, but when and how they choose.

As you say, there are lots of colleges out there that will be lucky to have our kids. And I’ve known many, many folks who somehow managed to be quite happy and fulfilled despite not attending a college ranked high by US News!

Parents of a Senior – good observation. I don’t know the answer, but it’s good that parents are paying attention and concerned. The other parents I mention seem to put into place as much help as possible, via programs, tutoring, etc. It’s a huge amount of context shifting for all involved, and I feel for all of them!

I recall being shocked by a weird combination of helicopter parenting and ignoring kids to pursue their own agendas from the parents of a number of kids at Paly when I went there. I know now that some of it was just their way of trying to balance demanding careers, personal ambitions and kids’ needs – not easy at all – in order to keep up with the Joneses. Of course that happens everywhere, but this particular combo seemed to be really obvious in Palo Alto.

When I look back at who went to what school and what they’re doing now, I honestly see a mixture of kids who went to both junior college first and those who went straight to a four year school. Many of them went to state schools, not UCs, and they’re employed, seemingly happy, make a good income and are raising kids on their own.

Of those from my AP classes, I’m more in touch with those from AP English, many of whom went to fancier universities. I can’t honestly say that they’re more successful than the ones who went to state, because as we grow and change, hopefully our idea of what constitutes success does, too.

And amongst the younger generation – the only recent college grad I know who actually owns property on the Peninsula went to San Jose State, working the whole time 🙂

Posted by Allen Veaner, a resident of another community 4 hours ago A totally different era! Grew up long ago (1930s/40s) when TV, cell phones, computers and computer games did not exist. Homework was mostly in math, which took 30-45 min. to complete. Then: stickball, hide & seek, tree climbing, long bike rides, the occasional fight with the neighborhood bully, or reading a book. AP did not exist. I went on to finish college in 2 and a half years, was invited to Phi Beta Kappa, and went on to a great career in a highly competitive field: administration in higher education. Today’s kids face far too many demands on their time and energy; they have little time for unprogrammed fun. No wonder they’re stressed out!

***************

Wonderful post, Allen! I love the idea of “unprogrammed fun.” Rarely do I see kids in my neighborhood out playing, running around, exploring, and doing the things they should be doing in childhood. Sad.

It seems very unfair to all of the Gunn kids that across town the Paly kids are benefiting from a block schedule. Block scheduling helps alleviate the stress of daily homework, as advocated by Challenge Success. At Gunn we still have students trying to jam their load of college-like courses into a high-school schedule and it simply doesn’t work. Something has to give. That’s why nearly all of the local public and private high schools have moved toward block scheduling. Except for Gunn.

As Dana Tom said to Gunn parents about counseling, sit down and be quiet. Paly is no Shangri La.

“That’s why nearly all of the local public and private high schools have moved toward block scheduling. “

That’s interesting. It seems like most schools do have some blocking – some have 2-3 days blocks, others 4-5, but most have many days with longer periods. As with the calender, there is some sense in following the crowd on things like this.

Here’s a nice “Pro and Con” article from the Gunn Oracle last year on this very topic: http://gunnoracle.com/2013/04/palys-block-schedule-is-superior-to-gunns-rotating-schedule/

@hmmmm and @parents of a senior bring up an interesting question i have never understood.

These discussion boards are full of paly/gunn related issues and commenters: too much homework, too much pressure, too much tutoring, ucla didnt take my kid, go east kids, we can do better, no we can’t, etc.

there is rarely (that i have found at least) a similar discussion re nearby highschools, be the Menlo Atherton, Woodside, etc.

MA for example does not have the same net high test scores across the board (more diverse student body) — but a very large cohort of kids there go to great colleges each year (stanford, cal, ivies, great independent small schools, etc etc, plus do marvelous things and seemingly much less energy is expended on this stuff.

are they less stressed? is that just that they are sleepy in menlo/portola? or are we uniquely frantic even as others do similar things without all the hoopla? are palo alto schools really that different? seriously — what is the comparison and why is it so different (or silent) nearby?

Confused: Do they have Town Forums? People move to Palo Alto for the schools so there is more competition of nerd genes. It’s perhaps easier to attain a higher GPA at M-A for the same amount of work that would get a B in PAUSD?

Answers — thanks. I am not trying to offend, but my concern is those are stereotypes we create and then attempt to force for ourselves. i say that mainly because i am in this district and have friends who send kids to MA. the idea that effort X gets you grade Y there vs here rings false from a number of parents i talk to.

here is what i understand:

– on a test score basis — PA/GUNN does better than MA — but that is mainly do to MA having a large population of students learning english (so the scores are more widely distributed). this test score alone is the source of how we compare the schools.

– that said there is a cohort of 400 kids every year at MA who are are quite good. a friend of mine recently attended an 8th grade info night with a table full of older MA kids as speakers — ALL of whom were on their way to stanford, brown, wellseley, etc.

– that cohort of 400 plus apparently operates with way less stress, agita, etc. vs what we do to ourselves.

– the parent group in PA may just approach things differently — ie more aggressively in a way that creates agita that otherwise would just be a normal demanding school like exists in many well off areas without anywhere near the stress etc

the question is if groups in other places dont have the same madness — but perform very near the same — what can we do to be less insane. its concerning.

It could very well be that Menlo Atherton handles diversity better than Paly and Gunn. One look at their College Counseling website and it’s much easier to understand than Gunn’s or Paly; they even have a section in Spanish.

Handling diversity better means they probably handle kids in the middle better too. That’s a huge indicator of school culture.

We have all sorts of drama like the Paly Math letter, and the English 9 de-laning. Both related to better serving under represented minorities. That’s all at Paly alone. Gunn has it’s own issues. Two schools, double drama.

The overall pressure though comes from the top though. AP’s are really unnecessary. What possible rationale is there to take college level work in high school, when you are going to be taking college level courses for four years.

Hey J99 you scare me Sounds like a terrible lifestyle

Homework and education are mortal enemies. Homestudy and education are best friends.

PA Parent and Rocket Science,

My PAUSD 5th grader has had TONS of homework and big projects so both of you are mistaken about the current amount of elementary school homework, at least at my son’s school. My child just turned in a long term project that was mostly worked on at home and that we spent many weekends working on! Many of the other parents here have been complaining about this project too. That is not the only one. My child is about to begin another huge project and that will be interspersed with math, science, book reports, and other miscellaneous work. Much of this work is worthwhile, in my opinion, but it is just too much to do at home and too difficult for my chid to do without help from parents and teachers. I really wish most if not all of this work could be done in school. I blame it on the new Common Core tests all of the schools are trying to get ready for.

@ parent 2 Challenge Success did a survey at Gunn a few years ago and would not release the results to the school, the challenge success club at the school, the ptsa or the site council. Presumably the results did not coincide with their theories at the time. I would never let my kids fill out one of their surveys again because of the way the data is used/not used.

I hear that their theories on stress have changed recently anyhow.

The other big problem is that their message to high schoolers was “its okay if you go to Tulane, Wash U, or other high-priced private schools instead of Stanford” while completely ignoring kids who will be going to state schools or community colleges. So elitist that people were walking out of their seminars.

Wow, that is a huge amount of misinformation crammed into one post. A nice mix of falsehoods and unsourced rumor. Wonder why you have an ax to grind on this?

@Pressure Here!: Sometimes there are super-challenging elementary school teachers and it seems your child has one. The last of my three children is in 6th now and we never had much homework in elementary school – usually none at all or 15 minutes occasionally. Perhaps talk to your principal. Are you at Hoover? The Hoover parents have no problem with hours of homework, as many of them grew up with hours of it in Asia.

I find it hard to believe Common Core is going to change anything in PAUSD since our district already over prepares our children.

This isn’t rocket science,

“I find it hard to believe Common Core is going to change anything in PAUSD since our district already over prepares our children.”

This term “over prepared” should give people pause, as it relates to homework and stress.

The college racket has caused an official system of over preparing. It is carried out in a million ways, and kids, and families are under assault. Colleges border on being family life wreckers.

Change the college application system to a lottery. Colleges should trust districts like PAUSD who turn out decent kids to have a pool of kids who are considered qualified if they have completed normal, regular work. Make a separate small pool for first generation, and athletes, if that is so important.

Anyone who wants to “over prepare”, do it by choice, and that should not be on the application.

What colleges want is a steady flow of olympians and rocket scientists, and they have corrupted the system to attract these types. Colleges should suffer the reality of the stats on how many of those there really are instead of making everyone work as if.

I am a sophomore at Woodside Priory School and I think that there is way too much homework. I remember the days in elementary school when I would come home, do around half an hour of homework, and then play with my brother until the sun went down. High school students need time to play just like younger kids and we should not be spending our time stressed out over homework. I really wish that I had a chance to just have fun and figure out what I want to to with my life.

@pressure here – your 5th grader’s homework has nothing to do with the Common Core. 5th grade at Addison (my kids are now in high school and college) was filled with project, events, assemblies, etc. The teachers were fabulous and caring BUT a lot of the work required significant parental time, involvement, and often $$ (my eldest’s 5th grade class had many kids who rented costumes for the “Wax Museum” project of famous, deceased americans).

You can pretty much ignore any individual anecdote which indicates homework is easy or non-existant. Dr. Pope’s statistics capture a much broader view of homework than a single Parent bragging that their kid has no problem.

Dr Pope’s data pretty much matches surveys done locally by the city – youth council and by the district, over multiple years of surveys. about half the kids are Very stressed, and the time spent on homework skyrockets in middle school. Teachers here assign about 50% more than guidelines ( yes we have guidelines) and about 1/4 of the students are burning almost 20 hrs/week on hw.

Homework load varys by teacher, and many are quite rigid about hw rules and grading. in Jordan we saw excessive pressure from teachers intimidating students about hw: “…you’ll fail high school if you don’t do this work!” you can almost hear the witches cackle.

Anyhoo, get yourself a tutor in middleschool – that’s what the teachers want you to do, and there is no use fighting it. This will make your students life easier, the tutor will actually teach your kid the material, and hw will go much faster once they know the subject. Also, you are not the hw whip anymore. plus they can edit your kids papers and give your student the immediate writing feedback which they get so rarely from most of the English teachers.

Once you understand the dysfunction of this district, the solution is not too hard to accept. Either a tutor, or private school, or depression & darkness.

@ gunn mom No axe, just a point of view. And not misinformation either. I was one parent who attended presentations at Stanford and at Gunn by Challenge Success where they specifically said there are dozens schools worth attending and advised students to go just beyond the Ivies and Stanford. In fact there are thousands of schools in the US alone. At least once I witnessed another panel member challenge Denise on that topic. I think Challenge Success should really put their money where their mouth is and embrace all kids, not just the sub-Ivy set. Otherwise they are Elitist. Period. The presentations were probably recorded so you might check for yourself.

“Anyhoo, get yourself a tutor in middleschool – that’s what the teachers want you to do, and there is no use fighting it. This will make your students life easier, the tutor will actually teach your kid the material”

If you want to go this way, that’s fine. It is not necessary of course – many (most?) do without tutors, or get spot support when needed. They do fine too.

In my view, the dysfunction isn’t so much in the schools, as in some of the families. The teachers and material seem fine (esp. if you and your kids select lanes/classes that are a good fit for them). Some families treat education as an arms race, which we simply try to ignore.

Fred’s “everything’s fine, and if it’s not it’s your fault” perspective doesn’t fit my experience. My son went to Gunn excited to be in high school, and intellectually curious. Not a powerhouse, but interested in school and in his friends. He quickly realized that there is no place for kids who don’t or can’t want to do many hours of homework a night, but don’t want to be in the lowest lane in terms of content. I can’t believe that there is no way to provide the average kid a stimulating education that doesn’t require that that they give up their after-school activities and weekends, and that doesn’t leave them feeling like they aren’t cut out for school.

I just don’t buy the Libertarian, blame the kid view that I see some holding around Palo Alto.

Palo Alto Parent,

Funny you should mention Addison because guess where my kid goes? Yes, Addison, not Hoover, like somebody else guessed! And the Wax Museum was a major endeavor and like you said it required significant help from parents. I thought the project was interesting and definitely worthwhile, but why not have it shorter, less involved and much more manageable so that a kid could do it him/herself? I don’t know about you, but my husband and I had to help in every aspect of this nightmare project! Will it really help my child once he gets to Jordan next year to have completed a project for which he had to have a lot of help from his parents? And he continues to be bombarded with one project after another, reading letters (essentially mini literary essays), the Inquiry Fair, etc… The teachers are good and I feel are preparing him well, but why can’t a lot of this work be done in school? It is almost like there are really two separate issues, not only the excessive amount of HW, but that the HW is so difficult that the kids can’t complete by themselves. It’s almost as though the school/district has some lofty image to uphold and they don’t want to tarnish it by having the kids do less and easier work otherwise that will decrease the rigor thereby decreasing the reputation of the school and district. And the 5th grade teachers (who all collaborate on the curriculum, at least three of them do) explained that each project/assignment was to be explored MUCH more in depth than in previous years in order to comply with the Common Core. So yes, they did mention part of all of this is due to the Common Core.

@Pressure Here, Funny you should give the “wax museum” as an example of additional homework, my child did it all alone. The only part we, as parents, got involved with was help in learning the lines. Her teacher adjusted other homework to limit the impact on homework overall. To be honest there was no notable spike in homework effort and it was managed very well by the teacher involved.

@Pressure here! Maybe it’s the Addison parents who are kicking it up because we experienced the Wax Museum three times and it was easy – they did the work in class besides memorizing. Or perhaps it’s an issue with your specific teacher – when things are out-of-control difficult, it’s the teacher.

@Fred: You are partially correct – some parents expect too much from their children. But there are also teachers who expect too much from our children. It’s not one or the other.

Confused – I don’t know the answer as to why there’s more hoopla/conversation in PA than in MP/PV/EPA/, etc. In my experience, many of the PA adults do get all het up in a much more entitled fashion than the other parents. But when it’s PA monied parents vs the other local wealthy parents, I’ve seen things much more contained amongst the non-PA parents. Money gets quietly thrown at problems, whereas in PA, money gets thrown w/a lot more drama. And of course, the infamous Palo Alto Process, which has now been around for decades, creates an ongoing wrench in the works when it comes to civic and school matters.

In Menlo, there used to a be more quiet modesty about things were handled – which wasn’t always for the better, but of course, that is changing.

Hey no pressure,

Is your child a current student at Addison or a past one? Why are you bragging for him/her and what is the point of being so smug? The Wax Museum was only one project (a huge one nonetheless) out of many and I think I made that clear. That combined with everything else is hard. Not sure who your kid has but not all of the teachers adjusted the homework schedule to compensate. In fact one of the classes did the entire thing in school, but the other three did not. Not sure who you talked to but every parent I did said what a huge project it was and how they had to help their children. Plus we are talking 5th grade here. If your kid can do Wax Museum by himself good for him, but that wasn’t the case for many of the families I know of. Plus what does it say about you to be bragging about your kid on this forum anyway? That you live through your kid’s accomplishments?My kid needed absolutely no help whatsoever with his lines and gave his performance beautifully! He will also need no help with his Inquiry Fair because that is more his thing. But that is not the point. the point is that our child and others at Addison have been experiencing quite the HW load this year and I think it’s too much and too difficult. Every family and each child is different but that’s our experience. And for the record, my child is pretty smart too.

Not bragging, didn’t give any results. Just stating how it was managed by the teacher (well) and how it impacted homework overall (not at all). This was down to the teacher not the child. As I stated, the only time we got involved was on helping to memorize the lines and I’d expect to help out on that. It’s easier when you have someone to work with. Hardly a “project from hell”.

Pressure and no pressure,

Depending on the child or the family, historical re-enactments can be grueling. That fact alone is enough to reconsider their value.

I always found projects for “show” or “tell” fun and cute for the people taking pictures, and great for the family photo albums, but it is not for sure that they add a huge amount of depth to learning compared to the theater involved. Theater is simply not something that works for everyone, and people who are not into that kind of pressure should not be forced into it. Maybe one max in elementary, end of story.

Theater just compounds the idea that kids have to “demonstrate” something, and the bigger the production the better?

PAUSD is too full of these re-enactments. How about Medieval Feast at Jordan?

Worst part, when you get graded on costume, or whatever. They can be really annoying after second grade.

In response to the comment about Hoover, above, and as a data point for others: my child attends Hoover and he really likes it.

He is in fourth grade, and has never been deluged with homework. He enjoys school, feels safe, likes the teachers and staff, and has good friends there.

As a family, we find the diversity of the student body to be a strength of the school.

the answer is easy. school choice and vouchers. take your kids to where they want or need to be. ivy league at all costs! – public education in palo alto is an absolute disgrace!

Vouchers are utter bullcrap, but leave it to a Libertarian to think they’re a good answer.

Parents: some advice – ignore Fred. His single point of view is not representative of the actual statistics in our district.

Addison parents: no matter how well you think your child is prepared, they aren’t. The surveys show the transition to 6th grade is hard. You kids will face an ungodly crap-ton mountain of homework at Jordan, the likes of which would make a Tiger mom quiver. You see, teacher success comes with scores, and they get this success on the backs of student labor, not teaching brilliance. The teachers will pressure your kids quite enough.

If you want to lower your students stress level (without dropping lanes, skipping class, or shirking) your student will need help. We’re not talking about the 1% genius kid, but rather an average kid who is fine with a mix of A’s and B’s. School will be he’ll for that kid, and they will burnout and checkout.

But – a little help will go a long way. You can tutor them, or hire a tutor, or look for free tutoring services/help after school. 1or2 times a week. It will boost their confidence, give them help understanding material, and they can connect with someone in the education process who encourages them as students. (something you ‘LL find rare at Jordan)

The surveys are clear – you are facing difficult times ahead, and the school has no motivation to address the issues that are there. Don’t pressure your kid – help them.

Heh, heh,.. . Wow I have been remembering our days at the Jordan Gulag, and I am so relieved to be out of THAT hellhole.

Good example of too much pointless homework and the innovative skills of the teachers. Apparently they got together in a coven and decided that literacy and writing skills should be distributed across all classes. No research backing this up, just a pure-hearted motivation to ruin the one class that had no homework.

THEY MADE THE KIDS WRITE AN ESSAY IN P.E. !!

No shizzle. True story. Of course this was not part of any unit, there were no writing skills or analysis skills presented in class. They were not practicing anything taught in class. Just pure work for the sake of work. When it was graded, there was no feedback that would help them write better, nor help them improve at P. E.

Of course, not that we expected a useful educational experience; we had learned by now that this game is about obedience, compliance, organization, and work volume.

So the net result of an assignment with 1) no relevance 2) no class support 3) no useful feedback ?; it was actually a net negative experience. Like most things at Jordan Gulag it burned time, deprived sleep and demotivated kids. In P.E no less!

The fires burned high in the coven that night! You could hear the witches cackle as they finally figured out how to load homework in the one class that had avoided pointless drudgery -P.E. It was a moral victory for the side of evil.

Anyhoo, that kind of nonsense was a weekly drama at Jordan Gulag. Boy am I glad to be out of there!!

Trust me, you don’t need to pressure your kid – there is plenty pressure already in th Gulag.

Homework Parent’s summary could be appropriate for one of my children, who had a difficult duo of teachers (but is no longer a duo). But another child had a different duo and it wasn’t so dire.

I do agree with HP that paying tutors lessens stress for both parent and child. I formerly thought people paid tutors to ace classes, however, we have hired them to clarify for our children so they are less frustrated and this has not always resulted in “A”s but has resulted in far less stress for us. Some of the math/science is quite difficult in high school, and my husband has a math/science graduate degree but claims he has to relearn so it’s just easier to hire a tutor. Chemistry at Paly is challenging (college textbook), both in regular and honors lane (most have tutors in AP and honors lanes of math and science). Surely, someone will brag about their children never having tutors and taking advanced classes – kudos to you for having super-intelligent, driven children.

My biggest disappointment is that the Jordan English department has been failing students for at least a decade now. PAUSD’s English department was excellent back in the 70s and 80s. We all learned to write and papers were returned with comments. Nowadays, both Jordan and Paly fail to teach writing skills or return papers with useful comments so we have had to find instruction outside of school or I have helped our children learn. There are a few good English teachers at Jordan/Paly, but I emphasize “few” between the two schools.

To those of you elementary parents who are living from mortgage to mortgage, I encourage you to save for tutoring, which costs $45-$85/hour.

The middle,schools,in Palo Alto, especially Jordan , simply do NOT prepare the kids well for high school. I have noticed a trend the last 15 years of Palo Alto parents taking their kids out of middle school and putting them in private schools for those three years, THEN placing them back in Paly or Gunn.

Amazingly, many parents who do this state that’s their kids have less homework in private school ( with the exception of Castilleja) than at Jordan, JLS, or Terman.

@PAmiddle school Sucks: yep, that pretty much sums it up. Jordan creates a ton of work, and results in underprepared, burned-out students.

No surprise that parents look elsewhere. The Jordan Gulag has an image problem and a dissatisfied customer problem. Neither will be fixed of course, because – hey we’re PAUSD, and we don’t have to reform broken culture.

I used to only have 1 sheet a day in elementary school and when I went up to middle school I got more and more so I couldn’t spend time with friends and family.

You may be good at simple arithmetic, but it is obvious that many kids were in more than one group, such as “ homework is primary stress” AND “getting good grades”, OR some may have fit into all three categories, even.

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Spending Too Much Time on Homework Linked to Lower Test Scores

A new study suggests the benefits to homework peak at an hour a day. After that, test scores decline.

Samantha Larson

Polls show that American public high school teachers assign their students an average of 3.5 hours of homework a day . According to a  recent study from the University of Oviedo in Spain, that’s far too much.

While doing some homework does indeed lead to higher test performance, the researchers found the benefits to hitting the books peak at about an hour a day. In surveying the homework habits of 7,725 adolescents, this study suggests that for students who average more than 100 minutes a day on homework, test scores start to decline. The relationship between spending time on homework and scoring well on a test is not linear, but curved.

This study builds upon previous research that suggests spending too much time on homework leads to higher stress, health problems and even social alienation. Which, paradoxically, means the most studious of students are in fact engaging in behavior that is counterproductive to doing well in school. 

Because the adolescents surveyed in the new study were only tested once, the researchers point out that their results only indicate the correlation between test scores and homework, not necessarily causation. Co-author Javier Suarez-Alvarez thinks the most important findings have less to do with the  amount of homework than with how that homework is done.

From Education Week :

Students who did homework more frequently – i.e., every day – tended to do better on the test than those who did it less frequently, the researchers found. And even more important was how much help students received on their homework – those who did it on their own preformed better than those who had parental involvement. (The study controlled for factors such as gender and socioeconomic status.)

“Once individual effort and autonomous working is considered, the time spent [on homework] becomes irrelevant,” Suarez-Alvarez says. After they get their daily hour of homework in, maybe students should just throw the rest of it to the dog.  

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Samantha Larson is a freelance writer who particularly likes to cover science, the environment, and adventure. For more of her work, visit SamanthaLarson.com

July 8, 2024

Student Opinion and Resources Newspaper

The Negative Effects of Homework

Last updated on July 27, 2022

It’s easy to villainize homework, a common stress factor in our daily lives. Numerous teachers assign a simple ten minutes of homework a day, usually more. However, entering middle and high school, the six to seven classes quickly add up. Soon, drowning in hours of endless work becomes routine. This cuts into extracurriculars, and personal free time, and dictates how we spend our day. Homework is not necessary because of the negative impacts on mental health it helps develop, such as burn-out, and only benefits the non-disadvantaged families. 

Homework was originally invented by an Italian teacher in 1905 and used to punish misbehaving students. The version of homework we complete every day is far from that. The National Center for Education Statistics reports that the typical high schooler spends 6.8 hours of homework per week, perhaps longer. What used to be discipline has now become a plethora of pressure. “That means that by asking our children to put in an hour or more per day of dedicated homework time, we are not only not helping them, but according to the aforementioned studies — we are hurting them, both physically and emotionally.” Being an eighth-grader with non-academic commitments and a touch of insomnia, homework is a huge anxiety factor in my daily life. Although I’m still thriving in the school environment, it is an unnecessary distraction when I could be preparing for a final or different commitment. One of the leading causes of sleep deprivation in teens is homework, which [in middle and high school at least], can easily be limited to a small subset.

With a lack of relaxation and an abundance of work, the body shuts down, physically and mentally. Burnout, depression, and anxiety are all present when the anticipated overload occurs. What is burnout? “A stressful lifestyle can put people under extreme pressure, to the point that they feel exhausted, empty, burned out, and unable to cope.” The term “burnout” was coined by American psychologist Herbert Freudenberger in the 1970s. For students with a competitive sport, other activity-filled schedules, or AP/honor classes, this has been proven true. It has been proven that areas of work cause this, not to be confused with exhaustion or depression, which can be life-threatening negative thoughts, low self-esteem, and hopelessness. It’s important to understand balance. If homework cannot be completely eliminated from the curriculum, it should at least be ensured a cut in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle. 

In addition to unkept stress, many students do not have the proper access to technology and homework help. Less affluent families have children that may work jobs, take care of family members when the parents are working multiple shifts, and generally don’t have internet connections/technology. “It highlights Inequalities” is the term the University of Sandiego uses. In addition, the American Psychological Association also observes, “Adding homework into the mix is one more thing to deal with — and if the student is struggling, the task of completing homework can be too much to consider at the end of an already long school day”. Although most students simply whine and complain about the extra work, it can be a true disadvantage for children in struggling home environments.

Many would argue, “Homework is essential to the school’s curriculum. How else would the students polish up the learning material, get extra practice, and teach time management?”. While these are all fair points, extended school hours could solve this problem. Accessibility to help after school, as mentioned previously, is difficult for many students. Extending the school session by even an hour or less, which will also benefit parents’ working schedules, lets the teacher have more time to grade assignments done in class and deliver help to the students. Teachers should ensure that students understand the material while in class. When the extra practice is then supplied, the teacher has an opportunity to work with the pupil. A study hall would be advantageous as well, as opposed to leaving students to fend for themselves after school. 

Although homework has both positives and negatives, the strain it places on students is not healthy and outweighs the benefits. Learners already spend six to seven hours five days a week in a tense environment, and as the name implies, work after school shouldn’t be standard. Many workplaces are experimenting with five-hour workdays, such as Tower Paddle Boards because a study by the APA showed Americans can only be fully productive for two to three hours in a row. In the future, I hope that schools will be able to do the same in order to prevent mental and physical overworking, level the playing field for unequipped families, and allow students to spend more time with friends, and family, and pursue non-academic activities. 

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Cozette is a middle school guest writer.

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Does Homework Cause Stress? Exploring the Impact on Students’ Mental Health

How much homework is too much?

Homework has become a matter of concern for educators, parents, and researchers due to its potential effects on students’ stress levels. It’s no secret students often find themselves grappling with high levels of stress and anxiety throughout their academic careers, so understanding the extent to which homework affects those stress levels is important. 

By delving into the latest research and understanding the underlying factors at play, we hope to curate insights for educators, parents, and students who are wondering  is homework causing stress in their lives?

The Link Between Homework and Stress: What the Research Says

Over the years, numerous studies investigated the relationship between homework and stress levels in students. 

One study published in the Journal of Experimental Education found that students who reported spending more than two hours per night on homework experienced higher stress levels and physical health issues . Those same students reported over three hours of homework a night on average.

This study, conducted by Stanford lecturer Denise Pope, has been heavily cited throughout the years, with WebMD eproducing the below video on the topic– part of their special report series on teens and stress : 

Additional studies published by Sleep Health Journal found that long hours on homework on may be a risk factor for depression while also suggesting that reducing workload outside of class may benefit sleep and mental fitness .

Lastly, a study presented by Frontiers in Psychology highlighted significant health implications for high school students facing chronic stress, including emotional exhaustion and alcohol and drug use.

Homework’s Potential Impact on Mental Health and Well-being

Homework-induced stress on students can involve both psychological and physiological side effects. 

1. Potential Psychological Effects of Homework-Induced Stress:

• Anxiety: The pressure to perform academically and meet homework expectations can lead to heightened levels of anxiety in students. Constant worry about completing assignments on time and achieving high grades can be overwhelming.

• Sleep Disturbances : Homework-related stress can disrupt students’ sleep patterns, leading to sleep anxiety or sleep deprivation, both of which can negatively impact cognitive function and emotional regulation.

• Reduced Motivation: Excessive homework demands could drain students’ motivation, causing them to feel fatigued and disengaged from their studies. Reduced motivation may lead to a lack of interest in learning, hindering overall academic performance.

2. Potential Physical Effects of Homework-Induced Stress:

• Impaired Immune Function: Prolonged stress could weaken the immune system, making students more susceptible to illnesses and infections.

• Disrupted Hormonal Balance : The body’s stress response triggers the release of hormones like cortisol, which, when chronically elevated due to stress, can disrupt the delicate hormonal balance and lead to various health issues.

• Gastrointestinal Disturbances: Stress has been known to affect the gastrointestinal system, leading to symptoms such as stomachaches, nausea, and other digestive problems.

• Cardiovascular Impact: The increased heart rate and elevated blood pressure associated with stress can strain the cardiovascular system, potentially increasing the risk of heart-related issues in the long run.

• Brain impact: Prolonged exposure to stress hormones may impact the brain’s functioning , affecting memory, concentration, and cognitive abilities.

The Benefits of Homework

It’s important to note that homework also offers many benefits that contribute to students’ academic growth and development, such as: 

• Development of Time Management Skills: Completing homework within specified deadlines encourages students to manage their time efficiently. This valuable skill extends beyond academics and becomes essential in various aspects of life.

• Preparation for Future Challenges : Homework helps prepare students for future academic challenges and responsibilities. It fosters a sense of discipline and responsibility, qualities that are crucial for success in higher education and professional life.

• Enhanced Problem-Solving Abilities: Homework often presents students with challenging problems to solve. Tackling these problems independently nurtures critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

While homework can foster discipline, time management, and self-directed learning, the middle ground may be to  strike a balance that promotes both academic growth and mental well-being .

How Much Homework Should Teachers Assign?

As a general guideline, educators suggest assigning a workload that allows students to grasp concepts effectively without overwhelming them . Quality over quantity is key, ensuring that homework assignments are purposeful, relevant, and targeted towards specific objectives. 

Advice for Students: How to balance Homework and Well-being

Finding a balance between academic responsibilities and well-being is crucial for students. Here are some practical tips and techniques to help manage homework-related stress and foster a healthier approach to learning:

• Effective Time Management : Encourage students to create a structured study schedule that allocates sufficient time for homework, breaks, and other activities. Prioritizing tasks and setting realistic goals can prevent last-minute rushes and reduce the feeling of being overwhelmed.

• Break Tasks into Smaller Chunks : Large assignments can be daunting and may contribute to stress. Students should break such tasks into smaller, manageable parts. This approach not only makes the workload seem less intimidating but also provides a sense of accomplishment as each section is completed.

• Find a Distraction-Free Zone : Establish a designated study area that is free from distractions like smartphones, television, or social media. This setting will improve focus and productivity, reducing time needed to complete homework.

• Be Active : Regular exercise is known to reduce stress and enhance mood. Encourage students to incorporate physical activity into their daily routine, whether it’s going for a walk, playing a sport, or doing yoga.

• Practice Mindfulness and Relaxation Techniques : Encourage students to engage in mindfulness practices, such as deep breathing exercises or meditation, to alleviate stress and improve concentration. Taking short breaks to relax and clear the mind can enhance overall well-being and cognitive performance.

• Seek Support : Teachers, parents, and school counselors play an essential role in supporting students. Create an open and supportive environment where students feel comfortable expressing their concerns and seeking help when needed.

How Healium is Helping in Schools

Stress is caused by so many factors and not just the amount of work students are taking home.  Our company created a virtual reality stress management solution… a mental fitness tool called “Healium” that’s teaching students how to learn to self-regulate their stress and downshift in a drugless way. Schools implementing Healium have seen improvements from supporting dysregulated students and ADHD challenges to empowering students with body awareness and learning to self-regulate stress . Here’s one of their stories. 

By providing students with the tools they need to self-manage stress and anxiety, we represent a forward-looking approach to education that prioritizes the holistic development of every student. 

To learn more about how Healium works, watch the video below.

About the Author

Sarah Hill , a former interactive TV news journalist at NBC, ABC, and CBS affiliates in Missouri, gained recognition for pioneering interactive news broadcasting using Google Hangouts. She is now the CEO of Healium, the world’s first biometrically powered immersive media channel, helping those with stress, anxiety, insomnia, and other struggles through biofeedback storytelling. With patents, clinical validation, and over seven million views, she has reshaped the landscape of immersive media.

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How does homework affect students.

Posted by Kenny Gill

Homework is essential in the learning process of all students. It benefits them in managing time, being organized, and thinking beyond the classroom work. When students develop good habits towards homework, they enjoy good grades. The amount of homework given to students has risen by 51 percent. In most cases, this pushes them to order for custom essays online. A lot of homework can be overwhelming, affecting students in negative ways.

How homework affects the psyche of students Homework plays a crucial role in ensuring students succeeds both inside and outside the classroom. The numerous hours they spend in class, on school work, and away from family and friends lead to them experiencing exhaustion. Too much homework leads to students becoming disheartened by the school, and it chips away at their motivation for succeeding.

As a result, homework becomes an uphill battle, which they feel they will never win despite putting an effort. When they continue to find homework difficult, they consider other ways of working on it, such as cheating.

Getting enough time to relax, engage with friends and family members helps the students to have fun, thus, raising their spirit and their psyche on school work.  However, when homework exceeds, it affects their emotional well-being making them sad and unproductive students who would rather cheat their way through school.

As a result, they have to struggle with a lack of enough sleep, loss of weight, stomach problems, headaches, and fatigue. Poor eating habits where students rely on fast foods also occasions as they struggle to complete all their assignments. When combined with lack of physical activity, the students suffer from obesity and other health-related conditions. Also, they experience depression and anxiety. The pressure to attend all classes, finish the much homework, as well as have time to make social connections cripples them.

How can parents help with homework? Being an active parent in the life of your child goes a long way towards promoting the health and well-being of children. Participating in their process of doing homework helps you identify if your child is facing challenges, and provide the much-needed support.

The first step is identifying the problem your child has by establishing whether their homework is too much. In elementary school, students should not spend over twenty minutes on homework while in high school they should spend an average of two hours. If it exceeds these guidelines, then you know that the homework is too much and you need to talk with the teachers.

The other step is ensuring your child focuses on their work by eliminating distractions. Texting with friends, watching videos, and playing video games can distract your child. Next, help them create a homework routine by having a designated area for studying and organizing their time for each activity.

Why it is better to do homework with friends Extracurricular activities such as sports and volunteer work that students engage in are vital. The events allow them to refresh their minds, catch up, and share with friends, and sharpen their communication skills. Homework is better done with friends as it helps them get these benefits. Through working together, interacting, and sharing with friends, their stress reduces.

Working on assignments with friends relaxes the students. It ensures they have the help they need when tackling the work, making even too much homework bearable. Also, it develops their communication skills. Deterioration of communication skills is a prominent reason as to why homework is bad. Too much of it keeps one away from classmates and friends, making it difficult for one to communicate with other people.

Working on homework with friends, however, ensures one learns how to express themselves and solve issues, making one an excellent communicator.

How does a lot of homework affect students’ performance? Burnout is a negative effect of homework. After spending the entire day learning, having to spend more hours doing too much homework lead to burnout. When it occurs, students begin dragging their feet when it comes to working on assignments and in some cases, fail to complete them. Therefore, they end up getting poor grades, which affects their overall performance.

Excessive homework also overshadows active learning, which is essential in the learning process. It encourages active participation of students in analyzing and applying what they learn in class in the real world. As a result, this limits the involvement of parents in the process of learning and children collaboration with friends. Instead, it causes boredom, difficulties for the students to work alongside others, and lack of skills in solving problems.

Should students have homework? Well, this is the question many parents and students ask when they consider these adverse effects of homework. Homework is vital in the learning process of any student. However, in most cases, it has crossed the line from being a tool for learning and becomes a source of suffering for students. With such effects, a balance is necessary to help students learn, remain healthy, and be all rounded individuals in society.

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One Response to How does homework affect students?

Great info and really valuable for teachers and tutors. This is a really very wonderful post. I really appreciate it; this post is very helpful for education.

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