does homework ruin life

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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]

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.

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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 robbing your family of joy? You're not alone

Children are not the only ones who dread their homework these days. In a 2019 survey of 1,049 parents with children in elementary, middle, or high school, Office Depot found that parents spend an average of 21 minutes a day helping their children with their homework. Those 21 minutes are often apparently very unpleasant.

Parents reported their children struggle to complete homework. One in five believed their children "always or often feel overwhelmed by homework," and half of them reported their children had cried over homework stress.

Parents are struggling to help. Four out of five parents reported that they have had difficulty understanding their children's homework.

This probably comes as no surprise to any parent who has come up against a third grade math homework sheet with the word "array" printed on it. If you have not yet had the pleasure, for the purposes of Common Core math, an array is defined as a set of objects arranged in rows and columns and used to help kids learn about multiplication. For their parents, though, it's defined as a "What? Come again? Huh?"

It's just as hard on the students. "My high school junior says homework is the most stressful part of high school...maybe that’s why he never does any," said Mandy Burkhart, of Lake Mary, Florida, who is a mother of five children ranging in age from college to preschool.

In fact, Florida high school teacher and mother of three Katie Tomlinson no longer assigns homework in her classroom. "Being a parent absolutely changed the way I assign homework to my students," she told TODAY Parents .

"Excessive homework can quickly change a student’s mind about a subject they previously enjoyed," she noted. "While I agree a check and balance is necessary for students to understand their own ability prior to a test, I believe it can be done in 10 questions versus 30."

But homework is a necessary evil for most students, so what is a parent to do to ensure everyone in the house survives? Parents and professionals weigh in on the essentials:

Understand the true purpose of homework

"Unless otherwise specified, homework is designed to be done by the child independently, and it's most often being used as a form of formative assessment by the teacher to gauge how the kids are applying — independently — what they are learning in class," said Oona Hanson , a Los Angeles-area educator and parent coach.

"If an adult at home is doing the heavy lifting, then the teacher never knows that the child isn't ready to do this work alone, and the cycle continues because the teacher charges ahead thinking they did a great job the day before!" Hanson said. "It's essential that teachers know when their students are struggling for whatever reason."

Hanson noted the anxiety both parents and children have about academic achievement, and she understands the parental impulse to jump in and help, but she suggested resisting that urge. "We can help our kids more in the long run if we can let them know it's OK to struggle a little bit and that they can be honest with their teacher about what they don't understand," she said.

Never miss a parenting story with the TODAY Parenting newsletter! Sign up here.

Help kids develop time management skills

Some children like to finish their homework the minute they get home. Others need time to eat a snack and decompress. Either is a valid approach, but no matter when students decide to tackle their homework, they might need some guidance from parents about how to manage their time .

One tip: "Set the oven timer for age appropriate intervals of work, and then let them take a break for a few minutes," Maura Olvey, an elementary school math specialist in Central Florida, told TODAY Parents. "The oven timer is visible to them — they know when a break is coming — and they are visible to you, so you can encourage focus and perseverance." The stopwatch function on a smartphone would work for this method as well.

But one size does not fit all when it comes to managing homework, said Cleveland, Ohio, clinical psychologist Dr. Sarah Cain Spannagel . "If their child has accommodations as a learner, parents know they need them at home as well as at school: quiet space, extended time, audio books, etcetera," she said. "Think through long assignments, and put those in planners in advance so the kid knows it is expected to take some time."

Know when to walk away

"I always want my parents to know when to call it a night," said Amanda Feroglia, a central Florida elementary teacher and mother of two. "The children's day at school is so rigorous; some nights it’s not going to all get done, and that’s OK! It’s not worth the meltdown or the fight if they are tired or you are frustrated...or both!"

Parents also need to accept their own limits. Don't be afraid to find support from YouTube videos, websites like Khan Academy, or even tutors. And in the end, said Spannagel, "If you find yourself yelling or frustrated, just walk away!" It's fine just to let a teacher know your child attempted but did not understand the homework and leave it at that.

Ideally, teachers will understand when parents don't know how to help with Common Core math, and they will assign an appropriate amount of homework that will not leave both children and their parents at wits' ends. If worst comes to worst, a few parents offered an alternative tip for their fellow homework warriors.

"If Brittany leaves Boston for New York at 3:00 pm traveling by train at 80 MPH, and Taylor leaves Boston for New York at 1:00 pm traveling by car at 65 MPH, and Brittany makes two half hour stops, and Taylor makes one that is ten minutes longer, how many glasses of wine does mommy need?" quipped one mom of two.

Also recommended: "Chocolate, in copious amounts."

Allison Slater Tate is a freelance writer and editor in Florida specializing in parenting and college admissions. She is a proud Gen Xer, ENFP, Leo, Diet Coke enthusiast, and champion of the Oxford Comma. She mortifies her four children by knowing all the trending songs on TikTok. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram .

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Homework Struggles May Not Be a Behavior Problem

Exploring some options to understand and help..

Posted August 2, 2022 | Reviewed by Abigail Fagan

• Mental health challenges and neurodevelopmental differences directly affect children's ability to do homework.
• Understanding what difficulties are getting in the way—beyond the usual explanation of a behavior problem—is key.
• Sleep and mental health needs can take priority over homework completion.

Chelsea was in 10th grade the first time I told her directly to stop doing her homework and get some sleep. I had been working with her since she was in middle school, treating her anxiety disorder. She deeply feared disappointing anyone—especially her teachers—and spent hours trying to finish homework perfectly. The more tired and anxious she got, the harder it got for her to finish the assignments.

One night Chelsea called me in despair, feeling hopeless. She was exhausted and couldn’t think straight. She felt like a failure and that she was a burden to everyone because she couldn’t finish her homework.

She was shocked when I told her that my prescription for her was to go to sleep now—not to figure out how to finish her work. I told her to leave her homework incomplete and go to sleep. We briefly discussed how we would figure it out the next day, with her mom and her teachers. At that moment, it clicked for her that it was futile to keep working—because nothing was getting done.

This was an inflection point for her awareness of when she was emotionally over-cooked and when she needed to stop and take a break or get some sleep. We repeated versions of this phone call several times over the course of her high school and college years, but she got much better at being able to do this for herself most of the time.

When Mental Health Symptoms Interfere with Homework

Kids with mental health or neurodevelopmental challenges often struggle mightily with homework. Challenges can come up in every step of the homework process, including, but not limited to:

• Remembering and tracking assignments and materials
• Getting the mental energy/organization to start homework
• Filtering distractions enough to persist with assignments
• Understanding unspoken or implied parts of the homework
• Remembering to bring finished homework to class
• Being in class long enough to know the material
• Tolerating the fear of not knowing or failing
• Not giving up the assignment because of a panic attack
• Tolerating frustration—such as not understanding—without emotional dysregulation
• Being able to ask for help—from a peer or a teacher and not being afraid to reach out

This list is hardly comprehensive. ADHD , autism spectrum disorder, social anxiety , generalized anxiety, panic disorder, depression , dysregulation, and a range of other neurodevelopmental and mental health challenges cause numerous learning differences and symptoms that can specifically and frequently interfere with getting homework done.

The Usual Diagnosis for Homework Problems is "Not Trying Hard Enough"

Unfortunately, when kids frequently struggle to meet homework demands, teachers and parents typically default to one explanation of the problem: The child is making a choice not to do their homework. That is the default “diagnosis” in classrooms and living rooms. And once this framework is drawn, the student is often seen as not trying hard enough, disrespectful, manipulative, or just plain lazy.

The fundamental disconnect here is that the diagnosis of homework struggles as a behavioral choice is, in fact, only one explanation, while there are so many other diagnoses and differences that impair children's ability to consistently do their homework. If we are trying to create solutions based on only one understanding of the problem, the solutions will not work. More devastatingly, the wrong solutions can worsen the child’s mental health and their long-term engagement with school and learning.

To be clear, we aren’t talking about children who sometimes struggle with or skip homework—kids who can change and adapt their behaviors and patterns in response to the outcomes of that struggle. For this discussion, we are talking about children with mental health and/or neurodevelopmental symptoms and challenges that create chronic difficulties with meeting homework demands.

How Can You Help a Child Who Struggles with Homework?

How can you help your child who is struggling to meet homework demands because of their ADHD, depression, anxiety, OCD , school avoidance, or any other neurodevelopmental or mental health differences? Let’s break this down into two broad areas—things you can do at home, and things you can do in communication with the school.

Helping at Home

The following suggestions for managing school demands at home can feel counterintuitive to parents—because we usually focus on helping our kids to complete their tasks. But mental health needs jump the line ahead of task completion. And starting at home will be key to developing an idea of what needs to change at school.

• Set an end time in the evening after which no more homework will be attempted. Kids need time to decompress and they need sleep—and pushing homework too close to or past bedtime doesn’t serve their educational needs. Even if your child hasn’t been able to approach the homework at all, even if they have avoided and argued the whole evening, it is still important for everyone to have a predictable time to shut down the whole process.
• If there are arguments almost every night about homework, if your child isn’t starting homework or finishing it, reframe it from failure into information. It’s data to put into problem-solving. We need to consider other possible explanations besides “behavioral choice” when trying to understand the problem and create effective solutions. What problems are getting in the way of our child’s meeting homework demands that their peers are meeting most of the time?
• Try not to argue about homework. If you can check your own anxiety and frustration, it can be more productive to ally with your child and be curious with them. Kids usually can’t tell you a clear “why” but maybe they can tell you how they are feeling and what they are thinking. And if your child can’t talk about it or just keeps saying “I don't know,” try not to push. Come back another time. Rushing, forcing, yelling, and threatening will predictably not help kids do homework.

Helping at School

The second area to explore when your neurodiverse child struggles frequently with homework is building communication and connections with school and teachers. Some places to focus on include the following.

• Label your child’s diagnoses and break down specific symptoms for the teachers and school team. Nonjudgmental, but specific language is essential for teachers to understand your child’s struggles. Breaking their challenges down into the problems specific to homework can help with building solutions. As your child gets older, help them identify their difficulties and communicate them to teachers.
• Let teachers and the school team know that your child’s mental health needs—including sleep—take priority over finishing homework. If your child is always struggling to complete homework and get enough sleep, or if completing homework is leading to emotional meltdowns every night, adjusting their homework demands will be more successful than continuing to push them into sleep deprivation or meltdowns.
• Request a child study team evaluation to determine if your child qualifies for services under special education law such as an IEP, or accommodations through section 504—and be sure that homework adjustments are included in any plan. Or if such a plan is already in place, be clear that modification of homework expectations needs to be part of it.

The Long-Term Story

I still work with Chelsea and she recently mentioned how those conversations so many years ago are still part of how she approaches work tasks or other demands that are spiking her anxiety when she finds herself in a vortex of distress. She stops what she is doing and prioritizes reducing her anxiety—whether it’s a break during her day or an ending to the task for the evening. She sees that this is crucial to managing her anxiety in her life and still succeeding at what she is doing.

Task completion at all costs is not a solution for kids with emotional needs. Her story (and the story of many of my patients) make this crystal clear.

Candida Fink, M.D. , is board certified in child/adolescent and general psychiatry. She practices in New York and has co-authored two books— The Ups and Downs of Raising a Bipolar Child and Bipolar Disorder for Dummies.

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Should homework be banned?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Does homework work?

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

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

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

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

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

Can homework cause damage?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Should we stop setting homework?

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

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

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

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

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Science of mind

Why is homework good for your brain?

Did you know that homework has a profound impact on brain development? It’s not just about completing assignments; homework can actually improve brain function and enhance cognitive abilities.

Homework is designed to help students prepare for the future and develop skills that are essential for success in life. It offers several cognitive benefits, including the development of memory and critical thinking skills. By practicing and repeating new skills through homework, students can enhance their memory and retain knowledge for exams and future tests.

But that’s not all. Homework also helps students build suitable study habits, learn time management, realize personal responsibility, work independently, and improve their ability to use resources and conduct research.

Key Takeaways:

• Homework improves brain function and enhances cognitive abilities.
• By practicing and repeating new skills through homework, students can enhance their memory and retain knowledge.
• Homework helps students build suitable study habits, learn time management, and realize personal responsibility.
• Homework fosters independence and the ability to use resources effectively.
• Research shows that designing and assigning homework correctly can optimize its effectiveness as a learning tool.

The Cognitive Benefits of Homework

Homework is not just a task assigned by teachers to keep students occupied after school; it has far-reaching cognitive benefits and contributes to brain growth and development. Through various homework assignments, students have the opportunity to enhance critical thinking skills, memory retention, and problem-solving abilities.

One essential cognitive benefit of homework is its ability to challenge and develop critical thinking skills. By applying the concepts they’ve learned in class to real-life situations, students can deepen their understanding and improve their analytical thinking abilities. This practice fosters a deeper level of comprehension and encourages students to actively engage with the material.

Another cognitive benefit of homework is its positive impact on memory retention. Through practice and repetition of new skills and knowledge, students reinforce the neural connections in their brains, making the information more accessible and easier to recall. This improved memory retention helps students perform better on exams and enhances their overall academic performance.

Homework also plays a crucial role in developing problem-solving abilities. Assignments that require students to think critically and find innovative solutions to complex problems help cultivate their analytical and logical thinking skills. These problem-solving abilities are essential for success in various aspects of life, from academic pursuits to professional careers.

Overall, homework has a profound impact on cognitive development, providing students with opportunities to enhance critical thinking, memory retention, and problem-solving abilities. By engaging in regular homework assignments, students can nurture these essential cognitive skills and lay a solid foundation for their future academic and professional success.

Building Essential Skills Through Homework

Homework plays a vital role in building essential skills that are crucial for academic success and beyond. It provides students with the opportunity to develop effective study habits, learn time management, cultivate personal responsibility, and engage in independent work.

One of the key benefits of homework is the development of study habits. Through regular homework assignments, students learn how to plan their study sessions, set realistic goals, and effectively organize their time. By following consistent study routines, students can maximize their learning potential and improve their overall academic performance.

Time management is another vital skill that homework helps students develop. By juggling multiple assignments and deadlines, students learn to prioritize tasks, allocate their time effectively, and meet their academic obligations. These skills are essential not only for academic success but also for managing responsibilities in other areas of life.

Homework also fosters a sense of personal responsibility. Being accountable for completing assignments on time and to the best of their ability teaches students the importance of taking ownership of their education. It instills a work ethic that can significantly impact their future success, both inside and outside the classroom.

Furthermore, homework promotes independent work and critical thinking skills. Through assignments that require students to apply concepts learned in class, they develop their problem-solving abilities and deepen their understanding of the subject matter. This type of independent work encourages students to think creatively, analyze information critically, and develop their own perspectives.

By engaging in homework, students are actively building these essential skills that will benefit them throughout their education and beyond. The combination of effective study habits, time management, personal responsibility, and independent work fosters self-discipline, resilience, and a lifelong love of learning.

Testimonial:

“Homework has been instrumental in developing my study habits and time management skills. It has taught me the importance of setting goals and staying organized. Through homework, I’ve become more accountable and independent in my learning.” – Jane Smith, High School Student

Homework and Research Skills

When it comes to homework, research skills are essential for academic success. Homework assignments often require students to explore various resources, such as research papers, books, websites, and videos. By delving into these resources, students develop the ability to effectively use different information sources and enhance their understanding of the subject matter.

Research skills acquired through homework not only improve students’ academic performance but also prepare them to navigate the vast amount of information available in the digital age. By honing their research skills, students become adept at finding relevant and reliable information, analyzing different sources, and critically evaluating the credibility and validity of the information they come across.

Research skills acquired through homework contribute to academic success and prepare students for future challenges.

Through homework, students develop the persistence and resilience necessary to delve deep into a topic, locate relevant information, and synthesize their findings in a coherent manner. These skills are not only valuable during their academic journey but will also benefit them throughout their lives as they continue to learn and grow.

Moreover, conducting research for homework assignments instills a sense of curiosity and a thirst for knowledge in students. It encourages them to explore beyond the textbook and develop a broader perspective on the topics they are studying. They learn to ask questions, seek answers, and develop a lifelong love for learning.

Overall, homework assignments that require research skills play a vital role in shaping students’ intellectual growth, fostering critical thinking, and preparing them for the challenges they will face in their future academic and professional endeavors.

The Science of Homework Efficiency

When it comes to homework, there is a science behind ensuring its maximum effectiveness as a learning tool. Research has shown that the way homework is designed and assigned can have a significant impact on student performance. To optimize learning outcomes, homework should provide independent learning opportunities and present challenges that facilitate deliberate practice of essential content and skills.

One factor that can greatly affect the efficiency of homework is task switching. Constantly switching between homework and distractions like social media can significantly prolong the time spent on assignments. To overcome this, it is crucial to encourage students to delay gratification by using social media as a reward after completing their assignments. By eliminating distractions and focusing on the task at hand, students can deepen their learning and complete their homework more efficiently.

Adopting a scientific approach to tackling homework can lead to improved academic performance. By implementing strategies that optimize learning, such as organizing study sessions, setting goals, and utilizing resources effectively, students can enhance their understanding of the subject matter and improve their overall learning outcomes. By prioritizing uninterrupted focus and disciplined work, students can transform homework into a valuable learning experience that prepares them for success in their academic endeavors.

Source Links

• https://www.crispebooks.org/
• http://www.math.usf.edu/~mccolm/pedagogy/HWgood.html
• https://www.edutopia.org/blog/homework-sleep-and-student-brain-glenn-whitman

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Review: The End of Homework: How Homework Disrupts Families, Overburdens Children, and Limits Learning

(An updated version of this piece is available at this link.)

The End of Homework by Etta Kralovec and John Buell offers a succinct and researched account of why homework does little to actually improve academic performance, and instead hurts a family’s overall well-being. Kralovec and Buell analyze and dissect homework studies over the last few decades, finding that most research supports their claims or, at-best, makes dubious claims on the affects of homework. Although written in 2000, The End of Homework makes arguments that are only strengthened today: homework is discriminatory toward the poor (and the wealth gap has grown), it separates families from their children (and families work longer hours, and homework assigned has increased), and academic results are mixed (and recent studies reflect this.)

At Human Restoration Project , one of the core systemic changes we suggest is the elimination of homework. Throughout this piece, I will include more recent research studies that add to this work. I believe that the adverse affects of homework are so strong that any homework assigned, outside of minor catching up or incredibly niche cases, does more harm than good.

Summarized within The End of Homework , as well as developmental psychologists, sociologists, and educators, are the core reasons why homework is not beneficial:

Homework is Inequitable

In the most practical terms, calls for teachers to assign more homework and for parents to provide a quiet, well-lit place for the child to study must always be considered in the context of the parents’ education, income, available time, and job security. For many of our fellow citizens, jobs have become less secure and less well paid over the course of the last two decades.

Americans work the longest hours of any nation . Individuals in 2006 worked 11 hours longer than their counterparts in 1979. In 2020, 70% of children live in households where both parents work. And the United States is the only country in the industrial world without guaranteed family leave. The results are staggering: 90% of women and 95% of men report work-family conflict . According to the Center for American Progress , “the United States today has the most family-hostile public policy in the developed world due to a long-standing political impasse.”

As a result, parents have much less time to connect with their children. This is not a call to a return to traditional family roles, or even to have stay-at-home parents. Rather, our occupational society is structured inadequately to allow for the use of homework, and Americans must change how labor laws demand their time. For those who work in entry level positions, such as customer service and cashiers, there is an average 240% turnover per year due to lack of pay, poor conditions, work-life balance, and mismanagement. Family incomes continue to decline for lower- and middle-class Americans, leaving more parents to work increased hours or multiple jobs. In other words, parents, especially poor parents, have less opportunities to spend time with their children, let alone foster academic “gains” via homework.

In an effort to increase engagement in homework, teachers have been encouraged to create interesting, creative assignments. Although this has good intentions, rigorous homework with increased complexity places more impetus on parents. As Gary Natrillo, an initial proponent of creative homework, stated later:

‘…not only was homework being assigned as suggested by all the ‘experts,’ but the teacher was obviously taking the homework seriously, making it challenging instead of routine and checking it each day and giving feedback. We were enveloped by the nightmare of near total implementation of the reform recommendations pertaining to homework…More creative homework tasks are a mixed blessing on the receiving end. On the one hand, they, of course, lead to higher engagement and interest for children and their parents. On the other hand, they require one to be well rested, a special condition of mind not often available to working parents…’

Time is a luxury to most Americans. With increased working hours, in conjunction with extreme levels of stress, many Americans don’t have the necessary mindset to adequately supply children with the attention to detail for complex homework. As Kralovec and Buell state,

To put it plainly, I have discovered that after a day at work, the commute home, dinner preparations, and the prospect of baths, goodnight stories, and my own work ahead, there comes a time beyond which I cannot sustain my enthusiasm for the math brain teaser or the creative story task.

Americans are some of the most stressed people in the world. Mass shootings, health care affordability, discrimination, sexual harassment, climate change, the presidential election, and literally: staying informed have caused roughly 70% of people to report moderate or extreme stress , with increased rates for people of color, LGBTQIA Americans, and other discriminated groups. 90% of high schoolers and college students report moderate or higher stress, with half reporting depression and lack of energy and motivation .

Perhaps the solution to academic achievement in America isn’t doubling down on test scores or increasing the work students do at home, but solving the underlying systemic inequities : the economic and discriminatory problems that plague our society? Kralovec and Buell note,

Citing the low test scores of American students has become a favorite cocktail party game. However, some scholars have offered a more nuanced explanation for the poor showing by U.S. students in international academic performance comparisons, suggesting that it may have more to do with high levels of childhood poverty and a lack of support for families in the United States than with low academic standards, shorter school days, and fewer hours spent on homework.

Finland, frequently cited as a model education system, enjoys some of the highest standards of living in the world:

• Finland’s life expectancy is 81.8 years, compare to the US’ 78.7 years and a notable difference exists in the US between rich and poor . Further, America’s life expectancy is declining, the only industrialized country with this statistic .
• Finland’s health care is rated best in the world and only spends $3,078 per capita, compared to $8,047 in the US.
• Finland has virtually no homelessness , compared to 500,000 homeless in the United States .
• Finland has the lowest inequality levels in the EU , compared to the United States with one of the highest inequality levels in the world . Research has demonstrated that countries with lower inequality levels are happier and healthier .

Outside of just convincing you to flat-out move to Finland, these statistics reflect that potentially — instead of investing hundreds of millions of dollars in initiatives to increase national test scores , such as homework strategies, curriculum changes, and nationwide “raising the bar” initiatives — the US should invest in programs that universally help our daily lives, such as universal healthcare and housing. The solution to test scores is rooted in solving America’s underlying inequitable society — shining a light on our core issues — rather than making teachers solve all of our community’s problems.

But Wait, Despite All This…Does Homework Even Work!?

‘Extensive classroom research of ‘time on task’ and international comparisons of year-round time for study suggest that additional homework might promote U.S. students’ achievement.’ This written statement by some of the top professionals in the field of homework research raises some difficult questions. More homework might promote student achievement? Are all our blood, sweat, and tears at the kitchen table over homework based on something that merely might be true? Our belief in the value of homework is akin to faith. We assume that it fosters a love of learning, better study habits, improved attitudes toward school, and greater self-discipline; we believe that better teachers assign more homework and that one sign of a good school is a good, enforced homework policy.

Numerous studies of homework reflect an inconsistent result. Not only does homework rarely demonstrate large, if any, academic gains for testing, there are many negative impacts on the family that are often ignored.

• Countries that assigned the least amount of homework: Denmark, Czech Republic, had higher test scores than those with the most amount of homework: Iran, Thailand .
• Quality of instruction, motivation, and ability are all correlated with student success in school. Yet homework may be marginal or counterproductive .
• Of all homework assigned, homework only saw marginal increases in math and science standardized testing , and had no bearing on grades.
• Homework added pressure and societal stress to those who already experienced the same at home , causing a further divide in academic performance (due to lack of time and financial stress.)

By bringing schoolwork home, the well-intentioned belief of promoting equity through high standards has the adverse affect of causing further inequity. Private and preparatory schools are notorious for extreme levels of homework assignment . Yet, many progressive schools assign no homework and achieve the same levels of college and career success . Again, the biggest predictor of college success has nothing to do with rigorous preparation, and everything to do with family income levels. 77% of students from high income families graduated from a highly competitive college, whereas 9% of students from low income families did the same .

School curriculum obsession in homework is likely rooted in studies that demonstrate increased test scores as a result of assigned homework. The End of Homework deciphers this phenomena:

Cooper’s work provides us with one more example of a problem that routinely bedevils all the sciences: the relationship between correlation and causality. If A and B happen simultaneously, we do not know whether A causes B or B causes A, or whether both phenomena occur casually together or are individually determined by another set of variables…Thus far, most studies in this area have amounted to little more than crude correlations that cannot justify the sweeping conclusions some have derived from them.

If other countries demonstrate educational success (albeit measured through standardized testing) with little to no assigned homework and limited school hours , shouldn’t we take a step back and analyze the system as a whole, rather than figure out better homework schemes?

A Reflection of Neoliberal Society

According to New York State’s Teacher of the Year in 1990:

‘[Schools] separate parents and children from vital interaction with each other and from true curiosity about each other’s lives. Schools stifle family originality by appropriating the critical time needed for any sound idea of family to develop — then they blame the family for its family to be a family. It’s like a malicious person lifting a photograph from the developing chemicals too early, then pronouncing the photographer incompetent.’

Education often equates learning with work. I have to stop myself from behaving like an economics analysist: telling students to quit “wasting time”, stating that the purpose of the lesson is useful for future earnings, seeing everything as prep for college and career (and college is ultimately just for more earnings in a career), and making blanket assumptions that those who aren’t motivated will ultimately never contribute to society, taking on “low levels” of work that “aren’t as important” as other positions.

Since the nineteenth century, developmental psychology has been moving away from the notion that children are nothing more or less than miniature adults. In suggesting that children need to learn to deal with adult levels of pressure, we risk doing them untold damage. By this logic, the schoolyard shootings of recent years may be likened to ‘disgruntled employee’ rampages.

This mentality is unhealthy and unjust. The purpose of education should be to develop purpose. People live happier and healthier lives as a result of pursuing and developing a core purpose. Some people’s purpose is related to their line of work, but there is not necessarily a connection. However, the primary goal stated by districts, states, and the national government of the education system is to make “productive members of society.” When we double down on economic principles to raise complex individuals, it’s no wonder we’re seeing such horrific statistics related to childhood .

Further, the consistent pressure to produce for economic gain raises generations of young people to believe that wealth is a measurement of success and that specific lines of work create happiness. Teachers and parents are told to make their children “work hard” for future success and develop “grit.” Although grit is an important indicator of overcoming obstacles , it is not developed by enforcing grit through authoritarian classrooms or meaningless, long tasks . In fact, an argument could be made that many Americans accept their dramatically poor work-life balance and lack of access to needs such as affordable health care by being brought up in a society that rewards neoliberal tendencies of “working through it” to “eventually achieve happiness.”

Kralovec and Buell state,

Many of us would question whether our fighting with our children for twelve years about homework could possibly foster good habits. In contrast, participating in the decisions of the household and collaborating with others on common chores, from cooking to cleaning to doing routine repairs, are important life skills that also require good work habits. For many children, these habits are never learned because homework gets in the way of that work.

Americans have more difficulty than ever raising children, with increasing demands of time and rising childcare costs . Children often need to “pick up the slack” and help taking care of the home. In fact, children with chores show completely positive universal growth across the board . When teachers provide more and more homework, they take away from the parents’ ability to structure their household according to their needs. As written in The End of Homework ,

Most of us find we do not have enough time with our children to teach them these things; our ‘teaching’ time is instead taken up with school-mandated subjects. We often wonder if we wouldn’t have less tension in our society over prayer in schools if our children had more time for religious instruction at home and for participation in church activities. When school is the virtually exclusive center of the child’s educational and even moral universe, it is not surprising that so many parents should find school agendas (with which they may or may not agree) a threat to their very authority and identity.

Of course, this is not to say that it is all the teacher’s fault. Educators face immense pressure to carry out governmental/school policies that place test scores at the forefront. Many of these policies require homework , and an educator’s future employment is centered on enacting these changes:

As more academic demands are placed on teachers, homework can help lengthen the school day and thus ensure ‘coverage’ — that is, the completion of the full curriculum that each teacher is supposed to cover during the school year…This in itself places pressure on teachers to create meaningful homework and often to assign large amounts of it so that the students’ parents will think the teacher is rigorous and the school has high academic standards. Extensive homework is frequently linked in our minds to high standards.

Therefore, there’s a connection to be made between “work”-life balance of children and the people who are tasked with teaching them. 8% of the teacher workforce leaves every year , many concerned with work-life balance . Perhaps teachers see an increased desire to “work” students in their class and at home due to the pressures they face in their own occupation?

We have little opportunity to enjoy recreation, community events, local politics, or family life. Our diminished possibilities in this regard in turn reinforce our reliance on wages and the workplace. And even the family time that remains after the demands of work and commuting are met is increasingly structured by the requirements of the workplace and school.

The more we equate work with learning, and the more we accept a school’s primary purpose to prepare workers, the less we actually succeed at promoting academics. Instead, we bolster the neoliberal tendencies of the United States to work hard, yet comparably to other countries’ lifestyle gains, achieve little. The United States must examine the underlying inequities of peoples’ lives, rather than focus on increasing schools’ workloads and lessening children’s free time for mythical academic gains that lead to little change. Teacher preparation programs and popular authors need to stop promoting “ interesting and fun ways to teach ‘x’! ” and propose systemic changes that radically change the way education is done, including systemic changes to society at large. Only then will the United States actually see improved livelihoods and a better education system for all.

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I think when we were talking about what it gives us time to do, folks are able to get up and learn to paint, play guitar. What have folks been learning. This time isn't lost. Learning looks differently but I think we can lean into that. Who are the transmitters of knowledge? What does knowledge transmission look like? How do we constitute learning and what do those content areas look like in how we might think of things as more of...someone might call it transdisciplinary. So those are just what I was thinking but I think it's certainly a time. And we should, at least I'll say in my opinion, not think of this so much as a learning loss. It doesn't value what families and communities have been doing during this time and only puts out how knowledge translates in this academic sense and these structures that aren't always as flexible as we might add.

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Homework or Personal Lives?

Many students get home and the first thing they do is homework. They’re pressured by their parents to do their homework while simultaneously being encouraged to spend time with family, eat, spend time with friends, go outside, participate in sports or other extracurricular activities, and sleep for 7+ hours. Rather than motivating students to master material and learn efficiently, homework negatively impacts students by taking away from personal time that is necessary for them to lead balanced lives.

In an article published by The Washington Post by Gerald K LeTendre, a professor of education in education policy studies at Penn State, states that, “Worldwide, homework is not associated with high national levels of academic achievement.” This means that there is no direct correlation between homework and test grades, and very few studies have been able to prove this, and the ones that have were more of a reach. At Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia,  16 out of 19 of the students in Fire Stream agreed that homework adds extra stress onto them or takes time away from other things that they’re encouraged to do, such as sports, extra classes, extracurricular activities, family time, etc. This means that just over 84% of students in Fire Stream have agreed that homework is added stress and takes time away from things that they’re encouraged to do outside of school. Many students participate in these activities because they’re passionate about them and it makes them happy. Sports and exercise is proven to relieve stress, homework adds stress and if time for this stress reliever is taken away that just means more stress, this can cause more problems in many aspects of their lives.

In an article written by CNN about how homework has been banned in some cities and not others, “What is clear is that parents and kids don't live in the world of academic research; they live in the real world where there are piles of homework on the kitchen table.” Meaning that students don’t have the luxury of just easily saying that homework helps their academic performance or not, and they don’t have the luxury of just not doing homework. That is especially true to highschool students who have to regularly chose between sleep and doing work, especially when they get homework from every class every night and homework can be up to 30% of their grade. Students in every grade get piles of homework and a lot of the time they don’t have resources on hand to see if they’re right or to get help, meaning they might do it wrong and not learn anything at all.  Even if students do try and do their homework it might take a while, according to Nationwide Children’s Hospital adolescents should be getting 9 to 9 ½ hours of sleep per night. Due to homework and trying to fit other after school activities in many adolescents don’t get the necessary amount of sleep. Sleep deprivation in teens has many negative effects such as mood changes, being more inclined to engage in risky behavior such as driving fast, drinking, etc, doing worse in school, and declined cognitive abilities.

In an article published by the New York Times, a mother explained how… , “The stress homework places on families starts early.” The article also talks about how homework takes away from family time and family activities. The author also says that her kids “are fighting not just over the homework, but also over their share of my coveted attention and my unique ability to download and print images.” This shows how homework adds extra pressure and can cause tension in families. It takes away from family time and causes more stress on students and parents. It’s almost as if once children start school and the homework starts that it never stops, and that more family time is taken away while more stress is added.

In a study concluded in 2003 by Dr. Harris Cooper he tries to argue that homework has a positive effect on students, but his studies also found no direct correlation between increased homework for students and improved test scores. Cooper himself said that “The analysis also showed that too much homework can be counter-productive for students at all levels.” Meaning that excessive amounts of homework can cause negative effects on students, but who is judging what excessive amounts of homework means? He talks about the “10 minute rule” meaning that every grade that a student increases they should get 10 more minutes of homework, meaning that a second grader should get 20 minutes, and a twelfth grader should get around 2 hours of homework. That would seem ideal, but in most high school settings teachers don’t interact with each other to see how much homework each of them give to equal it out to around 2 hours. This means that one class’s homework could take a student 2 hours alone and that would be what the ideal amount of homework is, so if it takes 2 hours for one class’s homework then how are students supposed to have positive benefits from doing all of their homework? Cooper’s research was also limited because very little research was done to see if student’s race, socioeconomic status, or even their ability levels has an affect on how much homework is “good” for said age range. This means that other aspects than just that they’re students in a certain grade weren’t taken into consideration. These things could cause major changes to the data that was collected.

Rather than encouraging students to master material and learn efficiently, homework negatively impacts students and families by causing more stress and taking away from family time. This is a problem not just for the overworked students, but also for students who have more complex personal lives. Many students work or have family obligations that they have to deal with, but don’t necessarily feel comfortable talking to a teacher about them. Although teachers might not think that the amount of homework that they give matters much,its influence goes beyond giving students work to do at home to how they interact in other important personal aspects of their life.

Works Cited:

LeTendre, Gerald K. “Homework Could Have an Effect on Kids’ Health. Should Schools Ban It?” The Washington Post , WP Company, 2 Sept. 2015, www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/09/02/homework-could-have-an-effect-on-kids-health-should-schools-ban-it/?utm_term=.3ed6d0fa2c72.

Kralovec, Etta. “Should Schools Ban Homework?” CNN , Cable News Network, 5 Sept. 2014, www.cnn.com/2014/09/05/opinion/kralovec-ban-homework/index.html.

Dell'Antonia, Kj. “Homework's Emotional Toll on Students and Families.” The New York Times , The New York Times, 12 Mar. 2014, parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/12/homeworks-emotional-toll-on-students-and-families/.

“Duke Study: Homework Helps Students Succeed in School, As Long as There Isn't Too Much.” Duke Today , Duke Today, 7 Mar. 2006, today.duke.edu/2006/03/homework.html.

“Sleep in Adolescents (13-18 Years).” Sleep in Adolescents :: Nationwide Children's Hospital , www.nationwidechildrens.org/sleep-in-adolescents

Comments (1)

A question that I have after reading this is in what other ways can we as students improve our learning without homework?

This 2fer has changed my opinion about how much homework affects a student's life in a bad way more than a good way.

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• Mental Health , Research
• Written by Cara Goodwin, Ph.D.

Homework: The Good and The Bad

Homework.  A single word that for many brings up memories of childhood stress. Now that you’re a parent, you may be reminded of that feeling every time your child spills their backpack across the table. You also may be questioning how much homework is too much and wondering how you can best help your child with their schoolwork.

Here, Dr. Cara Goodwin of Parenting Translator explains what the research actually says about homework. She outlines specific ways parents can support their kids to maximize the academic benefits and develop lifelong skills in time management and persistence.

In recent years, many parents and educators have raised concerns about homework. Specifically, they have questioned how much it enhances learning and if its benefits outweigh potential costs, such as stress to the family.

So, what does the research say?

Academic benefits vs risks of homework

One of the most important questions when it comes to homework is whether it actually helps kids understand the content better. So does it? Research finds that homework is associated with higher scores on academic standardized tests for middle and high school students, but not for elementary school students (1, 2).

In other words, homework seems to have little impact on learning in elementary school students. 

Additionally, a 2012 study found that while homework is related to higher standardized test scores for high schoolers, it is not related to higher grades.

Not surprisingly, homework is more likely to be associated with improved academic performance when students and teachers find the homework to be meaningful or relevant, according to several studies (1, 3, 4). Students tend to find homework to be most engaging when it involves solving real-world problems (5).  

The impact of homework may also depend on socioeconomic status. Students from higher income families show improved academic skills with more homework and gain more knowledge from homework, according to research. On the other hand, the academic performance of more disadvantaged children seems to be unaffected by homework (6, 7). This may be because homework provides additional stress for disadvantaged children. They are less likely to get help from their parents on homework and more likely to be punished by teachers for not completing it (8).

Non-academic benefits vs risks of homework

Academic outcomes are only part of the picture. It is important to look at how homework affects kids in ways other than grades and test scores.

Homework appears to have benefits beyond improving academic skills, particularly for younger students. These benefits include building responsibility, time management skills, and persistence (1, 9, 10). In addition, homework may also increase parents’ involvement in their children’s schooling (11, 12, 13, 14).

Yet, studies show that too much homework has drawbacks. It can reduce children’s opportunities for free play, which is essential for the development of language, cognitive, self-regulation, and social-emotional skills (15). It may also interfere with physical activity, and too much homework is associated with an increased risk for being overweight (16, 17). 

In addition to homework reducing opportunities for play, it also leads to increased conflicts and stress for families. For example, research finds that children with more hours of homework experience more academic stress, physical health problems, and lack of balance in their lives (18). 

Clearly, more is not better when it comes to homework.

What is the “right” amount of homework? 

Recent reports indicate that elementary school students are assigned three times the recommended amount of homework. Even kindergarten students report an average of 25 minutes of homework per day (19).

Additionally, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) found that homework has been increasing in recent years for younger students. Specifically, 35% of 9-year-olds reported that they did not do homework the previous night in 1984 versus 22% of 9-years-old in 2012. However, homework levels have stayed relatively stable for 13- and 17-year-olds during this same time period. 

Research suggests that homework should not exceed 1.5 to 2.5 hours per night for high school students and no more than 1 hour per night for middle school students (1). Homework for elementary school students should be minimal and assigned with the aim of building self-regulation and independent work skills. A common rule , supported by both the National Education Association (NEA) and National Parent Teacher Association (PTA), is 10-minutes of homework per grade in elementary school. Any more than this and homework may no longer have a positive impact. Importantly, the NEA and the National PTA do not endorse homework for kindergarteners.

How can parents best help with homework?

Most parents feel that they are expected to be involved in their children’s homework (20). Yet, it is often unclear exactly how to be involved in a way that helps your child to successfully complete the assignment without taking over entirely. Most studies find that parental help is important but that it matters more HOW the parent is helping rather than how OFTEN the parent is helping (21).

While this can all feel very overwhelming for parents, there are some simple guidelines you can follow to ease the homework burden and best support your child’s learning.

1. Help only when needed.

Parents should focus on providing general monitoring, guidance and encouragement. Allow children to generate answers on their own and complete their homework as independently as possible . This is important because research shows that allowing children more independence in completing homework benefits their academic skills (22, 23). In addition, too much parent involvement and being controlling with homework is associated with worse academic performance (21, 24, 25). 

What does this look like?

• Be present when your child is completing homework to help them to understand the directions.
• Be available to answer simple questions and to provide praise for their effort and hard work.
• Only provide help when your child asks for it and step away whenever possible.

2. Have structure and routines.

Help your child create structure and to develop some routines. This helps children become more independent in completing their homework. Research finds that providing this type of structure and responsiveness is related to improved academic skills (25).

This structure may include:

• A regular time and place for homework that is free from distractions.
• Have all of the materials they need within arm’s reach.
• Teach and encourage kids to create a checklist for their homework tasks each day.

Parents can also help their children to find ways to stay motivated. For example, developing their own reward system or creating a homework schedule with breaks for fun activities.

3. Set specific rules around homework.

Research finds that parents setting rules around homework is related to higher academic performance (26). For example, parents may require that children finish homework before screen time or may require children to stop doing homework and go to sleep at a certain hour. 

4. Emphasize learning over outcome.

Encourage your child to persist in challenging assignments and frame difficult assignments as opportunities to grow. Research finds that this attitude is associated with student success (20). Research also indicates that more challenging homework is associated with enhanced school performance (27).

Additionally, help your child to view homework as an opportunity to learn and improve skills. Parents who view homework as a learning opportunity rather than something that they must get “right” or complete successfully to obtain a higher grade are more likely to have children with the same attitudes (28). 

5. Stay calm and positive.

Yes, we know this is easier said than done, but it does have a big impact on how kids persevere when things get hard! Research shows that mothers showing positive emotions while helping with homework may improve children’s motivation in homework (29)

6. Praise hard work and effort. 

Praise focused on effort is likely to increase motivation (30). In addition, research finds that putting more effort into homework may be associated with enhanced development of conscientiousness in children (31).

7. Communicate with your child’s teacher.

Let your child’s teacher know about any problems your child has with homework and the teachers’ learning goals. Research finds that open communication about homework is associated with improved school performance (32). 

In summary, research finds that homework provides some academic benefit for middle- and high-school students but is less beneficial for elementary school students. As a parent, how you are involved in your child’s homework really matters. By following these evidence-based tips, you can help your child to maximize the benefits of homework and make the process less painful for all involved!

For more resources, take a look at our recent posts on natural and logical consequences and simple ways to decrease challenging behaviors .

• 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.
• Muhlenbruck, L., Cooper, H., Nye, B., & Lindsay, J. J. (1999). Homework and achievement: Explaining the different strengths of relation at the elementary and secondary school levels.  Social Psychology of Education ,  3 (4), 295-317.
• Marzano, R. J., & Pickering, D. J. (2007). Special topic: The case for and against homework.  Educational leadership ,  64 (6), 74-79.
• Trautwein, U., Lüdtke, O., Schnyder, I., & Niggli, A. (2006). Predicting homework effort: support for a domain-specific, multilevel homework model.  Journal of educational psychology ,  98 (2), 438.
• Shernoff, D. J., Csikszentmihalyi, M., Schneider, B., & Shernoff, E. S. (2014). Student engagement in high school classrooms from the perspective of flow theory. In  Applications of flow in human development and education  (pp. 475-494). Springer, Dordrecht.
• Daw, J. (2012). Parental income and the fruits of labor: Variability in homework efficacy in secondary school.  Research in social stratification and mobility ,  30 (3), 246-264.
• Rønning, M. (2011). Who benefits from homework assignments?.  Economics of Education Review ,  30 (1), 55-64.
• Calarco, J. M. (2020). Avoiding us versus them: How schools’ dependence on privileged “Helicopter” parents influences enforcement of rules.  American Sociological Review ,  85 (2), 223-246.
• Corno, L., & Xu, J. (2004). Homework as the job of childhood.  Theory into practice ,  43 (3), 227-233.
• Göllner, R., Damian, R. I., Rose, N., Spengler, M., Trautwein, U., Nagengast, B., & Roberts, B. W. (2017). Is doing your homework associated with becoming more conscientious?.  Journal of Research in Personality ,  71 , 1-12.
• Balli, S. J., Demo, D. H., & Wedman, J. F. (1998). Family involvement with children’s homework: An intervention in the middle grades.  Family relations , 149-157.
• Balli, S. J., Wedman, J. F., & Demo, D. H. (1997). Family involvement with middle-grades homework: Effects of differential prompting.  The Journal of Experimental Education ,  66 (1), 31-48.
• Epstein, J. L., & Dauber, S. L. (1991). School programs and teacher practices of parent involvement in inner-city elementary and middle schools.  The elementary school journal ,  91 (3), 289-305.
• Van Voorhis, F. L. (2003). Interactive homework in middle school: Effects on family involvement and science achievement.  The Journal of Educational Research ,  96 (6), 323-338.
• Yogman, M., Garner, A., Hutchinson, J., Hirsh-Pasek, K., Golinkoff, R. M., & Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health. (2018). The power of play: A pediatric role in enhancing development in young children.  Pediatrics ,  142 (3).
• Godakanda, I., Abeysena, C., & Lokubalasooriya, A. (2018). Sedentary behavior during leisure time, physical activity and dietary habits as risk factors of overweight among school children aged 14–15 years: case control study.  BMC research notes ,  11 (1), 1-6.
• Hadianfard, A. M., Mozaffari-Khosravi, H., Karandish, M., & Azhdari, M. (2021). Physical activity and sedentary behaviors (screen time and homework) among overweight or obese adolescents: a cross-sectional observational study in Yazd, Iran.  BMC pediatrics ,  21 (1), 1-10.
• Galloway, M., Conner, J., & Pope, D. (2013). Nonacademic effects of homework in privileged, high-performing high schools.  The journal of experimental education ,  81 (4), 490-510.
• Pressman, R. M., Sugarman, D. B., Nemon, M. L., Desjarlais, J., Owens, J. A., & Schettini-Evans, A. (2015). Homework and family stress: With consideration of parents’ self confidence, educational level, and cultural background.  The American Journal of Family Therapy ,  43 (4), 297-313.
• Hoover-Dempsey, K. V., Battiato, A. C., Walker, J. M., Reed, R. P., DeJong, J. M., & Jones, K. P. (2001). Parental involvement in homework.  Educational psychologist ,  36 (3), 195-209.
• Moroni, S., Dumont, H., Trautwein, U., Niggli, A., & Baeriswyl, F. (2015). The need to distinguish between quantity and quality in research on parental involvement: The example of parental help with homework.  The Journal of Educational Research ,  108 (5), 417-431.
• Cooper, H., Lindsay, J. J., & Nye, B. (2000). Homework in the home: How student, family, and parenting-style differences relate to the homework process.  Contemporary educational psychology ,  25 (4), 464-487.
• Dumont, H., Trautwein, U., Lüdtke, O., Neumann, M., Niggli, A., & Schnyder, I. (2012). Does parental homework involvement mediate the relationship between family background and educational outcomes?.  Contemporary Educational Psychology ,  37 (1), 55-69.
• Barger, M. M., Kim, E. M., Kuncel, N. R., & Pomerantz, E. M. (2019). The relation between parents’ involvement in children’s schooling and children’s adjustment: A meta-analysis.  Psychological bulletin ,  145 (9), 855.
• Dumont, H., Trautwein, U., Nagy, G., & Nagengast, B. (2014). Quality of parental homework involvement: predictors and reciprocal relations with academic functioning in the reading domain.  Journal of Educational Psychology ,  106 (1), 144.
• Patall, E. A., Cooper, H., & Robinson, J. C. (2008). The effects of choice on intrinsic motivation and related outcomes: a meta-analysis of research findings.  Psychological bulletin ,  134 (2), 270.Dettmars et al., 2010
• Madjar, Shklar, & Moshe, 2016)
• Pomerantz, E. M., Grolnick, W. S., & Price, C. E. (2005). The Role of Parents in How Children Approach Achievement: A Dynamic Process Perspective.
• Haimovitz, K., Wormington, S. V., & Corpus, J. H. (2011). Dangerous mindsets: How beliefs about intelligence predict motivational change.  Learning and Individual Differences ,  21 (6), 747-752.Gollner et al., 2017
• Hill, N. E., & Tyson, D. F. (2009). Parental involvement in middle school: a meta-analytic assessment of the strategies that promote achievement.  Developmental psychology ,  45 (3), 740.

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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.

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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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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.

What Negative Effects Does Homework Have on a Student's Social & Family Life?

Van thompson, 25 jun 2018.

The amount of homework children bring home every day can be overwhelming. A 2004 University of Michigan study found that the amount of homework had increased 51 percent since 1981. While many educators use homework to supplement the material learned in class, homework doesn't always improve academic performance, and a 2003 "Review of Educational Research" study found that the current way teachers assign homework is not academically beneficial. Students who struggle with homework or who get a large volume of homework each night can experience negative effects in their family and social relationships.

Explore this article

• Time Constraints
• Family Stress
• Less Active Learning
• Disrupted Routines

1 Time Constraints

Homework takes time away from other pursuits. Children who have a large quantity of homework have less time to spend with their families and friends as regular social interaction plays a critical role in brain development. Children who get plenty of opportunities to interact with friends and family can gain valuable social, conflict management and impulse control skills. When homework reduces this time, children's social development may suffer.

2 Family Stress

It's not surprising that homework can greatly increase family stress. Parents may spend an inordinate amount of time fighting with their children over homework, enforcing homework rules and mastering concepts they need to help their children excel. The study found that stress, frustration and conflicts over homework are particularly pronounced in families with a child who is struggling academically.

3 Less Active Learning

Active learning is learning that occurs in context and that encourages participation. For example, a child who goes on a scavenger hunt with his friend and, upon seeing a frog, decides to watch the frog and learn about its movement is engaged in active learning. When homework takes children away from their friends and families, the opportunities for active learning are greatly decreased. This can decrease opportunities for parents to be involved in their children's education in a fun, mutually fulfilling way, and also reduces the amount of time children have to engage in active learning with their friends.

4 Disrupted Routines

Many families have established routines, such as eating dinner at a certain time or reading together before bed. These routines can increase closeness, make it easier to manage stress and ensure that a household runs smoothly. A child who has several hours of homework, for example, might not be able to eat dinner with her parents, and a parent might have to alter her schedule to help her child with homework. An everyday scenario like this, easily highlights how homework can disrupt family routines.

• 1 Child Development Supplement: Changing Times of American Youth
• 2 Penn State University: Is Homework Bad for Kids?

About the Author

Van Thompson is an attorney and writer. A former martial arts instructor, he holds bachelor's degrees in music and computer science from Westchester University, and a juris doctor from Georgia State University. He is the recipient of numerous writing awards, including a 2009 CALI Legal Writing Award.

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10 Ways – How Does Homework Affect Student Social Life

Homework is a crucial part of a student’s academic life, but it can also significantly impact their social life. While homework helps students reinforce their learning and improve their academic performance, it can also create stress and take up valuable time spent socializing with friends and family.

When students are asked to do Homework, they are often urged to “do what you love.” However, doing Homework has been shown to affect students’ social life negatively.

Table of Contents

What is “homework”?

Homework can be a valuable source of information for students and teachers, as it provides information about what happens in the classroom and other influences on student learning.

10 ways how Homework affects students social life

1. students have less time for social activities.

Homework is often a burden for students as they spend less time on their free time activities and spending time with their friends. Regular homework assignments can take students out of the academy or to regions they cannot usually reach.

2. Students are more socially anxious

The high expectations that students must meet with their parents and teachers make them feel more pressure and stress when it comes to their studies.

3. Students have less time for sleep

4. students have less time for family and friends.

Students” limited free time due to Homework takes them away from family and friends, which might affect relationships with parents and other family members.

5. Students have less time for entertainment

6. students have less time for sleep.

Homework requires a lot of effort and concentration. Thus it can be physically and mentally exhausting. Students may get too tired to do their Homework as it is a long period and frequently interrupts the students’’ sleep.

7. Students have less time for learning

8. students have less time for exercise and other physical activities.

Homework stresses students, making them too tired to go for a healthy meal or workout. It is not just mentally tiring but causes physical fatigue too.

9. Students may have less time for socializing

10. students are more stressed out and less happy.

FAQ – How Does Homework Affect Social Life

Is homework beneficial for students.

Homework is beneficial for students as it increases their knowledge. Students can always receive education, even when they are not at school. Moreover, there is evidence that practicing problems and taking tests while learning positively affects students’’ performance in later exams.

How Much Homework Should Be Assigned?

Will homework benefit students in the future, will homework overload students.

Homework overload is possible for some students. Homework has many disadvantages for some students, like a lack of time for family and friends and not getting enough sleep.

Is Homework Helpful?

What is the best way to reduce the amount of homework.

The best way is to balance homework and other aspects of student life. This means that kids need enough time to study but spend enough time with friends and family. Parents should clarify that they will not help their students with Homework.

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Facility for Rare Isotope Beams

At michigan state university, international research team targets cancer by focusing on heavy-ion therapy research.

A research team—led by Dennis Mücher, professor at the Institute for Nuclear Physics at the University of Cologne in Germany and former researcher at the University of Guelph and the TRIUMF particle accelerator in Canada, and Cornelia Höhr, deputy director of Life Sciences at TRIUMF—is collaborating with physicists at FRIB to improve to improve the safety and efficiency of heavy-ion therapy in the precision targeting of cancerous tumors. The team has published its results in  Physics in Medicine and Biology .

The era of heavy-ion therapy 

Since the late 1800s, medical professionals have used X rays to revolutionize medical diagnosis and treatment. While radiation therapy was a game-changing technology in fighting cancer, it has drawbacks like all cancer treatments. Namely, high-energy X rays in the human body have the potential to damage healthy cells they encounter as readily as tumor cells. Doctors and researchers first started experimenting with proton therapy in the 1940s. Researchers found that by accelerating particle beams with nuclei heavier than protons, radiation could more accurately target cancer cells and spare more healthy tissue—provided they could deliver the particle energy payload exactly where the tumor was located. 

The era of heavy-ion therapy was born at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Bevelac complex in 1982. The method provides a less invasive and more accurate approach to treating cancer. Today, doctors use heavy-ion therapy worldwide in selected facilities to treat cancer whenever doctors see a benefit over conventional radiation therapy. 

International collaboration looks to ensure treatment accuracy

Mücher is interested in ensuring precision for these sensitive procedures. Recently, Mücher and Höhr collaborated with Artemis Spyrou, professor of physics at FRIB and in the Michigan State University (MSU) Department of Physics and Astronomy, and Thomas Baumann, staff physicist at FRIB, to complete a proof-of-principle experiment to improve range verification (RV) for high-energy beams used in heavy-ion therapy. Eva Kasanda, then-PhD student at the University of Guelph and current postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bern in Switzerland, was also a member of the research team. 

Mücher said when a patient has a tumor near an area like the brain stem, they can neither get surgery nor receive traditional radiation therapy that might damage such a sensitive body part. Heavy ions stop completely in tissue and exert most of their energy to kill cancerous cells at the end of their range. Such a tenuous situation requires that doctors be confident they deliver radiation precisely. Further, there is no part of the ion beam exiting the patient during treatment, meaning that monitoring the interaction of the beam with the patient is not possible with conventional techniques.

“The human body is complex. There are different tissues, bones, air pockets, and it makes it hard to predict what the exact range of a beam is, and where the bulk of the cell kill happens,” Mücher said. “It can also come down to how precise is the patient placed, or how precise is the beam in its position? These all add up to uncertainty. And uncertainty leads to healthy tissue being damaged.” 

Mücher and his collaborators used particle accelerators to identify materials for accurate markers to track RV for particle beams. The Canadian New Frontiers for Research Fund supported the international collaboration. The team focused on improving the accuracy of cancer treatments, leading to more cancer cell kill and to more spared healthy tissue, resulting in a better treatment outcome.

Experiment and theory collide to improve hadron tumor markers

While medical professionals must calibrate a beam’s range down to the millimeter scale, it is difficult to measure the beam’s exact position within the human body. Mücher and his collaborators tested a series of candidate metals that could serve as hadron tumor markers. Like other fiducial markers used in medical procedures, doctors implant tiny pieces of material—most often a metal—to align a beam to a patient. In this case, researchers target the marker in RV experiments and measure gamma radiation signals coming from it. 

To improve tumor markers for this therapy, the researchers sought materials that could reliably provide clear gamma-ray signatures in a timely fashion. Spyrou situated the team’s experiment within the larger effort to improve markers for heavy-ion therapy. “We have to characterize these systems before we can run experiments, or start testing a method,” she said. “We start with simulations before our experiments, so we know what gamma rays to expect, but running the experiment helps us truly understand how the whole process works.” 

At FRIB, the researchers evaluated a series of materials doctors could use as more effective hadron tumor markers. They needed to identify metals that were easily available, non-toxic, and do not already exist in the body, among other criteria. Using a high-powered beam of oxygen-16, the team evaluated three materials in its investigation and pared down its candidate list to a silver isotope, silver-107, as material for further evaluation.  While the team’s experiment serves as an excellent proof of concept, the researchers need higher energy beams to run experiments that would be like beams used in heavy-ion therapy. The team looks forward to the upcoming upgrade to FRIB,  FRIB400 , which will enhance FRIB’s capabilities.

“This is exactly what we need regarding energy,” Mücher said. “Having access to this facility enables researchers to perform the experiments needed to improve heavy-ion therapy even further.” 

Eric Gedenk is a freelance science writer.

Michigan State University operates the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) as a user facility for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science (DOE-SC), supporting the mission of the DOE-SC Office of Nuclear Physics. Hosting what is designed to be the most powerful heavy-ion accelerator, FRIB enables scientists to make discoveries about the properties of rare isotopes in order to better understand the physics of nuclei, nuclear astrophysics, fundamental interactions, and applications for society, including in medicine, homeland security, and industry.

The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of today’s most pressing challenges. For more information, visit energy.gov/science.

Supreme Court gives win to Trump, ruling he has immunity for some acts in election interference indictment

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday raised the bar for prosecuting Donald Trump, ruling that he has immunity for some of his conduct as president in his federal election interference case but maybe not for other actions, adding another obstacle for special counsel Jack Smith’s taking the case to trial .

In a novel and potentially consequential case about the limits of presidential power, the justices voted 6-3 along ideological lines to reject Trump’s broad claim of immunity, meaning the charges related to his attempts to overturn the 2020 election results will not be dismissed, but they said some actions closely related to his core duties as president are off-limits to prosecutors.

"Big win for our Constitution and democracy. Proud to be an American," Trump said in a post in all capital letters on his social media website, Truth Social.

Trump's Republican allies welcomed the ruling, while Democrats roundly condemned it. In televised remarks from the White House on Monday night, President Joe Biden called the decision "a terrible disservice to the people of this nation."

"No one, no one is above the law, not even the president of the United States. [With] today’s Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity, that fundamentally changed for all practical purposes,” Biden said.

Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, said further proceedings are needed in lower courts to determine what conduct Trump can be prosecuted for. Among the conduct that the court determined to be core presidential powers and therefore subject to immunity are Trump's contacts with Justice Department officials. Trump is also "presumptively immune" from being prosecuted for his contacts with Vice President Mike Pence in the weeks leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by his supporters, Roberts wrote.

The indictment alleged that Trump sought to pressure the Justice Department to investigate unfounded claims of widespread election fraud as part of a plan to keep him in power despite Biden's election victory. Trump also wanted Pence to refuse to certify the election results as part of his ceremonial role at the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6.

"The President is not above the law," Roberts wrote. "But Congress may not criminalize the President's conduct in carrying out the responsibilities of the Executive Branch under the Constitution."

What that means for the case going forward remains to be seen. Trump’s lawyer conceded in the oral argument in April that at least some of the allegations in the indictment concern private conduct that would not be protected by any immunity defense. Likewise, the Justice Department lawyer arguing the case for the special counsel said the prosecution could go ahead even if some official acts were protected.

Smith's office declined to comment on the ruling Monday.

At a minimum, there will be further proceedings before U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to determine what, if any, of the other conduct alleged in the indictment is protected. Among the acts she will review to determine whether they are subject to immunity are Trump's contacts with people outside the federal government, including state election officials such as Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, whom Trump pressured to reject results showing Biden victories.

Prosecutors will also have a chance to rebut the suggestion that Trump's contacts with Pence are protected. That determination would hinge on whether prosecuting Trump for those actions would "pose any dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the executive branch," Roberts wrote.

In addressing the contacts with state election officials, Roberts wrote that the president has "broad power to speak on matters of public concern," including the conduct of elections. On the other hand, the president "plays no role" in the certifying of elections by states, he added. Chutkan needs to conduct a "close analysis" of the indictment to determine whether Trump's actions are protected, Roberts said.

In another blow to Smith, the court ruled that none of the conduct for which Trump is immune can be admitted as evidence at trial in any form.

The court's three liberal justices strenuously dissented , with Justice Sonia Sotomayor writing that the ruling "makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law."

The Constitution, she added, "does not shield a former President from answering for criminal and treasonous acts."

She warned that the ruling could have broad ramifications by protecting presidents for a wide variety of actions.

"Let the President violate the law, let him exploit the trappings of office for personal gain, let him use his official power for evil ends," Sotomayor wrote. "Because if he knew that he may one day face liability for breaking the law, he might not be as bold and fearless as we would like him to be. That is the majority's message today."

In a separate dissenting opinion, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson described the ruling as a "five-alarm fire that threatens to consume democratic self-governance."

Even if the new proceedings do not take much time, there is little chance for the trial to conclude before Election Day. It had previously been suggested that a trial would not start until at least three months after the Supreme Court ruling, which would mean it would potentially not start until early October at the earliest. The trial itself could last up to 12 weeks.

The case put the national spotlight on the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority that includes three justices Trump appointed. The court handed Trump an election-year boost when it ruled in March that Colorado could not kick him off the ballot .

The justices were also criticized for their delay in taking up Trump’s appeal, which some view in itself as a victory for him, as it meant the trial could not take place in March as originally planned.

Legally speaking, the case was unprecedented, as no president has ever been prosecuted after having left office. Therefore, the court was wrestling with a legal question that had never come before it: whether a president has some form of immunity for his core duties derived from the constitutional principle of separation of powers, which delineates the powers of the presidency in relation to other branches of government.

The legal argument focused on Trump’s official acts, with both sides agreeing that a former president does not have immunity for personal conduct.

The Supreme Court intervened after a federal appeals court had ruled Feb. 6 that Trump was not immune from prosecution, saying that once he left office he became “citizen Trump” and should be treated like any other criminal defendant. The Justice Department has long maintained that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted.

The appeals court did not analyze which, if any, of the conduct in the indictment could be viewed as an official act, a fact that appeared to irk some of the justices during oral argument.

Trump’s lawyers pointed to a 1982 Supreme Court ruling that endorsed presidential immunity from civil lawsuits when the underlying conduct concerns actions within the “outer perimeter” of the president’s official responsibilities.

Smith’s team argued that there is no broad immunity that prevents former presidents from being prosecuted for criminal acts committed in office.

The federal indictment returned by a grand jury in Washington in August consisted of four counts: conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights, specifically the right to vote.

In another Jan. 6-related case, the court on Friday narrowed the scope of law penalizing the obstruction of an official proceeding. Trump also faces that charge, but legal experts say the Friday ruling may not affect his case .

Trump, the indictment said, conspired to “overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election by using knowingly false claims of election fraud to obstruct the government function by which those results are collected, counted and certified.”

The indictment focuses on Trump’s involvement in a scheme to submit fake election certificates to Congress in the hope that they would nullify Biden’s victory. The chain of events culminated in the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Trump, who pleaded not guilty, says he was simply expressing his concerns, which were not based on any evidence, that the election was marred by widespread fraud. The case is one of four criminal prosecutions Trump is currently battling.

Lawrence Hurley covers the Supreme Court for NBC News.

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Beryl weakens but leaves millions without power in Texas

Updated on: July 9, 2024 / 11:14 PM EDT / CBS/AP

Beryl  was still posing a threat Tuesday even though it was downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone after making landfall early Monday as a Category 1 hurricane. At least seven deaths from the storm have been reported in Texas, and millions across the state remain without power. Another person was confirmed dead in Louisiana due to the storm.

Beryl slammed into the Gulf Coast of Texas between Galveston and Corpus Christi, just south of Houston, dumping heavy rain across the region, and toppling trees and power lines in addition to knocking out power to millions of homes and businesses, with Houston hit especially hard.

Hundreds of thousands of customers still without power

Power outages across Texas topped 3 million customers at their peak, many in the greater Houston area, according to the tracking site  PowerOutage.us  and  reporting by KHOU.  As of Tuesday night, that number was down to a little more than 1.73 million, per PowerOutage.us. 

CenterPoint Energy, a utility company based in hard-hit Houston, had seen the greatest power losses of all of the providers being tracked, with well over half of its 2.6 million customers reporting outages at the storm's height, according to the site.

Many of the millions left without power sweltered and grumbled Tuesday as the storm gutted access to air conditioning, food and water, and smothering heat and humidity draped Houston.

Frustration mounted that Houston appeared to buckle under a storm not as powerful as previous ones. State officials were questioned whether utilities were prepared in advance, and at least one said they would withhold judgement until after the lights were turned back on.

A heat advisory took effect through Wednesday in the Houston area and beyond, with temperatures expected to soar into the 90s and humidity that could make it feel as hot as 105 degrees. The National Weather Service described the conditions as potentially dangerous given the lack of power and air conditioning.

Nim Kidd, head of the state's division of emergency management, said at a news conference with other officials that restoring power is the No. 1 priority. And in Washington, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said President Joe Biden approved a major disaster declaration. Emergency crews hope to have power restored to an additional 1 million people by the end of the day, she said.

It could take days to fully return power in Texas after Beryl toppled 10 transmission lines. Top priorities for power restoration include nursing homes and assisted living centers, said said Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who is acting as governor while Gov. Greg Abbott is out of the country. Sixteen hospitals were running on generator power Tuesday morning, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Houston hospitals were having a crowding problem because they haven't been able to release patients who can't return to homes with no power, Patrick said. A large sports and events complex will be used to temporarily hold up to 250 patients who are released from hospitals.

Food spoiled in listless refrigerators in Houston neighborhoods that pined for air conditioning. Long lines of cars and people queued up at any fast food restaurant, food truck or gas station that had power and was open.

Patrons lined up on one block to eat at KFC, Jack in the Box or Denny's — or just to get a few minutes in some cooler air. Dwight Yell, 54, had power at his house but took a disabled neighbor, who did not, to Denny's for some food.

He complained that city and state officials did not alert residents well enough to a storm initially projected to land much farther down the coast: "They didn't give us enough warning, where maybe we could go get gas or prepare to go out of town if the lights go out."

Officials on Tuesday advised residents of Fort Bend County, which is about 35 miles outside of Houston, to be prepared for debris collection in Beryl's aftermath, CBS affiliate KHOU reported. Fort Bend County Judge K.P. George said Monday night that a collapsed apartment complex was among the damages, and almost 40 people had been displaced as a result.

Houston emergency management officials asked residents to avoid all unnecessary travel on Tuesday to allow crews to begin cleaning up debris and restoring power. 

"By staying off the roads, first responders and repair crews can reach emergencies, remove debris and restore power as quickly as possible," Houston Emergency Management wrote in a  social media post .

As of 8 p.m. EDT Tuesday, Beryl was officially classified as a post-tropical cyclone, with maximum sustained winds of 30 mph. It was centered about 15 miles southwest of Indianapolis, and was moving northeast at 20 mph. 

A flood watch was in place for Illinois, northern Indiana, southern Michigan, northern New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Western Maine. 

"Heavy rainfall of 2 to 4 inches, with locally higher amounts, is expected across portions of the lower Missouri and mid-Mississippi Valleys into the Great Lakes today into Wednesday and from northern New York into northern New England Wednesday and Wednesday night," the hurricane center said.  

CBS News senior weather and climate producer David Parkinson said that "the tornado threat continues today, with the area between Louisville, Indianapolis and Cincinnati being a key spot to focus on."

Around 3,400 flights  were canceled or delayed Monday , many originating or ending in Texas airports, as airlines felt the impact of the storm. That number dropped significantly on Tuesday, although hundreds of flights into and out of Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport were still experiencing cancellations or delays, according to the tracking website FlightAware .

The deaths reported Monday by local officials  included  a man in Harris County killed when a tree fell on a home in Atascocita, which is in the Houston area. In a separate incident, Harris County Precinct 4 Constable Mark Herman said a tree fell through the roof of a home, killing a 74-year-old woman. Houston Mayor John Whitmire said Monday evening that a volunteer was killed when his vehicle was submerged in flood water while he was on his way to help with the storm response, and a man was killed in a house fire blamed on Beryl.

Three people were also killed in Texas' Montgomery County. One man in his 40s was killed when he was hit by a falling tree while operating a tractor, the county's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management said in a statement Monday night. Two more people were found dead in a tent in Magnolia, which is about 40 miles northwest of Houston, the office said.

One additional storm-related death was reported in Louisiana on Monday evening, where the Bossier Parish coroner said a 31-year-old woman died when a tree fell on her home in Benton, which is just north of Shreveport.

Disaster declaration, closures and evacuations

Patrick, who is serving as the state's acting governor while Gov. Greg Abbott is traveling overseas, issued a preemptive disaster declaration over the weekend for 121 counties.

President Biden announced in a statement Tuesday evening that he had issued a major disaster declaration for the "damage sustained" by Beryl in Texas. The declaration frees up federal emergency resources for Texas.

"As part of the federal support, we pre-positioned generators and are moving in additional ones to support any power outages, which will help Texans as the extreme heat arrives," Biden said.

In his statement, Mr. Biden said he spoke to Patrick by phone Tuesday. However, in an interview with the Houston Chronicle, the president said that the disaster declaration was delayed because his office had been attempting to "track down" Abbott and Patrick, but had been allegedly unable to reach either until Tuesday.

"I've been trying to track down the governor to see — I don't have any authority to do that without a specific request from the governor," Mr. Biden told the Chronicle.

A White House spokesperson told the Chronicle that the office tried to reach both men multiple times. 

Some areas had been placed under mandatory evacuation orders.  Refugio County , which is just north of Corpus Christi, ordered a mandatory evacuation on Saturday afternoon. Port Aransas, located on a barrier island in Nueces County just east of Corpus Christi,  ordered a mandatory evacuation  for all visitors beginning at noon Sunday. All Nueces County residents were also "strongly encouraged" to evacuate as well,  county officials said . 

Along with some mandatory evacuations, Texas coastal cities called for voluntary evacuations in low-lying areas prone to flooding, banned beach camping and urged tourists traveling on the July 4 holiday weekend to move recreational vehicles from coastal parks.

The Houston Independent School District announced it was closing all campuses and buildings on Monday and Tuesday due to the storm. 

"All summer classes and activities are canceled, and all District activities and events – including professional development and recruiting sessions – are canceled," HISD said in a message to families and staff on Sunday evening.   

Storm forecast and impacts

Beryl lashed southeastern Texas with torrential downpours and powerful winds as it moved farther inland in the hours after landfall on Monday. But meteorologists said the potential storm surge — forecast to reach 6 feet in some areas — was among the greatest causes for concern.

On Monday evening, the National Hurricane Center said there was flooding and the risk of tornadoes in eastern Texas, western Louisiana and Arkansas. Even after the storm passes, the center urged people to be cautious of "deadly hazards" that could remain.

The hurricane center had warned earlier that "life-threatening storm surge, damaging winds and flooding rainfall" was spreading over southeastern Texas as Beryl tracked northward.

The hurricane center lifted all storm surge and tropical storm warnings for Texas as of Monday night. Warnings had earlier been in effect for a 255-mile stretch of southeastern coastal Texas.

Reporting from Galveston Monday morning, CBS News correspondent Omar Villafranca said wind gusts of 70 mph had spun up a "nonstop" mix of sand and rain in the coastal city. Villafranca said that had been the case for several hours.

CBS News senior weather and climate producer David Parkinson said the Houston metropolitan area had been getting drenched with in 2-3 inches of per per hour. 

Beryl's deadly, destructive path

Beryl caused at least 11 deaths as it passed through the Caribbean islands last week. Beryl then hit Tulum, Mexico, as a  Category 2  hurricane before weakening to a tropical storm as it moved across the peninsula.  

The head of Mexico's civil defense agency, Laura Velázquez, said Beryl hadn't caused any deaths or injuries there and that "damages were minor," though tens of thousands of people remained without power.

Tulum was plunged into darkness when the storm knocked out power as it came ashore. Screeching winds set off car alarms across the town. Wind and rain continued to whip the seaside city and surrounding areas Friday morning. Army brigades roved the streets of the tourist city, clearing fallen trees and power lines.

Although no dead or wounded have been reported, nearly half of Tulum continued to be without electricity, said Laura Velázquez, national coordinator of Mexican Civil Protection.

Before hitting Mexico and moving into the Gulf, Beryl had spread destruction in Jamaica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Barbados. Three people have been reported dead in Grenada, three in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, three in Venezuela and two in Jamaica, officials said.

Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness promised swift relief for residents affected by Hurricane Beryl after visiting one of the worst-affected areas of the island, the southern parish of St Elizabeth on Thursday afternoon.

Earlier in the week, the hurricane damaged or destroyed 95% of homes on a pair of islands in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, jumbled fishing boats in Barbados and ripped off roofs and knocked out electricity in Jamaica.

On Union Island, part of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, a man who identified himself as Captain Baga described the storm's impact, including how he had filled two 2,000-gallon rubber water tanks in preparation.

"I strapped them down securely on six sides; and I watched the wind lift those tanks and take them away — filled with water," he said Thursday. "I'm a sailor and I never believed wind could do what I saw it do. If anyone (had) ever told me wind could do that, I would have told them they lie!"

Historic hurricane

Beryl was the earliest storm to develop  into a Category 5 hurricane  in the Atlantic, and was only the second Category 5 storm recorded in July since 2005, according to the hurricane center.     

It took Beryl only 42 hours to strengthen from a tropical depression to a major hurricane, which is a  Category 3 storm or higher  — a feat accomplished only six other times in Atlantic hurricane history, and with Sept. 1 as the earliest date, according to hurricane expert Sam Lillo.

Beryl was also the third Category 3 hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic in June, following Audrey in 1957 and Alma in 1966, hurricane specialist and storm surge expert Michael Lowry said.

"Beryl is an extremely dangerous and rare hurricane for this time of year in this area," he told the AP in a phone interview. "Unusual is an understatement," he said, calling Beryl historic.

Hurricane Ivan in 2004 was the last strongest hurricane to hit the southeast Caribbean, causing catastrophic damage in Grenada as a Category 3 storm.

Beryl is the second named storm in what is predicted to be a busy hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30 in the Atlantic. Warm waters fueled Beryl, with ocean heat content in the deep Atlantic the highest on record for this time of year , according to Brian McNoldy, University of Miami tropical meteorology researcher.

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How a $1 million makeover brought this decaying 1880s terrace back to life

It's a historic part of Melbourne known for its stately terraces and wide, tree-lined streets.

But buying a house in elegant South Melbourne also usually costs a pretty penny … unless you buy the worst house in the street, or possibly even the entire country.

That's the mammoth challenge Paul and Jess Roche decided to take on when they snapped up an old — very old — weatherboard terrace in 2020, in their dream location.

Barely standing

Described by Restoration Australia host Anthony Burke as "$930,000 worth of overgrown ruin", the once-resplendent cottage built by a well-to-do Scottish baker in the 1880s had slipped into ruin, with an alarming tilt to boot.

"The house is falling over. The floor's rotted out in places so you're actually walking on dirt," Paul told the show.

"There's some sort of vine growing throughout the whole house, in the walls, in the ceiling. There's not one piece of plaster that doesn't look like it's got a crack through it.

"The place is literally falling apart."

Jess said the timber house was a deceased estate that had been passed down through the generations of one family. No one had called it home for about half a century, and the neglect was showing.

"I think it was a bargain because no one wanted to tackle the project," said Jess.

A slice of history

However, the opportunity to snap up one of the last two-storey timber weatherboard terraces in South Melbourne was too good to ignore.

Having moved to a local rental, the couple initially had grand ambitions to carry out much of the restoration work themselves.

However, with Paul running his own insulation business, Jess teaching at a school a couple of days a week, and both running their three kids around to soccer matches all weekend, reality soon hit. 

So they persuaded builder mate Ross McCulloch to come to take a look.

Ross's first, rather honest appraisal was: "You're shitting me, aren't you?"

"My biggest concern was the lean on it, the big lean-to and how we were going to straighten everything up," the builder said.

"But I saw through that and saw all the unique features of the skirting boards, the stairwell, the architraves … and I just fell in love with it straight away, and I thought I've got to have this job — I've got to do it."

Before: The entryway as it was when Jess and Paul bought the house. . . After: And after some serious TLC. . .

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Ross said he knew it was going to be a major challenge and cause sleepless nights, "but that's what life's about."

Prime real estate

The house, and the mid-Victorian period terraces around it, aren't short on history. In the 1850s, with the gold rush kicking off, the area became a tent city.

Soon after this population explosion, city planners decided that underused South Melbourne should be repurposed as prime real estate.

Swampy land, briefly used as a racecourse, became Melbourne's newest dress circle — St Vincent Place, featuring a central, crescent-shaped garden. It was all terribly British.

Principal heritage advisor for the City of Port Phillip, David Helms, said the new estate was very aspirational, populated by those who weren't afraid to flaunt their good fortune.

"As the area developed, you find the really, really wealthy people, the men and women who own factories in Port Melbourne and South Melbourne start to build the very grand terraces that we see around the square today," he said.

Many of the streets in the estate, and the park itself, were named after notable members of the English navy.

Before: The street view of the decayed terrace before its resurrection. . . After: Looking brand new after its facelift. . .

Jess and Paul's street was no exception. Gazetted in 1866, Martin Street was named for Captain John Martin, whose overloaded ship capsized earlier that year, losing 220 souls.

When they bought their faded beauty, it had 1880s weatherboards, bricks from the 1970s, and an outdoor dunny that needed knocking over. To add to the challenge, Paul said there was a special interest heritage overlay on the property, with the main stipulation to "keep it original".

'Nothing is level'

One major fear was that by jacking the fully detached house up to pour a slab underneath, the whole thing might actually tip over.

"We've realised the house has been crooked, so nothing is level," said Ross. "We've been trying to level one side but then it pushes the other out."

To get the house even reasonably level, a plan was formed to almost entirely rebuild the ground floor with new timber.

Salvaging original decorative features, such as fibrous plaster ceiling roses, original curved skirting boards and mid-19th century cornice work, also called for an extremely delicate plan of attack.

Even before the project could get off the ground, objections from neighbours, council red tape and heritage hoop-jumping delayed work by months.

And when things finally got going, the hurdles, including COVID hold-ups, labour shortages and logistics issues, just kept coming.

A budget blow-out

Jess and Paul, who figured that $500,000 and six months should do the job, soon found their timeline and budget being severely tested.

Plans were also becoming pliable as the old house called the shots. For instance, plans to remove the entire staircase to prevent it being damaged — then reinstall it once the walls were straightened — were abandoned after it became clear the stairs would fall down if removed.

A plan to restore the original 1880s fireplace in the only downstairs bedroom also had to be shelved, proving a major disappointment to the couple.

"I really tried to keep that fireplace and the chimney in the house, but we just couldn't lift it and straighten it with that staying there," says Paul. "It was completely pushing the house over or holding the house up, I'm not too sure but it wasn't straight."

Some creative thinking led to an original fireplace upstairs being pulled out, restored and then reinstalled downstairs.

A result worth forking out for

In the end, the cost of resurrecting this South Melbourne home to its former grandeur cost about $1 million — double Jess and Paul's initial estimate. The six-month timeline ballooned out to 14 months.

Some of the features, such as the problematic staircase, survived. It's now standing up straight.

"I remember this being so rickety … I felt drunk, I think," says Restoration Australia host Anthony Burke. "Now I'd have to say it's a sober staircase."

The retro kitchen also got a major modern upgrade, with a benchtop and splashback Burke described as less polite Victorian, more "a bit disco".

"This is a little bit more of our personality, I think, coming through," said Jess of the blue Roma quartzite stone from Brazil which has copper running through it.

The family spends much of its time in the now open-plan kitchen and living area, which has also proven a hit with the kids.

"One of the favourite parts of the room is the concrete floor. They rollerblade and skateboard and do all the things you shouldn't do in here," Paul said.

"It's nice and warm with the hydronic heating — it just really makes this area quite liveable."

And while some of the original features wound up in the skip bin — including some of the ceiling roses and rotting timber beams — Jess and Paul are happy they've managed to keep some of the old, and introduce some beautiful new features too, such as tessellated tiles on the front porch.

"We did try and keep as many things as we could and even little details like the doorknocker and the door handle ... and all the skirting boards," said Jess.

"So we've had to replace some things but we've at least kept it in the same style as what it would've originally been."

As for the cost?

"You know, COVID came along and we had a few delays with a grumpy neighbour, which probably cost us a little bit, and then we've added in quite a lot of high-end features into the house — the slab heating, all the cabinetry, the benchtops — so we've ended up around that 950 to a mill finish," Paul said.

Not appearing particularly concerned, he noted with a laugh: "We're going to have to keep working for a few more years to pay it off."

Stream the new season of Restoration Australia on ABC iview.

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Beryl kills at least 4 in Texas as more than 2M remain without power: Live updates

Editor's note: This page reflects news on Hurricane Beryl from Monday, July 8. For the latest news on Beryl , please follow USA TODAY's live updates on the storm for Tuesday, July 9 . Tropical Storm Beryl unleashed a barrage of severe weather to southeast Texas on Monday, killing at least four people, flooding highways,  closing oil ports , canceling more than 1,300 flights and knocking out power to more than 2.7 million homes and businesses.

According to the National Hurricane Center , Beryl, the season's earliest Category 5 hurricane on record, weakened from a hurricane after pounding the coastal Texas town of Matagorda, a coastal community between Corpus Christi and Galveston. It had sustained winds of more than 80 mph as it made landfall at 4 a.m. CT.

The agency said current conditions could spawn tornadoes in Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas. By 7 p.m. CT, the weather service office in Shreveport, Louisiana, reported it had issued over 50 tornado warnings. The office had also stacked up a list of a half-dozen possible tornadoes.

Houston Mayor John Whitmire said most of the city was experiencing flood waters of more than 10 inches. "We're literally getting calls across Houston right now asking for first responders to come rescue individuals in desperate life safety conditions," he said Monday.

In a suburban part of Harris County, just northeast of Houston, a man was killed when a tree fell on his home and trapped him under debris, according to Sheriff Ed Gonzalez . In northern Harris County, a tree fell onto a house and killed a 74-year-old woman, Gonzalez said on social media .

At least two more people died: A Houston Police Department civilian employee got caught in flood waters driving to work; in southeast Houston, a man was killed in a fire believed to have been started by lightning, Whitmire said at a news conference Monday evening.

Last week, Beryl carved a path of destruction across the Caribbean — leaving at least 11 people dead and destroying or severely damaging infrastructure on several islands. Beryl, which at one point strengthened into the earliest Category 5 hurricane on record, last made landfall on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula Friday morning.

Developments :

∎ Officials in Fort Bend County outside of Houston evacuated the residents of an apartment building badly hit by the storm to local fairgrounds, the county’s Emergency Management Agency announced Monday evening .

∎ Beryl’s maximum sustained winds fell to around 35 mph by 7 p.m. local time. The tropical depression is expected to weaken into a post-tropical cyclone on Tuesday, according to a National Weather Service advisory . It is expected to move through the Lower Mississippi Valley and into the Ohio Valley on Tuesday and Wednesday. 

∎ More than 2.7 million homes and businesses in Texas lost power, according to Patrick and PowerOutage.us . Several counties in southeastern Texas — including Houston, where many U.S. energy companies are headquartered — are under a flash-flood warning as thunderstorms unleashed up to nearly 12 inches of rain in some areas.

∎ Closures of major oil-shipping ports around Corpus Christi, Galveston, and Houston ahead of the storm could disrupt crude oil exports and shipments of crude to refineries and motor fuel from the plants. The Corpus Christi Ship Channel has re-opened, while the Port of Houston was projected to resume operations on Tuesday afternoon.

∎ At least two locations on the west side of Houston experienced major flooding Monday, according to the National Water Prediction Service . They included the White Oak Bayou, where the water rose more than 25 feet, and the Buffalo Bayou, where the water rose 24 feet, both within about 9 hours.

∎ Across eastern Texas, heavy rain and flooding triggered water rescues as people became trapped in their homes and vehicles.

More flooding expected in Houston

As Beryl drenched the region north of Houston, officials urged residents to stay off the roads. 

“Don’t let the clear skies fool you,” Whitmire said. “We still have dangerous circumstances, we still have high water.”

Russell Richardson, a Houston Police Department information security officer, died after getting caught in floodwaters on his way to work Monday morning, the police shared on social media . He was 54.  

Brent Taylor, chief communications officer for the city’s Office of Emergency Management, said rain falling north of the city went through Houston’s bayou system, a network of creeks that can easily overflow. 

“The flooding isn’t over,” he said. “We anticipate the cresting will happen later as the water moves down to the Gulf of Mexico.”

Additional flooding plus the impact of the power outage on city traffic lights will continue to make driving dangerous, he said.

Beryl produces tornadoes

The Storm Prediction Center documented nearly a dozen tornado reports produced by Beryl as it moved north from Texas into Louisiana and Arkansas. Local National Weather Service officials issued over 60 tornado warnings .

A condo building in Jasper County, Texas, took a direct hit from a tornado Monday morning, local emergency management officials told the National Weather Service; a twister in Timpson, Texas, 25 miles from the Lousiana border, tore the roof off of City Hall.

Most of the tornadoes were reported in Texas and Louisiana, with an additional report in Arkansas. Nearly all of Southern Arkansas and Western Louisiana were under tornadoe watch, according to the weather service.

Hurricane Beryl's strength caught people off guard

Hal Needham, an extreme weather scientist widely known to other locals in Galveston, Texas, as " Hurricane Hal ", was up just after 4 a.m. Monday to monitor the storm and livestream updates.

"We've had some pretty big squalls today with widespread power outages," he said. "I think the storm was a lot stronger than a lot of people expected."

Needham also was concerned that continuing power outages would leave residents vulnerable to high-80s heat and high humidity. "This is the hottest time of the year," he said. "If people still don't have power, there could really be some issues with heat exhaustion, with heat-related illnesses, especially for elderly people with health conditions."

Although people from the area are hurricane-savvy, this storm hit earlier than most, catching them off guard, Needham said. "Only 3% of major hurricanes usually happen in June or July," he said. "Typically, Texas does not get a lot of July and June hurricane landfalls."

"I think people were really surprised by how hard and how quickly this hit," he added.

High heat index, no A/C will make for harsh early recovery

The early part of the recovery from Beryl's ravages will be an arduous, sweaty task made a lot more uncomfortable by the power outages affecting millions of Texans amid the summer heat.

The National Weather Service office in Houston issued a heat advisory for Tuesday in southeast Texas, where a heat index of 105 Fahrenheit is expected.

"While this would normally be below criteria (for the advisory), the widespread loss of power and A/C will make for dangerous conditions,'' the Houston office said. "Those working outside may not have a chance to properly cool off!''

The heat index combines air temperature with relative humidity to provide a measure of what the temperature actually feels like to people. The thermometer is expected to rise to 93 degrees in Houston on Tuesday and Wednesday, and which along with relative humidity of close to 80 may send the heat index past the 110 mark.

The Houston office warned about the possibility of heat-related illnesses and advised residents to limit outdoor activities, drink lots of water, wear light clothing, and try to work during cooler times of the day.

What now? Where are Beryl's remnants headed next? Flooding rain; tornadoes possible

Galveston resident says first hurricane will be her last

Alanna Carter endured her first hurricane Monday night when Beryl passed over her home in Galveston. "I don't want to go through that ever again," the 44-year-old bartender said hours after the storm passed through the area.

"If that was only a Cat 1, I can only imagine what Ike was like and that was a Cat 4," she said of Hurricane Ike, which struck Texas in 2008, before Carter's arrival.

Carter said Beryl lashed her house with fierce wind and rain. "It literally shook the entire house," she said, adding the neighborhood was dark after losing power. She doesn't expect it back for days.

Though her house wasn't severely damaged, Carter said a neighbor lost a window and the area was covered with debris left behind by Beryl, including fallen trees, shingles, plastic and trash. The next time a hurricane heads for Galveston, Carter doesn't plan to stick around.

"This is not my jam,'' she said. "I mean, I was nauseous because my anxiety was so high."

Beryl knocks out power for over 2 million people in Texas

More than 2.1 million customers were out of power in eastern Texas, according to the power company CenterPoint Energy . It’s unclear how many of those customers were in Houston. On its website, CenterPoint Energy said the service was disrupted by 5,993 active outages.

According to PowerOutage.us , an outage tracker, more than 2.7 million homes and businesses across Texas were without power.

Storm does heavy damage in last 30 minutes

Richard Reyes thought the worst of the storm had passed him and his family by. Then their house in northeast Houston started flooding with up to a foot of water, the power went out and a huge tree toppled in front of their place.

“All of this happened in the last 30 minutes of the storm,'' said Reyes, 73, a retired actor and arts advocate who as his Santa-like alter ego, “Pancho Claus,” distributes thousands of toys annually to mostly Latino kids in the Houston area.

Reyes, who saw similar damage during Hurricane Harvey in 2017 when he lived elsewhere in Houston, said the floodwaters moved in even after the rain stopped. He said his son didn't trust the tall tree would stay upright and moved the family cars just before it fell into the street where the vehicles had been, somehow avoiding pulling multiple power lines down along the way.

Reyes said his son and neighbors were out Monday morning cutting through the tree to clear the way so vehicles could pass. In the meantime, they’re hoping FEMA will cover some of the damage.

“Luckily, everyone is safe,” he said.

− Marc Ramirez

Living next to a seawall, 'our whole building was shaking'

Tom Sheppard, 59, was jolted awake at 3:30 Monday morning by the storm raging through Galveston. "It was a lot worse than we thought," he said, pointing out he lives next to the seawall. "Our whole building was shaking."

The winds ripped down the wrought iron fence around his gated community, bringing down gutters and part of a wall.

Venturing out after the storm passed, Sheppard saw the destruction was widespread. "All the palm trees are snapped in half," he said. "All the power poles are down. It's flooded. It got pretty bad."

In Galveston, a fish swimming on a flooded street

Jacob Jonathan, 21, awoke Monday to harsh winds banging on the window of his Galveston home, which he found "a little stressful.''

Jonathan said his street was flooded with nearly a foot of water. At one point, he looked out his window to see a fish jump. Debris littered the neighborhood, and a fence was knocked down by the wind, he said.

By midday, Jonathan was still out of power, and said some friends in Galveston also were without water. "We're mainly worried about our food going bad in the fridge," he said.

Jonathan spent the morning at home after the auto repair shop where he works delayed opening until the afternoon because of the storm, and he was waiting to see when conditions improved.

"Our house is lifted and we don't have any leaking," he added. "The only nuisance right now is we had to pick up after our animals because they can't really walk in the water."

Hurricane Beryl 'has been rough'

Donna Radin said she was startled awake by the “very strong howl” of wind rattling her home as rain came down in sheets early Monday morning.

The 58-year-old travel agent lives in Deer Park, a small city east of Houston. Around 5 a.m., as the conditions worsened, she heard a generator blow just down the block, and soon her home lost power.

Huddled inside with her daughter, two granddaughters and five dogs, Radin said she's avoided the windows but can see lots of downed trees and the remnants of a fence that was ripped out of the ground and hurled several yards away.

"It's the most intense Cat 1 I've ever been through," said Radin, who has lived on the Texas Gulf Coast all her life. "I told my husband, 'Our next investment will be remote-controlled hurricane shutters,' because this has been rough."

More: Hurricane Beryl tracker: Storm makes landfall in Texas, see spaghetti models, path

Beryl causes over 1,000 flight cancellations in Houston

More than 1,000 flights across airports in Houston were canceled Monday as Beryl bore down on the city.

At George Bush Intercontinental Airport, over 1,000 arriving and departing flights were canceled, according to FightAware . The smaller William P. Hobby Airport had over 300 cancellations, FlightAware said.

Houston is a major hub for United Airlines, which is enduring the worst of the operational impacts from the storm. About 14% of United’s flights, around 400 departures, have been canceled Monday. 

Texas power outage map

Beryl brings flooding, prompting water rescues.

Across eastern Texas, officials in multiple counties said first responders were rescuing people trapped in their cars and homes amid Hurricane Beryl's deluge.

Gonzalez, the Harris County sheriff , asked drivers to "please stay off the roadways" as heavy rain drenched Houston and its surrounding areas.

The police department in Rosenberg, just southwest of Houston, said it was conducting water rescues and warned residents about falling trees and ongoing flooding.

'We need help': Honeymoon now a 'prison nightmare,' after Hurricane Beryl strands couple in Jamaica

"Street flooding, downed trees, power outages and water rescues. All of that is happening right now in Rosenberg. Please stay off of the roads,'' the Rosenberg Police Department said on X . "A downed tree even fell (on) one of our high water rescue vehicles coming back from a rescue."

In Fort Bend County, southwest of Houston, officials in a statement on X asked residents to, "Please stay home until the storm passes." The statement from the county said, "trees and debris are all over the roads, several roads flooded and most signals are out." It added that deputies were responding to "stranded/flooded motorists."

It's hurricane season. See which previous storms passed near your neighborhood

Hurricane Beryl hits records amid projected busy hurricane season

On July 1, Beryl made landfall in Grenada's Carriacou Island as a Category 4 hurricane and tore through the southern Caribbean Islands, flattening hundreds of buildings.

Later that night, Beryl became the earliest Category 5 hurricane on record . Driven by record-high ocean temperatures , Beryl's rapid strengthening stunned experts. Beryl was also the earliest Category 4 hurricane on record and is the first June major hurricane east of the Lesser Antilles on record.

Federal forecasters have predicted  a hurricane season unlike any other , with as many as 25 named storms possible. It is the most storms the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has ever predicted in a preseason outlook.

Contributing: Jorge L. Ortiz and Dinah Voyles Pulver, USA TODAY; Reuters

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The White Party That Brought Kim Kardashian, Drake and Tom Brady to the Hamptons

Michael Rubin, the billionaire e-commerce mogul, hosted a celebrity-filled, Independence Day bash at his beachfront mansion on Long Island.

By Rachel Sherman

It’s hard to name just one noteworthy guest who attended the Fourth of July White Party hosted by the business mogul Michael Rubin and his fiancé, the model Camille Fishel , this year. Tom Brady, Kim and Khloé Kardashian, Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Megan Fox, Drake and Emily Ratajkowski were only some of the celebrities in bright white outfits who flitted about the couple’s sprawling Long Island estate on Thursday, rubbing elbows and generating content galore.

It was the fourth edition of Mr. Rubin and Ms. Fishel’s annual Independence Day bash in the Hamptons where bodycon dresses reign supreme. Paparazzi had lined up outside their property’s manicured hedges to catch a glimpse of the black SUVs ferrying A-listers who came to fraternize on the tennis court, which had been transformed into an ultraexclusive nightclub for the event. Reporters, including from The New York Times, were not permitted to attend, and organizers hired their own photographer.

“Imagine walking into Liv Miami,” Ms. Fishel, 33, said in an interview. “You don’t even know you’re on a tennis court.”

The Gatsby-esque soiree was held at the 2-acre, 8,000-square-foot oceanfront mansion in Water Mill, N.Y., that Mr. Rubin bought for $50 million in 2021, according to the Real Deal. The property is flanked by views of Mecox Bay on one side, and ocean vistas on the other.

Some 400 people made the cut for this year’s guest list, 300 of whom received invitations in the form of lithographs designed by the visual artist George Condo. (Ms. Fishel met Mr. Condo in 2013 as a hostess at a West Village restaurant where Mr. Condo was a regular.) A much smaller group received invitations that were framed, personally painted and addressed by name by Mr. Condo.

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