how does homework not help you

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Credit: August de Richelieu

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

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

By Vicky Hallett

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

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

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

What kind of homework training do teachers typically get?

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

Why do students need more interactive homework?

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

Is family engagement really that important?

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

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

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

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

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

Did COVID change how schools and parents view homework?

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

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

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

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

Posted in Voices+Opinion

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Does Homework Really Help Students Learn?

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

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

Do your homework.

If only it were that simple.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Senior Contributing Editor

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

She can be reached at [email protected] .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

we have the same name

so they have the same name what of it?

lol you tell her

totally agree

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

homework isn’t that bad

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

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

i totally agree with you. these people are such boomers

why just why

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

why the hell?

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

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

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

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

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

not true it just causes kids to stress

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

homework does help

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

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

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

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

I disagree.

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

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

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

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

Homeowkr is god for stusenrs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

oof i feel bad good luck!

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

thx for the article guys.

Homework is good

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

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

It was published FEb 19, 2019.

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

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

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

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

What lala land do these teachers live in?

Homework gives noting to the kid

Homework is Bad

homework is bad.

why do kids even have homework?

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Does homework really work?

by: Leslie Crawford | Updated: December 12, 2023

Print article

You know the drill. It’s 10:15 p.m., and the cardboard-and-toothpick Golden Gate Bridge is collapsing. The pages of polynomials have been abandoned. The paper on the Battle of Waterloo seems to have frozen in time with Napoleon lingering eternally over his breakfast at Le Caillou. Then come the tears and tantrums — while we parents wonder, Does the gain merit all this pain? Is this just too much homework?

However the drama unfolds night after night, year after year, most parents hold on to the hope that homework (after soccer games, dinner, flute practice, and, oh yes, that childhood pastime of yore known as playing) advances their children academically.

But what does homework really do for kids? Is the forest’s worth of book reports and math and spelling sheets the average American student completes in their 12 years of primary schooling making a difference? Or is it just busywork?

Homework haterz

Whether or not homework helps, or even hurts, depends on who you ask. If you ask my 12-year-old son, Sam, he’ll say, “Homework doesn’t help anything. It makes kids stressed-out and tired and makes them hate school more.”

Nothing more than common kid bellyaching?

Maybe, but in the fractious field of homework studies, it’s worth noting that Sam’s sentiments nicely synopsize one side of the ivory tower debate. Books like The End of Homework , The Homework Myth , and The Case Against Homework the film Race to Nowhere , and the anguished parent essay “ My Daughter’s Homework is Killing Me ” make the case that homework, by taking away precious family time and putting kids under unneeded pressure, is an ineffective way to help children become better learners and thinkers.

One Canadian couple took their homework apostasy all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. After arguing that there was no evidence that it improved academic performance, they won a ruling that exempted their two children from all homework.

So what’s the real relationship between homework and academic achievement?

How much is too much?

To answer this question, researchers have been doing their homework on homework, conducting and examining hundreds of studies. Chris Drew Ph.D., founder and editor at The Helpful Professor recently compiled multiple statistics revealing the folly of today’s after-school busy work. Does any of the data he listed below ring true for you?

• 45 percent of parents think homework is too easy for their child, primarily because it is geared to the lowest standard under the Common Core State Standards .

• 74 percent of students say homework is a source of stress , defined as headaches, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, weight loss, and stomach problems.

• Students in high-performing high schools spend an average of 3.1 hours a night on homework , even though 1 to 2 hours is the optimal duration, according to a peer-reviewed study .

Not included in the list above is the fact many kids have to abandon activities they love — like sports and clubs — because homework deprives them of the needed time to enjoy themselves with other pursuits.

Conversely, The Helpful Professor does list a few pros of homework, noting it teaches discipline and time management, and helps parents know what’s being taught in the class.

The oft-bandied rule on homework quantity — 10 minutes a night per grade (starting from between 10 to 20 minutes in first grade) — is listed on the National Education Association’s website and the National Parent Teacher Association’s website , but few schools follow this rule.

Do you think your child is doing excessive homework? Harris Cooper Ph.D., author of a meta-study on homework , recommends talking with the teacher. “Often there is a miscommunication about the goals of homework assignments,” he says. “What appears to be problematic for kids, why they are doing an assignment, can be cleared up with a conversation.” Also, Cooper suggests taking a careful look at how your child is doing the assignments. It may seem like they’re taking two hours, but maybe your child is wandering off frequently to get a snack or getting distracted.

Less is often more

If your child is dutifully doing their work but still burning the midnight oil, it’s worth intervening to make sure your child gets enough sleep. A 2012 study of 535 high school students found that proper sleep may be far more essential to brain and body development.

For elementary school-age children, Cooper’s research at Duke University shows there is no measurable academic advantage to homework. For middle-schoolers, Cooper found there is a direct correlation between homework and achievement if assignments last between one to two hours per night. After two hours, however, achievement doesn’t improve. For high schoolers, Cooper’s research suggests that two hours per night is optimal. If teens have more than two hours of homework a night, their academic success flatlines. But less is not better. The average high school student doing homework outperformed 69 percent of the students in a class with no homework.

Many schools are starting to act on this research. A Florida superintendent abolished homework in her 42,000 student district, replacing it with 20 minutes of nightly reading. She attributed her decision to “ solid research about what works best in improving academic achievement in students .”

More family time

A 2020 survey by Crayola Experience reports 82 percent of children complain they don’t have enough quality time with their parents. Homework deserves much of the blame. “Kids should have a chance to just be kids and do things they enjoy, particularly after spending six hours a day in school,” says Alfie Kohn, author of The Homework Myth . “It’s absurd to insist that children must be engaged in constructive activities right up until their heads hit the pillow.”

By far, the best replacement for homework — for both parents and children — is bonding, relaxing time together.

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The Cult of Homework

America’s devotion to the practice stems in part from the fact that it’s what today’s parents and teachers grew up with themselves.

America has long had a fickle relationship with homework. A century or so ago, progressive reformers argued that it made kids unduly stressed , which later led in some cases to district-level bans on it for all grades under seventh. This anti-homework sentiment faded, though, amid mid-century fears that the U.S. was falling behind the Soviet Union (which led to more homework), only to resurface in the 1960s and ’70s, when a more open culture came to see homework as stifling play and creativity (which led to less). But this didn’t last either: In the ’80s, government researchers blamed America’s schools for its economic troubles and recommended ramping homework up once more.

The 21st century has so far been a homework-heavy era, with American teenagers now averaging about twice as much time spent on homework each day as their predecessors did in the 1990s . Even little kids are asked to bring school home with them. A 2015 study , for instance, found that kindergarteners, who researchers tend to agree shouldn’t have any take-home work, were spending about 25 minutes a night on it.

But not without pushback. As many children, not to mention their parents and teachers, are drained by their daily workload, some schools and districts are rethinking how homework should work—and some teachers are doing away with it entirely. They’re reviewing the research on homework (which, it should be noted, is contested) and concluding that it’s time to revisit the subject.

Read: My daughter’s homework is killing me

Hillsborough, California, an affluent suburb of San Francisco, is one district that has changed its ways. The district, which includes three elementary schools and a middle school, worked with teachers and convened panels of parents in order to come up with a homework policy that would allow students more unscheduled time to spend with their families or to play. In August 2017, it rolled out an updated policy, which emphasized that homework should be “meaningful” and banned due dates that fell on the day after a weekend or a break.

“The first year was a bit bumpy,” says Louann Carlomagno, the district’s superintendent. She says the adjustment was at times hard for the teachers, some of whom had been doing their job in a similar fashion for a quarter of a century. Parents’ expectations were also an issue. Carlomagno says they took some time to “realize that it was okay not to have an hour of homework for a second grader—that was new.”

Most of the way through year two, though, the policy appears to be working more smoothly. “The students do seem to be less stressed based on conversations I’ve had with parents,” Carlomagno says. It also helps that the students performed just as well on the state standardized test last year as they have in the past.

Earlier this year, the district of Somerville, Massachusetts, also rewrote its homework policy, reducing the amount of homework its elementary and middle schoolers may receive. In grades six through eight, for example, homework is capped at an hour a night and can only be assigned two to three nights a week.

Jack Schneider, an education professor at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell whose daughter attends school in Somerville, is generally pleased with the new policy. But, he says, it’s part of a bigger, worrisome pattern. “The origin for this was general parental dissatisfaction, which not surprisingly was coming from a particular demographic,” Schneider says. “Middle-class white parents tend to be more vocal about concerns about homework … They feel entitled enough to voice their opinions.”

Schneider is all for revisiting taken-for-granted practices like homework, but thinks districts need to take care to be inclusive in that process. “I hear approximately zero middle-class white parents talking about how homework done best in grades K through two actually strengthens the connection between home and school for young people and their families,” he says. Because many of these parents already feel connected to their school community, this benefit of homework can seem redundant. “They don’t need it,” Schneider says, “so they’re not advocating for it.”

That doesn’t mean, necessarily, that homework is more vital in low-income districts. In fact, there are different, but just as compelling, reasons it can be burdensome in these communities as well. Allison Wienhold, who teaches high-school Spanish in the small town of Dunkerton, Iowa, has phased out homework assignments over the past three years. Her thinking: Some of her students, she says, have little time for homework because they’re working 30 hours a week or responsible for looking after younger siblings.

As educators reduce or eliminate the homework they assign, it’s worth asking what amount and what kind of homework is best for students. It turns out that there’s some disagreement about this among researchers, who tend to fall in one of two camps.

In the first camp is Harris Cooper, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University. Cooper conducted a review of the existing research on homework in the mid-2000s , and found that, up to a point, the amount of homework students reported doing correlates with their performance on in-class tests. This correlation, the review found, was stronger for older students than for younger ones.

This conclusion is generally accepted among educators, in part because it’s compatible with “the 10-minute rule,” a rule of thumb popular among teachers suggesting that the proper amount of homework is approximately 10 minutes per night, per grade level—that is, 10 minutes a night for first graders, 20 minutes a night for second graders, and so on, up to two hours a night for high schoolers.

In Cooper’s eyes, homework isn’t overly burdensome for the typical American kid. He points to a 2014 Brookings Institution report that found “little evidence that the homework load has increased for the average student”; onerous amounts of homework, it determined, are indeed out there, but relatively rare. Moreover, the report noted that most parents think their children get the right amount of homework, and that parents who are worried about under-assigning outnumber those who are worried about over-assigning. Cooper says that those latter worries tend to come from a small number of communities with “concerns about being competitive for the most selective colleges and universities.”

According to Alfie Kohn, squarely in camp two, most of the conclusions listed in the previous three paragraphs are questionable. Kohn, the author of The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing , considers homework to be a “reliable extinguisher of curiosity,” and has several complaints with the evidence that Cooper and others cite in favor of it. Kohn notes, among other things, that Cooper’s 2006 meta-analysis doesn’t establish causation, and that its central correlation is based on children’s (potentially unreliable) self-reporting of how much time they spend doing homework. (Kohn’s prolific writing on the subject alleges numerous other methodological faults.)

In fact, other correlations make a compelling case that homework doesn’t help. Some countries whose students regularly outperform American kids on standardized tests, such as Japan and Denmark, send their kids home with less schoolwork , while students from some countries with higher homework loads than the U.S., such as Thailand and Greece, fare worse on tests. (Of course, international comparisons can be fraught because so many factors, in education systems and in societies at large, might shape students’ success.)

Kohn also takes issue with the way achievement is commonly assessed. “If all you want is to cram kids’ heads with facts for tomorrow’s tests that they’re going to forget by next week, yeah, if you give them more time and make them do the cramming at night, that could raise the scores,” he says. “But if you’re interested in kids who know how to think or enjoy learning, then homework isn’t merely ineffective, but counterproductive.”

His concern is, in a way, a philosophical one. “The practice of homework assumes that only academic growth matters, to the point that having kids work on that most of the school day isn’t enough,” Kohn says. What about homework’s effect on quality time spent with family? On long-term information retention? On critical-thinking skills? On social development? On success later in life? On happiness? The research is quiet on these questions.

Another problem is that research tends to focus on homework’s quantity rather than its quality, because the former is much easier to measure than the latter. While experts generally agree that the substance of an assignment matters greatly (and that a lot of homework is uninspiring busywork), there isn’t a catchall rule for what’s best—the answer is often specific to a certain curriculum or even an individual student.

Given that homework’s benefits are so narrowly defined (and even then, contested), it’s a bit surprising that assigning so much of it is often a classroom default, and that more isn’t done to make the homework that is assigned more enriching. A number of things are preserving this state of affairs—things that have little to do with whether homework helps students learn.

Jack Schneider, the Massachusetts parent and professor, thinks it’s important to consider the generational inertia of the practice. “The vast majority of parents of public-school students themselves are graduates of the public education system,” he says. “Therefore, their views of what is legitimate have been shaped already by the system that they would ostensibly be critiquing.” In other words, many parents’ own history with homework might lead them to expect the same for their children, and anything less is often taken as an indicator that a school or a teacher isn’t rigorous enough. (This dovetails with—and complicates—the finding that most parents think their children have the right amount of homework.)

Barbara Stengel, an education professor at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College, brought up two developments in the educational system that might be keeping homework rote and unexciting. The first is the importance placed in the past few decades on standardized testing, which looms over many public-school classroom decisions and frequently discourages teachers from trying out more creative homework assignments. “They could do it, but they’re afraid to do it, because they’re getting pressure every day about test scores,” Stengel says.

Second, she notes that the profession of teaching, with its relatively low wages and lack of autonomy, struggles to attract and support some of the people who might reimagine homework, as well as other aspects of education. “Part of why we get less interesting homework is because some of the people who would really have pushed the limits of that are no longer in teaching,” she says.

“In general, we have no imagination when it comes to homework,” Stengel says. She wishes teachers had the time and resources to remake homework into something that actually engages students. “If we had kids reading—anything, the sports page, anything that they’re able to read—that’s the best single thing. If we had kids going to the zoo, if we had kids going to parks after school, if we had them doing all of those things, their test scores would improve. But they’re not. They’re going home and doing homework that is not expanding what they think about.”

“Exploratory” is one word Mike Simpson used when describing the types of homework he’d like his students to undertake. Simpson is the head of the Stone Independent School, a tiny private high school in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, that opened in 2017. “We were lucky to start a school a year and a half ago,” Simpson says, “so it’s been easy to say we aren’t going to assign worksheets, we aren’t going assign regurgitative problem sets.” For instance, a half-dozen students recently built a 25-foot trebuchet on campus.

Simpson says he thinks it’s a shame that the things students have to do at home are often the least fulfilling parts of schooling: “When our students can’t make the connection between the work they’re doing at 11 o’clock at night on a Tuesday to the way they want their lives to be, I think we begin to lose the plot.”

When I talked with other teachers who did homework makeovers in their classrooms, I heard few regrets. Brandy Young, a second-grade teacher in Joshua, Texas, stopped assigning take-home packets of worksheets three years ago, and instead started asking her students to do 20 minutes of pleasure reading a night. She says she’s pleased with the results, but she’s noticed something funny. “Some kids,” she says, “really do like homework.” She’s started putting out a bucket of it for students to draw from voluntarily—whether because they want an additional challenge or something to pass the time at home.

Chris Bronke, a high-school English teacher in the Chicago suburb of Downers Grove, told me something similar. This school year, he eliminated homework for his class of freshmen, and now mostly lets students study on their own or in small groups during class time. It’s usually up to them what they work on each day, and Bronke has been impressed by how they’ve managed their time.

In fact, some of them willingly spend time on assignments at home, whether because they’re particularly engaged, because they prefer to do some deeper thinking outside school, or because they needed to spend time in class that day preparing for, say, a biology test the following period. “They’re making meaningful decisions about their time that I don’t think education really ever gives students the experience, nor the practice, of doing,” Bronke said.

The typical prescription offered by those overwhelmed with homework is to assign less of it—to subtract. But perhaps a more useful approach, for many classrooms, would be to create homework only when teachers and students believe it’s actually needed to further the learning that takes place in class—to start with nothing, and add as necessary.

Is Homework Good for Kids? Here’s What the Research Says

A s kids return to school, debate is heating up once again over how they should spend their time after they leave the classroom for the day.

The no-homework policy of a second-grade teacher in Texas went viral last week , earning praise from parents across the country who lament the heavy workload often assigned to young students. Brandy Young told parents she would not formally assign any homework this year, asking students instead to eat dinner with their families, play outside and go to bed early.

But the question of how much work children should be doing outside of school remains controversial, and plenty of parents take issue with no-homework policies, worried their kids are losing a potential academic advantage. Here’s what you need to know:

For decades, the homework standard has been a “10-minute rule,” which recommends a daily maximum of 10 minutes of homework per grade level. Second graders, for example, should do about 20 minutes of homework each night. High school seniors should complete about two hours of homework each night. The National PTA and the National Education Association both support that guideline.

But some schools have begun to give their youngest students a break. A Massachusetts elementary school has announced a no-homework pilot program for the coming school year, lengthening the school day by two hours to provide more in-class instruction. “We really want kids to go home at 4 o’clock, tired. We want their brain to be tired,” Kelly Elementary School Principal Jackie Glasheen said in an interview with a local TV station . “We want them to enjoy their families. We want them to go to soccer practice or football practice, and we want them to go to bed. And that’s it.”

A New York City public elementary school implemented a similar policy last year, eliminating traditional homework assignments in favor of family time. The change was quickly met with outrage from some parents, though it earned support from other education leaders.

New solutions and approaches to homework differ by community, and these local debates are complicated by the fact that even education experts disagree about what’s best for kids.

The research

The most comprehensive research on homework to date comes from a 2006 meta-analysis by Duke University psychology professor Harris Cooper, who found evidence of a positive correlation between homework and student achievement, meaning students who did homework performed better in school. The correlation was stronger for older students—in seventh through 12th grade—than for those in younger grades, for whom there was a weak relationship between homework and performance.

Cooper’s analysis focused on how homework impacts academic achievement—test scores, for example. His report noted that homework is also thought to improve study habits, attitudes toward school, self-discipline, inquisitiveness and independent problem solving skills. On the other hand, some studies he examined showed that homework can cause physical and emotional fatigue, fuel negative attitudes about learning and limit leisure time for children. At the end of his analysis, Cooper recommended further study of such potential effects of homework.

Despite the weak correlation between homework and performance for young children, Cooper argues that a small amount of homework is useful for all students. Second-graders should not be doing two hours of homework each night, he said, but they also shouldn’t be doing no homework.

Not all education experts agree entirely with Cooper’s assessment.

Cathy Vatterott, an education professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, supports the “10-minute rule” as a maximum, but she thinks there is not sufficient proof that homework is helpful for students in elementary school.

“Correlation is not causation,” she said. “Does homework cause achievement, or do high achievers do more homework?”

Vatterott, the author of Rethinking Homework: Best Practices That Support Diverse Needs , thinks there should be more emphasis on improving the quality of homework tasks, and she supports efforts to eliminate homework for younger kids.

“I have no concerns about students not starting homework until fourth grade or fifth grade,” she said, noting that while the debate over homework will undoubtedly continue, she has noticed a trend toward limiting, if not eliminating, homework in elementary school.

The issue has been debated for decades. A TIME cover in 1999 read: “Too much homework! How it’s hurting our kids, and what parents should do about it.” The accompanying story noted that the launch of Sputnik in 1957 led to a push for better math and science education in the U.S. The ensuing pressure to be competitive on a global scale, plus the increasingly demanding college admissions process, fueled the practice of assigning homework.

“The complaints are cyclical, and we’re in the part of the cycle now where the concern is for too much,” Cooper said. “You can go back to the 1970s, when you’ll find there were concerns that there was too little, when we were concerned about our global competitiveness.”

Cooper acknowledged that some students really are bringing home too much homework, and their parents are right to be concerned.

“A good way to think about homework is the way you think about medications or dietary supplements,” he said. “If you take too little, they’ll have no effect. If you take too much, they can kill you. If you take the right amount, you’ll get better.”

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Does Homework Improve Academic Achievement?

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Educators should be thrilled by these numbers. Pleasing a majority of parents regarding homework and having equal numbers of dissenters shouting "too much!" and "too little!" is about as good as they can hope for.

But opinions cannot tell us whether homework works; only research can, which is why my colleagues and I have conducted a combined analysis of dozens of homework studies to examine whether homework is beneficial and what amount of homework is appropriate for our children.

The homework question is best answered by comparing students who are assigned homework with students assigned no homework but who are similar in other ways. The results of such studies suggest that homework can improve students' scores on the class tests that come at the end of a topic. Students assigned homework in 2nd grade did better on math, 3rd and 4th graders did better on English skills and vocabulary, 5th graders on social studies, 9th through 12th graders on American history, and 12th graders on Shakespeare.

Less authoritative are 12 studies that link the amount of homework to achievement, but control for lots of other factors that might influence this connection. These types of studies, often based on national samples of students, also find a positive link between time on homework and achievement.

Yet other studies simply correlate homework and achievement with no attempt to control for student differences. In 35 such studies, about 77 percent find the link between homework and achievement is positive. Most interesting, though, is these results suggest little or no relationship between homework and achievement for elementary school students.

Why might that be? Younger children have less developed study habits and are less able to tune out distractions at home. Studies also suggest that young students who are struggling in school take more time to complete homework assignments simply because these assignments are more difficult for them.

These recommendations are consistent with the conclusions reached by our analysis. Practice assignments do improve scores on class tests at all grade levels. A little amount of homework may help elementary school students build study habits. Homework for junior high students appears to reach the point of diminishing returns after about 90 minutes a night. For high school students, the positive line continues to climb until between 90 minutes and 2½ hours of homework a night, after which returns diminish.

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

Opponents of homework counter that it can also have negative effects. They argue it can lead to boredom with schoolwork, since all activities remain interesting only for so long. Homework can deny students access to leisure activities that also teach important life skills. Parents can get too involved in homework -- pressuring their child and confusing him by using different instructional techniques than the teacher.

My feeling is that homework policies should prescribe amounts of homework consistent with the research evidence, but which also give individual schools and teachers some flexibility to take into account the unique needs and circumstances of their students and families. In general, teachers should avoid either extreme.

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This post has been updated as of December 2017.

It’s not uncommon to hear students, parents, and even some teachers always complaining about homework. Why, then, is homework an inescapable part of the student experience? Worksheets, busy work, and reading assignments continue to be a mainstay of students’ evenings.

Whether from habit or comparison with out-of-class work time in other nations, our students are getting homework and, according to some of them, a LOT of it. Educators and policy makers must ask themselves—does assigning homework pay off?

Is there evidence that homework benefits students younger than high school?

The Scholastic article Is Homework Bad? references Alfie Kohn’s book The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing , in which he says, “There is no evidence to demonstrate that homework benefits students below high school age.”

The article goes on to note that those who oppose homework focus on the drawbacks of significant time spent on homework, identifying one major negative as homework’s intrusion into family time. They also point out that opponents believe schools have decided homework is necessary and thus assign it simply to assign some kind of homework, not because doing the work meets specifically-identified student needs.

“Busy work” does not help students learn

Students and parents appear to carry similar critiques of homework, specifically regarding assignments identified as busy work—long sheets of repetitive math problems, word searches, or reading logs seemingly designed to make children dislike books.

When asked how homework can negatively affect children, Nancy Kalish, author of The Case Against Homework: How Homework is Hurting Our Children and What We Can Do About It , says that many homework assignments are “simply busy work” that makes learning “a chore rather than a positive, constructive experience.”

Commenters on the piece, both parents and students, tended to agree. One student shared that on occasion they spent more time on homework than at school, while another commenter pointed out that, “We don’t give slow-working children a longer school day, but we consistently give them a longer homework day.”

Without feedback, homework is ineffective

The efficacy of the homework identified by Kalish has been studied by policy researchers as well. Gerald LeTendre, of Penn State’s Education Policy Studies department points out that the shotgun approach to homework, when students all receive the same photocopied assignment which is then checked as complete rather than discussed individually with the student, is “not very effective.”  He goes on to say that, “If there’s no feedback and no monitoring, the homework is probably not effective.”

Researchers from the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia had similar findings in their study, “ When Is Homework Worth The Time ?” According to UVAToday, these researchers reported no “substantive difference” in the grades of students related to homework completion.

As researcher Adam Maltese noted, “Our results hint that maybe homework is not being used as well as it could be.” The report further suggested that while not all homework is bad, the type and quality of assignments and their differentiation to specific learners appears to be an important point of future research.

If homework is assigned, it should heighten understanding of the subject

The Curry School of Education report did find a positive association between standardized test performance and time spent on homework, but standardized test performance shouldn’t be the end goal of assignments—a heightened understanding and capability with the content material should.

As such, it is important that if/when teachers assign homework assignments, it is done thoughtfully and carefully—and respectful of the maximum times suggested by the National Education Association, about 10 minutes per night starting in the first grade, with an additional 10 minutes per year after.

Continue reading — The Homework Debate: How Homework Benefits Students

Monica Fuglei is a graduate of the University of Nebraska in Omaha and a current adjunct faculty member of Arapahoe Community College in Colorado, where she teaches composition and creative writing.

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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]

Does homework help? Only if it's the right homework, expert says

Homework is not useless but its quality is far more important than quantity and schools should think very carefully about why they are setting it, an education expert at the University of South Australia says.

Key points:

• Academics agree that too much homework can harm learning

Good homework is 'purposeful, specific, and reinforces learning'

• Time spent with family after school can be more important than more study

Over the past week an anti-homework note sent to parents by a teacher in Forth Worth, Texas, has spread around the world after being posted to Facebook by a parent.

"After much research this summer, I am trying something new," the note from Mrs Brandy Young, which has been shared more than 70,000 times, says.

"Homework will only consist of work that your student did not finish during the school day. There will be no formally assigned homework this year."

The note goes on to say that research has been unable to prove that homework improves student performance.

Instead, Mrs Young urges parents to spend their evenings doing things like reading together, playing outside, and getting their children to bed early, which "are proven to correlate with student success."

Not surprisingly, the note was posted to Facebook with the comment "Brooke is loving her new teacher already!"

However, "she's not quite right," says Brendan Bentley, a PhD candidate and lecturer in the Education Department of the University of South Australia.

In 2006, a review of American research conducted between 1987 and 2003 found that "there was generally consistent evidence for a positive influence of homework on achievement."

The review, led by Dr Harris Cooper of Duke University, found that evidence was stronger for students in grades seven to 12 than for kindergarten to grade six, and for when students, rather than parents, reported how much time they spent doing homework.

On the other hand, in 2013, Australian academics Richard Walker and Mike Horsley published Reforming Homework, in which they reviewed international research and found that for young primary school children, homework is of little or no value and students are regularly given too much .

The issue is that although if you do something more often you get better at it, you have to be doing the right thing in the first place.

"Homework has to be purposeful, specific, and reinforce learning. If it's just to finish work, that may not help the student at all," Mr Bentley said.

In fact, too much homework can be worse than useless: It can be detrimental.

"For students in grades three or four, more than 20 minutes of homework can exhaust them. They go into cognitive load, and their ability to learn goes into a decline," Mr Bentley said.

"They can develop a negative attitude towards learning. It's about getting the balance right."

Cognitive load refers to the total amount of mental effort being used: a heavy cognitive load creates errors or interference.

That 20 minutes is not a guideline for each day: "There needs to be a good argument for having homework every single night," Mr Bentley said.

"Schools have to understand why they are giving homework. Without a good purpose and a rationale: Reconsider it."

He says that homework can be ramped up as students get older, but even in grade 10, research shows that, "if it's more than an hour, it's a waste of time."

Designing effective homework also depends upon how much the student is able to learn.

"Adults can learn about seven things at a time. For young children, that's maybe two or three," Mr Bentley said. "You only need 20 minutes to reinforce that."

However, he says the benefits of homework are not just about reinforcing learning, and that if it does not turn students off, it can teach important study habits.

He agrees that family time and relaxation can be more important than homework.

"Developing good habits and attitudes through interaction with parents can be good — every time you interact with your children, you are teaching assumptions," he said.

On the other hand, too much homework can lead to conflicts with parents.

"Parents are keen for their children to be the best, so they may ask about homework, and may do it for their children, which defeats the purpose," Mr Bentley said.

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Homework: No Proven Benefits

Why homework is a pointless and outdated habit.

This is an excerpt from Alfie Kohn's recently published book The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing. For one teacher's response to this excerpt, read In Defense of Homework: Is there Such a Thing as Too Much? .

It may surprise you, as it did me, to learn that no study has ever demonstrated any academic benefit to assigning homework before children are in high school. In fact, even in high school, the association between homework and achievement is weak -- and the data don't show that homework is responsible for higher achievement. (Correlation doesn't imply causation.)

Finally, there isn't a shred of evidence to support the folk wisdom that homework provides nonacademic benefits at any age -- for example, that it builds character, promotes self-discipline, or teaches good work habits. We're all familiar with the downside of homework: the frustration and exhaustion, the family conflict, time lost for other activities, and possible diminution of children's interest in learning. But the stubborn belief that all of this must be worth it, that the gain must outweigh the pain, relies on faith rather than evidence.

So why does homework continue to be assigned and accepted? Possible reasons include a lack of respect for research, a lack of respect for children (implicit in a determination to keep them busy after school), a lack of understanding about the nature of learning (implicit in the emphasis on practicing skills and the assertion that homework "reinforces" school lessons), or the top-down pressures to teach more stuff faster in order to pump up test scores so we can chant "We're number one!"

All of these explanations are plausible, but I think there's also something else responsible for our continuing to feed children this latter-day cod-liver oil. We don't ask challenging questions about homework because we don't ask challenging questions about most things. Too many of us sound like Robert Frost's neighbor, the man who "will not go behind his father's saying." Too many of us, when pressed about some habit or belief we've adopted, are apt to reply, "Well, that's just the way I was raised" -- as if it were impossible to critically examine the values one was taught. Too many of us, including some who work in the field of education, seem to have lost our capacity to be outraged by the outrageous; when handed foolish and destructive mandates, we respond by asking for guidance on how best to carry them out.

Passivity is a habit acquired early. From our first days in school we are carefully instructed in what has been called the "hidden curriculum": how to do what one is told and stay out of trouble. There are rewards, both tangible and symbolic, for those who behave properly and penalties for those who don't. As students, we're trained to sit still, listen to what the teacher says, run our highlighters across whatever words in the book we'll be required to commit to memory. Pretty soon, we become less likely to ask (or even wonder) whether what we're being taught really makes sense. We just want to know whether it's going to be on the test.

When we find ourselves unhappy with some practice or policy, we're encouraged to focus on incidental aspects of what's going on, to ask questions about the details of implementation -- how something will get done, or by whom, or on what schedule -- but not whether it should be done at all. The more that we attend to secondary concerns, the more the primary issues -- the overarching structures and underlying premises -- are strengthened. We're led to avoid the radical questions -- and I use that adjective in its original sense: Radical comes from the Latin word for "root." It's partly because we spend our time worrying about the tendrils that the weed continues to grow. Noam Chomsky put it this way: "The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum -- even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate."

Parents have already been conditioned to accept most of what is done to their children at school, for example, and so their critical energies are confined to the periphery. Sometimes I entertain myself by speculating about how ingrained this pattern really is. If a school administrator were to announce that, starting next week, students will be made to stand outside in the rain and memorize the phone book, I suspect we parents would promptly speak up . . . to ask whether the Yellow Pages will be included. Or perhaps we'd want to know how much of their grade this activity will count for. One of the more outspoken moms might even demand to know whether her child will be permitted to wear a raincoat.

Our education system, meanwhile, is busily avoiding important topics in its own right. For every question that's asked in this field, there are other, more vital questions that are never raised. Educators weigh different techniques of "behavior management" but rarely examine the imperative to focus on behavior -- that is, observable actions -- rather than on reasons and needs and the children who have them. Teachers think about what classroom rules they ought to introduce but are unlikely to ask why they're doing so unilaterally, why students aren't participating in such decisions. It's probably not a coincidence that most schools of education require prospective teachers to take a course called Methods, but there is no course called Goals.

And so we return to the question of homework. Parents anxiously grill teachers about their policies on this topic, but they mostly ask about the details of the assignments their children will be made to do. If homework is a given, it's certainly understandable that one would want to make sure it's being done "correctly." But this begs the question of whether, and why, it should be a given. The willingness not to ask provides another explanation for how a practice can persist even if it hurts more than helps.

For their part, teachers regularly witness how many children are made miserable by homework and how many resist doing it. Some respond with sympathy and respect. Others reach for bribes and threats to compel students to turn in the assignments; indeed, they may insist these inducements are necessary: "If the kids weren't being graded, they'd never do it!" Even if true, this is less an argument for grades and other coercive tactics than an invitation to reconsider the value of those assignments. Or so one might think. However, teachers had to do homework when they were students, and they've likely been expected to give it at every school where they've worked. The idea that homework must be assigned is the premise, not the conclusion -- and it's a premise that's rarely examined by educators.

Unlike parents and teachers, scholars are a step removed from the classroom and therefore have the luxury of pursuing potentially uncomfortable areas of investigation. But few do. Instead, they are more likely to ask, "How much time should students spend on homework?" or "Which strategies will succeed in improving homework completion rates?," which is simply assumed to be desirable.

Policy groups, too, are more likely to act as cheerleaders than as thoughtful critics. The major document on the subject issued jointly by the National PTA and the National Education Association, for example, concedes that children often complain about homework, but never considers the possibility that their complaints may be justified. Parents are exhorted to "show your children that you think homework is important" -- regardless of whether it is, or even whether one really believes this is true -- and to praise them for compliance.

Health professionals, meanwhile, have begun raising concerns about the weight of children's backpacks and then recommending . . . exercises to strengthen their backs! This was also the tack taken by People magazine: An article about families struggling to cope with excessive homework was accompanied by a sidebar that offered some "ways to minimize the strain on young backs" -- for example, "pick a [back]pack with padded shoulder straps."

The People article reminds us that the popular press does occasionally -- cyclically -- take note of how much homework children have to do, and how varied and virulent are its effects. But such inquiries are rarely penetrating and their conclusions almost never rock the boat. Time magazine published a cover essay in 2003 entitled "The Homework Ate My Family." It opened with affecting and even alarming stories of homework's harms. Several pages later, however, it closed with a finger-wagging declaration that "both parents and students must be willing to embrace the 'work' component of homework -- to recognize the quiet satisfaction that comes from practice and drill." Likewise, an essay on the Family Education Network's Web site: "Yes, homework is sometimes dull, or too easy, or too difficult. That doesn't mean that it shouldn't be taken seriously." (One wonders what would have to be true before we'd be justified in not taking something seriously.)

Nor, apparently, are these questions seen as appropriate by most medical and mental health professionals. When a child resists doing homework -- or complying with other demands -- their job is to get the child back on track. Very rarely is there any inquiry into the value of the homework or the reasonableness of the demands.

Sometimes parents are invited to talk to teachers about homework -- providing that their concerns are "appropriate." The same is true of formal opportunities for offering feedback. A list of sample survey questions offered to principals by the central office in one Colorado school district is typical. Parents were asked to indicate whether they agree or disagree with the following statements: "My child understands how to do his/her homework"; "Teachers at this school give me useful suggestions about how to help my child with schoolwork"; "Homework assignments allow me to see what my student is being taught and how he/she is learning"; and "The amount of homework my child receives is (choose one): too much/just right/too little."

The most striking feature of such a list is what isn't on it. Such a questionnaire seems to have been designed to illustrate Chomsky's point about encouraging lively discussion within a narrow spectrum of acceptable opinion, the better to reinforce the key presuppositions of the system. Parents' feedback is earnestly sought -- on these questions only. So, too, for the popular articles that criticize homework, or the parents who speak out: The focus is generally limited to how much is being assigned. I'm sympathetic to this concern, but I'm more struck by how it misses much of what matters. We sometimes forget that not everything that's destructive when done to excess is innocuous when done in moderation. Sometimes the problem is with what's being done, or at least the way it's being done, rather than just with how much of it is being done.

The more we are invited to think in Goldilocks terms (too much, too little, or just right?), the less likely we become to step back and ask the questions that count: What reason is there to think that any quantity of the kind of homework our kids are getting is really worth doing? What evidence exists to show that daily homework, regardless of its nature, is necessary for children to become better thinkers? Why did the students have no chance to participate in deciding which of their assignments ought to be taken home?

And: What if there was no homework at all?

The New York Times

The learning network | does your homework help you learn.

Does Your Homework Help You Learn?

Questions about issues in the news for students 13 and older.

• See all Student Opinion »

New research suggests that a lot of assigned homework amounts to pointless busy work that doesn’t help students learn, while more thoughtful assignments can help them develop skills and acquire knowledge. How would you characterize the homework you get?

In the Sunday Review article “The Trouble With Homework,” Annie Murphy Paul reviews the research on homework:

The quantity of students’ homework is a lot less important than its quality. And evidence suggests that as of now, homework isn’t making the grade. Although surveys show that the amount of time our children spend on homework has risen over the last three decades, American students are mired in the middle of international academic rankings: 17th in reading, 23rd in science and 31st in math, according to results from the Program for International Student Assessment released last December. In a 2008 survey, one-third of parents polled rated the quality of their children’s homework assignments as fair or poor, and 4 in 10 said they believed that some or a great deal of homework was busywork. A new study, coming in the Economics of Education Review, reports that homework in science, English and history has “little to no impact” on student test scores. (The authors did note a positive effect for math homework.) Enriching children’s classroom learning requires making homework not shorter or longer, but smarter.

She goes on to enumerate some of the aspects of effective independent assignments, like “retrieval practice,” which basically means doing practice tests to reinforce learning and commit it to memory, and “interleaving,” in which problems are not grouped into sets by type, but rather scattered throughout an assignment, which makes the brain work harder to grasp the material.

Students: Tell us how effective you think your homework is. What kinds of assignments seem pointless? Which ones are confusing or frustrating? Which ones are most engaging and interesting? Which ones are you fairly sure help you learn and grow?

Students 13 and older are invited to comment below. Please use only your first name. For privacy policy reasons, we will not publish student comments that include a last name.

Comments are no longer being accepted.

“I see homework as a big part that helps me learn and grow” that’s what I always said up till I was moved to a different math class. My old math teacher made math easy and fun as well as understandable. But when I was moved I got confused easily, I found it boring, and I even found paying attention hard. Then there’s my English class. I love English with all my heart but my teacher makes me feel like I’m in Preschool! She has hand signs for every rule and if we don’t do them we get more homework! She always puts us into groups and so far every group I’ve been placed in I can’t get along in. One group wouldn’t let me talk and when I gave my opion they scolded me and said I was wrong though it was an opion lesson… Another group was lazy and since I ran out of my medicine that helps me focus, I was lost and told them I need their help to help me keep up with what’s going on yet they let me drag along! History was never my strong point from the start even though my dad is a History teacher. But when I got into a certain class I couldn’t stand it! I was miles behind in homework and around every corner was either homework or projects! I asked for help and I got yelled at! I’m sorry but sometimes homework feels like slave work since I don’t get anything out of good grades except a smile and/or a pat on the back and that’s it. Yes homework can be good for you but there is a limit of how much a student can handle before they collaspe underneath all of that work! But I love it when teachers make homework fun or competive (which we normally do now and days)! Cause that’s when I’m having a blast! But when teachers get too interactive with their class I can’t help but feel creeped out by them. (Cough, Cough, English teacher, Cough, Cough) I do love school but right now…its like they don’t want us going out and enjoying life…

Back at my old school I was drowning in homework! I just couldn’t get the chance to sit back and be young! It was just too much! In every class I had homework! Study this, learn that, solve this, and every where in between! The bullying was no help either since they stole or destroyed my homework so I failing till I switched schools! My suggestion to all you kids who don’t like homework….DON’T GO TO [name of school removed]!!!!!!!! Especially if you’re like me and are considered one of the special kids since the teachers don’t flex to your needs!

At my school , we all think that homework helps people learn in so many different ways. You do your homework to get better grades on test scores because some of the homework you get will have some stuff that can be on test. Another reason is that homework can get you better grades if you just hand it in. You can learn from homework. In my opinion.For example, I had to take notes in algebra yesterday for homework and only took 10 minutes it really help a lot the next day because we had a little mini quiz on it !

Doing my homework every night helps me learn because it helps me remember the lesson gone over in class that day. It also makes it easier to follow the next lesson, which is usually an extension from the lesson the day before.

Homework helps me learn because it’s a review of what we learned in class. Sometimes they give too much work though.

I feel like it all depends on if you understand the work. If a teacher taught you a new topic in class and you didn’t understand it, I dont think you would understand it if you did it again. If you understood it, It would help you because you are repeating the problems.

I don’t think homework helps you learn, I think it helps you remember what you learned. Homework is more of a review of what you did in school during the day, rather than a new subject to learn on a whole.

I personally am not a big fan of homework though, I think that some teachers don’t really realize that we have several other classes which also give us homework, and we sometimes end up with a large amount by the end of the day.

But I’m sure that my procrastination has a lot to do with it as well.

Homework definitely helps me learn. By the time i get home from school some subjects become unfamiliar and homework help reinforce what i learned in class. Better students do their homework and teachers recognize that frequently. Repetition of your homework also helps memorize which you could benefit from on tests and other classwork activities.

Depending on the subject or the assigment, homework can either be redundant or effective. Assignments which make you copy straight out of a textbook are redundant. These assignments are redundant because students hardly put all that much effort into it. By copying a textbook, people aren’t focused on the material, because they are just focusing on getting the assigment done. Straight copying is seen as boring or even in some cases ‘annoying’ by students, which translates into them not learning what they need to learn. Assigments where students are interactive and aren’t just being taught the textbook are interesting and that’s when students learn the most. Writing samples when students are asked for their opinion and to have their voice heard are deemed the most interesting. Thus, being because students then have the ability to share what they’ve learned in their own words and also get to apply their knowledge in their own voice.

On the other hand, when homework is done effectively, the end product will be better grades. If a student neglects to do homework, whether interesting or boring, it will show in their grades. Students who do apply their strongest efforts into their homework will ultimately contribute to better grades.

I think that homework is pointless when the teachers give us homework that is for fun and we have to waist our time doing little projects when we can be doing other more important things like studying. I think that most homework is important I just don’t like it when teachers give too much and it becomes over whelming and I can’t have time to study because it would be too late and then I wouldn’t be able to sleep. If anything I think teachers should give us homework but give us one big homework a week and we work on it for the whole week which it would be due on Friday and then get a test grade for it since it was a big homework. If teachers wouldn’t do that I would love if teachers would give us only three days of homework a week and Fridays we would get a test.

Homework is assigned so that students can practice what they have learned in school and see if they can remember what happened in class. Personally, the homework that has been assigned to me lately has been nothing but busy work that I feel is pointless. The truth is most of the modern day students don’t see the value in doing homework but the discipline and the practice for the real world really are fundamental. The most confusing type of homework assignments that we have come with little to no instructions. When teachers give assignments on things that they haven’t covered yet seems pointless to me since it really isn’t evaluating anything at all. Another type of pointless homework would be the ones in which there is so much repetition that it becomes pointless. In my personal life ive been faced with all types of homework. I believe homework is fundamental to the development of the mind and I will keep doing my homework.

I go to an American school in Bogota, Colombia. Recently in my school I have been getting exaggerated amounts of homework, and most of it has no impact on my learning. I say this because the homework I am assigned is just “busywork” and keeps me up until late hours in the night. The homework I am given is also extremely long and not smart, it is just a very basic review of what we did in class that day. Homework like that is a waste of time since if the student is good and pays attention in class he should know all of the material and shouldn’t be forced to demonstrate it through homework. I believe that what should be improved in not the quantity but the quality of the homework we are assigned. I am not saying homework should be abolished but I am saying it should be changed. If a student is overwhelmed with homework his academic development would also be affected. For example if a student has allot of homework he will probably stay up at night doing it. Maybe he will finish his homework around 10 or 11 in the night. The next day he will have to wake up very early and will only get about 5-6 hours of sleep. In order for the teenage brain to develop correctly a kid needs 8 hours of sleep. So. excessive amount of homework leads to a very tired, unmotivated and less active student. In my school I think the only homework assignments that help me learn are the math ones.

Each subject is different and each grade in school requires a different amount of practice. For example, Math is a subject that I believe needs out-of-classroom practice no matter what grade you are in, or what topic you are covering. It is one of the most essential aptitudes one must acquire in order to be successful in life. Language, whether it be english, spanish, or etc, is also a subject that is vital for an accomplished life. I believe that one must practice in order to become and eloquent speaker and writer, but i only think that a small amount of homework should be given, especially once one reaches the ends of high school. A subject that I feel doesn’t need practice outside of school is history. For me, history is more like a gossip story with dates that “should” be remembered than anything else; therefore, I don’t believe that homework would be necessary to enforce a subject like that.

The idea of having to work all night, studying for a billion exams the next day, getting the college applications going, and practicing a sport isn’t something strange for the average senior at CNG. It seems as if the need to excel at everything might just be the COD of many high school students. As college admissions become more competitive, as more and more people take AP exams and admissions tests there is a greater weight on our shoulders. But is it really worth it? I mean, even if everything goes the way we want it to, was it really worth all our time and energy? There are just better things to do with my life. I would prefer to go deeper into the sciences, write of some philosophical tendency I’m being carried into, do more social work, etc. But I need to commit to an organized agenda, learn the Standards I’m supposed to be learning and show my progress through time. These are fancy ways of creating a level playing field so students can be compared. Is this really what learning has become?

Practice makes perfect some might say. There is no arguing about that. Success in those specific tasks, such as doing homework or working on a particular project that requires zero creativity clearly needs those levels of repetitive practice and great memory. But are we supposed to do this the rest of our lives? I don’t think so. Harris Cooper, a professor from Duke University dedicated to homework research states that “even for high school students, overloading them with homework is not associated with higher grades” (Cooper). I’m sorry, so isn’t homework even doing what its supposed to be doing? The counter-productivity of too much homework, especially in such a critical moment as in college application season, makes the whole educational system lose credibility. Are we being trained to do something we aren’t going to really do or even need in the future? What is the real purpose of doing homework when we aren’t truly learning from it?

Don’t get me wrong. I do believe homework is critical in developing certain skills. How were we supposed to learn basic arithmetic operations without those tons of worksheets and problem sets? Yes, homework is a useful tool but only when used consciously. Statistical evidence seems to agree with this: “teachers in many of the nations that outperform the U.S. on student achievement tests–such as Japan, Denmark and the Czech Republic–tend to assign less homework than American teachers, but instructors in low-scoring countries like Greece, Thailand and Iran tend to pile it on” (Wallis). The need to assign homework, to put a million grades in is too antiquated in my opinion. What’s the problem with guiding classes to a true educational experience and leave behind the limitations of grading, of classifying students, of making them lose all interest, worse yet lose passion for learning and generate hatred towards certain areas of knowledge while capturing valuable time that is needed to explore others?

It depends on what type of homework and the time that it takes to finish it. The homework that I get from English, history, science, and math benefit me and my grades a lot. From my three band classes, and P.E. class, I usually do busy work. I love how the school is run… I learn a lot from the class just itself, and from school assemblies, etc. First, I have to learn before I get my grades… meaning, I don’t care what my grades are like until I actually know and understand the material and knowledge that I learned at school. What we learn from school and from homework are is different. We learn more at school and then apply what we learned in our homework. So most of the time we don’t learn anything that much from homework.

Homework assignments should be provided, but once a month. It allows children to have freedom, and actually feel like life is not all about study and going to a prestigious university.

Homework wastes our time, and in recent articles they say that school’s are killing creativity, and now there is an uproar about homework not providing learning material.

What homework should be is a subjet, say history, and children can choose one that interests them, and they could research it for a month. And after the month is up children can present in class, so that means the child knows thoroughly about their topic and can explain well to their friends, and also they will have an opportunity to listen to other peoples’ research.

I wish we didn’t have homework, because the learning network is providing us with a great amount of resources that homework, in a year, can’t accomplish.

40 hours per week, 8 hours a day, is the legal limit of hours an adult can work in California without being payed overtime. An employee must be payed 150% their usual salary for every hour they work past 8 hours a day. I spend between 34 and 39 hours per week at school, not counting homework (aprox. 10-15 hours per week). My suggestion is that any work assigned to students requiring them to spend more than 40 hours a week on academics be graded with a bonus of 50% the student’s grade. This would encourage students to do well in order to have a higher bonus, and would discourage teachers from assigning so much work (since we all how much giving out bonus points pains them!) As for the questions: I think that homework is effective as long as it will help improve a student’s understanding and execution of course material. As a general rule, I don’t think it’s very useful to be assigned more than one assignment in each category of homework to a class (1 chapter to read, 1 exercise, 1 essay). 5 math exercises is 5 too many if I understand the lesson, and 4 too many if it is the teacher’s goal to find out whether or not I do. As a student, I have a limited amount of time and love to divide up into my work. I find work that leaves the thinking up to the student to be the most engaging and helpful to my understanding: the fewer details on how I should do the assignment, the more I work to make it reflect my understanding of the topic.

It is interesting to write your homework in your free time at home. Homework and assignments are important for innovation and elaboration. Take your time in doing your homework because this will help you understand the lesson more.

i think this is the best amendment ever.

Sense at my school , school just started we do not have that much homework. But I’ve hear a lot of people say that towards the middle of the year is when everyone’s backpack’s become really heavy. Teacher’s start giving more than one homework assignment per class. So I think that homework does not help you learn because you do work at school why do you need to do it again at home? I think teacher’s do that because they want to figure out if you are capable to do the same thing at home and also because they just want us to have some type of work to do at home. Once again I do no think that homework helps you learn.

I personally don’t think homework helps a student learn. I feel if you don’t get what the teacher teaches in class then I personally don’t get the homework at all. If I don’t get the subject then I personally to the homework wrong and I’m sure that other people do it wrong too. My teachers all say that they don’t give so much homework and they really don’t, but since they all give about 20-30 minutes of homework each subject, it piles up.I think that homework is effective as long as it will help improve a student’s understanding and execution of course material. I personally don’t think that homework always helps, but it does.

I think that homework is useful sometimes, but not always. Most of the time, it is just the same thing we did in class, and if we didn’t get it then we still won’t get it at home, primarily because our parents have no clue about how to do it either.

i think that homework should not in are school systems because homework is just practice and i know that practice makes perfect but when you got 5 subjects it add to a lot. I also i believe that all homework (practice) is just studying and unless we have i don’t want to take the time for nothing but another school day

1) What kinds of assignments seem pointless?

I don’t believe that any assignments are pointless, because teachers always have a reason for giving homework. However, teachers often give homework where the effort on the part of the student outweighs the teacher’s goal. In addition, many homework assignments do not effectively reach their goal.

2) Which ones are confusing or frustrating?

Assignments are usually not confusing, although sometimes, when given very easy assignments, I do not understand what the point is (which does not mean that the assignments are pointless — the point is simply mysterious to me). I get most frustrated by homework when I receive virtually identical assignments at regular intervals, but never get feedback from the teacher. When this happens, I cannot improve because I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. For example, our French teacher has given us this assignment three times this year: Comment on a predetermined stanza of a Baudelaire poem. The first two stanzas earned me 17 (out of 20) with no corrections other than grammatical mistakes. For the third assignment, I have written a very similar analysis and I expect to get a very similar grade. If there are 20 possible points and I didn’t get all of them, why did the teacher not provide any comments?

3) Which ones are most engaging and interesting?

Honestly, although I understand the value of homework, I do not enjoy doing it (unless it involves creativity, but with no art, music or creative writing classes in high school, this is extremely rare).

Which ones are you fairly sure help you learn and grow?

I believe all homework helps me learn and grow — the question is whether the amount of growth induced by the homework is worth the effort involved.

Yes, some homework are important. Like learning rhetoric at home to be able to talk about it in class. Doing a math problem to make sure the lesson is understood. But is doing ten exercises on a lesson we did not fully go over because the teacher did not manage to end the lesson on time and now needs us to try to figure it out on our own useful? Is doing forty little problems with the same math equation over and over again necessary? I believe it is not. I believe some teachers are using a lot of useless homework because they must think in some way that it will be beneficent one day or another. They are often wrong. Unless a whole class of twenty students decided they want to be physician, i do not understand why learning what is the kind of relation between the Earth and the Moon, over a dozen of exercises, is in anyway useful. Also, a teacher might think they are doing the right thing, making us practice something that is already learned in class, by giving its students five exercises. Sure, it is not a bad idea. But since all the teachers, or most of them, are looking to do the right thing, five teachers that wants you to practice with some homework exercises, becomes twenty-five exercises for the students. Over something they either understood, or not understood. In any case it’s frustrating. If you understand what it is about then you are just wasting your time doing those exercises. If you did not understand it, you are going to spend ten minutes on each question, usually ending by guessing wrong, when all it could have taken was another clear explanation from the teacher. So yes, homework can be useful, and it often is, but not always.

What's Next

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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How to Avoid Getting in Trouble for Not Doing Your Homework

Last Updated: April 9, 2024

This article was co-authored by Alicia Oglesby . Alicia Oglesby is a Professional School Counselor and the Director of School and College Counseling at Bishop McNamara High School outside of Washington DC. With over ten years of experience in counseling, Alicia specializes in academic advising, social-emotional skills, and career counseling. Alicia holds a BS in Psychology from Howard University and a Master’s in Clinical Counseling and Applied Psychology from Chestnut Hill College. She also studied Race and Mental Health at Virginia Tech. Alicia holds Professional School Counseling Certifications in both Washington DC and Pennsylvania. She has created a college counseling program in its entirety and developed five programs focused on application workshops, parent information workshops, essay writing collaborative, peer-reviewed application activities, and financial aid literacy events. This article has been viewed 99,653 times.

Homework generally isn’t that much fun. But it generally is a requirement that has a pretty decent-sized impact on your grade, so if you want (or need) to do well in a class, getting the homework done is a big deal. So what happens if you forget to do one of the assignments? You have a few options; the first and best is, of course, to not to forget to do it in the first place. But if that’s not an option, there are a few other measures you can take to try to get out of a homework scrape. Read on to find out more.

Using Good Judgment

• Explain why you didn’t do the homework--maybe you forgot about the assignment, got home late, fell asleep, etc. Don’t sugarcoat your reason, but do use some discretion; if you didn’t do your homework because you were at an all-night kegger, keep your reason general (ie, “I didn’t get home until late”) rather than overly specific (ie, “I was too busy doing keg stands”).
• Apologize. After giving your reason, sincerely apologize. Don’t gloss over this part--the sincerity of your apology will impact how likely your teacher is to want to help you. If you don't feel comfortable talking to the teacher directly, feel free to send them an email or leave them a note.
• Explain that it won’t happen again--and make sure it doesn’t. Let your teacher know that this was a rare instance of you lapsing on a responsibility and that you’ll be careful that it doesn’t happen again. And--this part is important--keep your word. If you make forgetting your homework habitual, your teacher will not only stop believing your excuses, they’ll rapidly become less sympathetic to your apologies.
• Ask for another day to finish the assignment. The best case scenario here is that your teacher will grant you extra time to complete the assignment and won’t penalize you for turning it in past the original deadline. More likely, though, your teacher will offer to let you turn in the assignment late, for partial credit. Don’t gripe about or be ungrateful for partial-credit--it will make it less likely that your teacher will extend you a similar opportunity in the future.

• Ask the teacher to help you understand the assignment and to let you have another chance at completing it. This both buys you more time and has the added benefit of getting you one-on-one homework help as well.

• If the story’s creative or amusing enough, your teacher might cut you some slack simply because you didn’t give them one of the same boring excuses they always hear.
• For example, maybe it just so happened that your parents went out last night and left you with a family friend who turned out to be a clairvoyant and burned all of your homework because he looked into the future and saw that if he didn’t destroy it all your cat would rip your homework to shreds while you slept and you would breathe in a fatal amount of air-borne paper bits and choke to death.

Avoiding Bad Excuses

• It should be obvious, but don’t use “the dog ate my homework.” You might as well not even bother coming up with an excuse at all.
• Don’t just say “I lost it” unless you can come up with a believable set of extenuating circumstances to explain how it got lost. Saying it just got lost randomly is pretty transparent.

• Instead of blaming the printer or your laptop, etc., explain that you had trouble when you were trying to print (or whatever) the homework right before class but that you’ll email it to your teacher by the end of the day. You can buy more time with that, and quickly type it up.
• Just be sure you actually do send it to them by the end of the day--preferably by 5 pm. [2] X Research source

• First, since it’s your responsibility, not theirs, to make sure you’re up-to-date on assignments, this excuse is pretty much like telling the teacher that it was your own fault.
• Second, because, from your teacher’s point of view, an entire classroom of other students managed to find out about and do the homework, so it clearly isn’t as hard as you’re making it out to be. [3] X Research source
• And finally, the ignorance excuse won’t work because when you’re absent, your teacher expects that you’ll find out everything you missed. If didn’t, your teacher will again see it as your own fault.

Avoiding the Situation in the First Place

• Start by writing down every assignment and its due date as soon as it’s assigned.
• Be sure to write all of your assignments down in the same place so you don’t miss any or have to go on a desperate search every time you want to know what’s due. A day planner, dedicated homework notebook, or scheduling app are all good options.

• Whenever you get an assignment, estimate how long it will take to complete and set aside the necessary time accordingly.
• If it’s an assignment that will take several days or even several weeks, set aside as many blocks of time as you’ll need to complete it over that span of time.

• Don’t procrastinate on homework--don’t let yourself play video games or chat on Facebook until you’ve finished your night’s assignments.
• Do the harder assignments first. Getting the harder work out of the way first is a more efficient and rewarding use of your time.
• Reader Poll: We asked 189 wikiHow readers how to avoid making the same mistake, and 9% said they would ask loved ones to hold them accountable. [Take Poll] While this may not be the best strategy according to our readers, try making a routine for yourself.

• If you have a study-hall period, a free period, a few minutes between classes, a 10-15 minute bus ride home, etc., use that time to work on homework. Sure, you’d rather be talking to friends or playing on your phone, but if you want to have your homework done, you’ll need to actually take the time to do it. [4] X Research source

• Start by approaching the teacher. Explain your difficulties and ask for their help. That’s what your teachers are there for, after all--to help you learn. (And if they show any reluctance to help, remind them of this fact.) They’re the best source of help since they’re the ones making and grading the homework, and having the help of an insider is often invaluable.
• Get help from a classmate. If your teacher isn’t able to give as much help as you need, supplement their help with help from a classmate who understands the material and is doing well in the class. If you aren’t sure who that might be, ask your teacher for suggestions.
• Get a tutor. Many schools offer free peer-tutoring services that can be a significant help. Ask your teacher or an administrator whether such services are available. If not, consider looking into hiring a tutor. There are a number of professional tutoring services to choose from, or you might try hiring a local college student for tutoring help.

• Even if you think you’re a great multi-tasker, trying to do homework while also texting, catching up on Facebook, and tweeting about how much you hate homework is actually hurting you more than helping you get through the process.
• Moreover, though multitasking can be an asset for some activities, it isn’t an asset when studying. When you’re multitasking, your mind leaves your current train of thought (like, say, trigonometry) and takes up a new train (maybe texting a friend about tomorrow’s plans), and the result is that you end up doing worse on both.
• Find a quiet, distraction-free space to do your studying. The better you’re able to concentrate, the better you’ll do on your work and the more quickly you’ll get through it. Put away or turn off anything you know will distract you (your phone, Facebook alerts, whatever). [6] X Research source
• If you find yourself being distracted by thoughts of other things you should or want to be doing, keep a piece of paper next to you where you can write down those thoughts as they come up. Don’t dwell on them, just write them down and know you can get back to them later. [7] X Research source
• Set small goals and reward yourself when you achieve them. For example, set a goal to study for 15-20 minutes straight and then reward yourself with a small treat when you do so. [8] X Research source

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• ↑ http://www.brighthubeducation.com/study-and-learning-tips/51078-10-most-common-homework-excuses/
• ↑ https://kidshealth.org/en/teens/homework.html?view=ptr
• ↑ http://success.oregonstate.edu/learning-corner/learning-college/concentration-distractions

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An Age-By-Age Guide to Helping Kids Manage Homework

D o you ever wonder whether homework is gauging the child’s ability to complete assignments or the parent’s? On one end of the spectrum, a parent might never mention homework and assume it gets done independently; on the other end are the parents who micromanage to be sure every worksheet is absolutely perfect.

Being too laissez faire about homework might deny a child the support they need to develop executive functioning skills, but being too involved could stifle their independence. So how much parent participation in homework is actually appropriate throughout a child’s education?

Basic homework tips

According to Scholastic , you should follow these rules of thumb to support your child during homework (without going overboard):

• Stay nearby and available for questions without getting right in the middle of homework.
• Avoid the urge to correct mistakes unless your child asks for help.
• Instead of nagging, set up a homework routine with a dedicated time and place.
• Teach time management for a larger project by helping them break it into chunks.

Child psychologist Dr. Emily W. King recently wrote about rethinking homework in her newsletter. King explains at what ages kids are typically able to do homework independently, but she writes that each child’s ability to concentrate at the end of the day and use executive functioning skills for completing tasks is very individual. I talked to her for more information on how much parental involvement in homework completion is needed, according to a child’s age and grade level.

Kindergarten to second grade

Whether children even need homework this early is a hot debate. Little ones are still developing fine motor skills and their ability to sit still and pay attention at this age.

“If a child is given homework before their brain and body are able to sit and focus independently, then we are relying on the parent or other caregivers to sit with the child to help them focus,” King said. “Think about when the child is able to sit and focus on non-academic tasks like dinner, art, or music lessons. This will help you tease out executive functioning skills from academic understanding.”

Elementary-age children need time for unstructured play and structured play like music, arts, and sports. They need outside time, free time, and quiet time, King said. For children who are not ready for independent work, nightly reading with another family member is enough “homework,” she said.

Third to fifth grades

Many children will be able to do homework independently in grades 3-5. Even then, their ability to focus and follow through may vary from day to day.

“Most children are ready for practicing independent work between third and fifth grade, but maybe not yet in the after-school hours when they are tired and want to rest or play. We need to begin exposing children to organization and structure independently in late elementary school to prepare them for more independence in middle school,” King said.

Neurodivergent kids may need more parental support for several years before they work independently.

“Neurodivergent children, many of whom have executive functioning weaknesses, are not ready to work independently in elementary school. Children without executive functioning weaknesses (e.g., the ability to remain seated and attend to a task independently) are able to do this somewhere between third and fifth grade, but it’s very possible they can work independently at school but be too tired to do it later in the afternoon,” King said. “We need to follow the child’s skills and give them practice to work independently when they seem ready. Of course, if a child wants to do extra work after school due to an interest, go for it.”

For students who are not ready to work independently in middle school, it is better to reduce the amount of homework they are expected to complete so they can practice independence and feel successful.

Middle school

In sixth grade and later, kids are really developing executive functioning skills like planning, organizing, paying attention, initiating, shifting focus, and execution. They will still need your encouragement to keep track of assignments, plan their time, and stick to a homework routine.

“Middle school students need lots of organization support and putting systems in place to help them keep track of assignments, due dates, and materials,” King said.

High school

By this point, congratulations: You can probably be pretty hands-off with homework. Remain open and available if your teen needs help negotiating a problem, but executing plans should be up to them now.

“In high school, parents are working to put themselves out of a job and begin stepping back as children take the lead on homework. Parents of high schoolers are ‘homework consultants,’” King said. “We are there to help solve problems, talk through what to say in an email to a teacher, but we are not writing the emails or talking to the teachers for our kids.”

What if homework is not working for them (or you)

There are a number of reasons a child might not be managing homework at the same level as their peers, including academic anxiety and learning disabilities.

If your child is showing emotional distress at homework time, it might be a sign that they have run out of gas from the structure, socialization, and stimulation they have already been through at school that day. One way to support kids is to teach them how to have a healthy balance of work and play time.

“When we ask students to keep working after school when their tank is on empty, we likely damage their love of learning and fill them with dread for tomorrow,” King wrote in her newsletter.

King said in her experience as a child psychologist, the amount of homework support a child needs is determined by their individual abilities and skills more than their age or grade level.

“All of these steps vary for a neurodivergent child and we are not following these guidelines by age or grade but rather by their level of skills development to become more independent,” she said. “In order to independently complete homework, a child must be able to have attended to the directions in class, brought the materials home, remember to get the materials out at home, remember to begin the task, understand the task, remain seated and attention long enough to complete the task, be able to complete the task, return the work to their backpack, and return the work to the teacher. If any of these skills are weak or the child is not able to do these independently, there will be a breakdown in the system of homework. You can see why young students and neurodivergent students would struggle with this process.”

If you and your child have trouble meeting homework expectations, talk to their teacher about what could be contributing to the problem and how to modify expectations for them.

“Get curious about your child’s skill level at that time of day,” King said. “Are they able to work independently at school but not at home? Are they not able to work independently any time of day? Are they struggling with this concept at school, too? When are they successful?”

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NEWS... BUT NOT AS YOU KNOW IT

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What did you do when you couldn’t solve a tricky maths equation?

Did you search for the answer on Google, skip doing the homework altogether and tell your teacher dog ate it, or watch as your parents asked Alexa for the answer?

As bizarre as it may sound, the latter scenario is happening at an alarming rate, as parents and grandparents struggle to help kids complete their homework – particularly mathematics. 

There comes a time when homework becomes a little too advanced for parents to help with, especially as many forget how to do tricky long divisions, algebra or the names of all the triangles once they finish school . With over 500 million Alexa-enabled devices sold worldwide, people are using technology to their advantage when it comes to maths.

New data commissioned by the Department for Education ’s Skills for Life campaign and Kindred found that 54% of parents would say they ‘would struggle to know where to start’ if left to their own decisions when helping children with their maths homework.

The Skills for Life campaign is encouraging adults of all ages to up their skills and learn something new, and to boost their confidence when helping their children at home and potentially improve their own career prospects. 

Of the 2,250 adults surveyed, 69% said they use the internet to help solve schoolwork problems and 20% reported using virtual assistants, like Alexa and Google Assistant, to help tutor their kids at home. Maths was revealed to cause the most angst and was voted the least favourite homework subject among parents and grandparents.

The data comes as education groups raise concerns about the growing use of AI in students’ work. Asking a virtual assistant for help on a task you plan to finish yourself is quite different to asking ChatGPT to come up with the answers for you, it raises questions about how much we rely on technology. 

A 16-year-old student identified only as Fiore previously told Metro.co.uk that he turned to ChatGPT when he realised an English essay was due the next day. It’s 2024 after all, and his story serves as a stark reminder that the days of cramming the assignment into an all-nighter or turning to SparkNotes for help are long gone.

Although many people would fear plagiarism detectors or eagle-eyed lecturers spotting AI-generated essays , the student wasn’t afraid about being caught. 

However, not all students are using AI to cheat and not all are using ChatGPT, with some turning to Gemini, which was developed by Google. Chatbots have also been found to be helpful for students with dyslexia when it comes to comprehending in-depth academic texts. 

Jane Basnett, director of digital learning at Downe House School in Berkshire admits that homework can be tricky for parents. ‘In the old days, parents turned to the Encyclopaedia Britannica to find responses, visited the library with their child or they asked a more informed friend,’ she told Metro.co.uk. ‘They had conversations and made discoveries about different topics that perhaps they had not known about before.’ 

This practice, however, has changed drastically now that technology is just one tap, swipe or voice command away. ‘Finding the knowledge is one thing, understanding it and engaging with it properly is another.

‘Parents need to encourage their child to understand the GenAI output and to put their own responses together.

‘These are just the sort of conversations that teachers are having with their students in classrooms across the country. Gen AI (generative artificial intelligence) is a tool that can very quickly do your homework for you but in doing so, it takes away the key important elements of education: learning, discovering and critical thinking.’

One dad, Paul Duggan, 68, from London made a huge life change after realising he couldn’t help his daughter with her homework. He completed a Skills for Life Numeracy course in 2020, when his daughter Rebecca was 10, after she inspired him to sign up.

He has since gone on to achieve a Functional Skills qualification in maths, which is equivalent to a Maths GCSE. 

‘I always had a difficult relationship with maths,’ he said. ‘I think a lot of people do. When my daughter, Rebecca, started needing more help with her homework I realised that if I didn’t tackle my fear of numbers now, not only would I be unable to help, but I’d also risk passing on my negative relationship with maths, which I certainly didn’t want to do.’

Not all parents will be able to find the time to brush up on their maths skills, as they often have to balance full-time jobs, the needs of other children, the cost of living and general life stuff. But for those like Paul who could, it has proven to be invaluable.

‘Signing up to the Skills for Life course was honestly one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. It’s helped boost my confidence with everyday sums, and I’ve also grown a lot closer to my daughter, Rebecca, in the process, helping her solve equations and more complex problems as she studies for her maths GSCE.’

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Does lemon water help you lose weight? A dietitian explains

The internet is rife with quick-fix weight loss tips: Make this one diet change and you'll magically drop 10 pounds!

Lemon water has found itself in that category. Headlines, Instagram posts and TikTok videos laud the beverage as an easy "fat-burning" diet. But these kinds of posts are missing an important component: qualified experts.

"Lemon water is hydrating and naturally acidic – qualities that might make you go to the bathroom after drinking it," Virginia-based registered dietitian and diabetes educator  Caroline Thomason  tells USA TODAY. "If you weighed yourself before and after going to the bathroom, sure, you may find that you’ve lost weight. However, it’s not loss from magically drinking lemon water in the morning."

Here's what licensed nutrition experts actually think about the idea of drinking lemon water for weight loss.

Does lemon water help you lose weight?

The short answer: no.

"As a dietitian, I’m not really sure where this myth originated, but there’s not a magical food or drink that can help you lose body fat," Thomason says. "Unfortunately, the boring basics still work for weight loss: Diet and exercise are the two most important factors you can change to lose weight."

Drinking lemon water could still offer you benefits including providing vitamin C and potassium , and helping to keep you hydrated.

While there's some research to suggest that drinking water before eating a meal may help consumers feel fuller and in turn eat less, experts say there's nothing specific about adding lemon to water that would make someone drop any pounds.

For those looking to lose weight, Thomason recommends starting with the following daily lifestyle tweaks:

• Exercise: Walking, strength training a few times a week and increasing cardio to 150 minutes per week
• Diet: Emphasizing "protein, increasing your fruits and vegetables, swapping refined grains for whole grains, and incorporating healthy fat into your diet"
• Tracking food "to get a better idea of calories you’re taking in per day": While some experts are wary that focusing too much on tracking daily calories can lead to disordered eating, Thomason notes that it can also be beneficial in creating a baseline "awareness of your eating habits and clearly help you see where you can make changes for weight loss."

Benefits of drinking lemon water: Options for healthy, hydrating drinks

Who should not drink lemon water? 

An acidic drink such as lemon water can cause heartburn, especially for those who are prone to acid reflux . There's also some research to suggest citric acid, which is found in lemons, could also erode tooth enamel when consumed regularly over a long period of time.

The fastest way to lose weight? Let's shift the perspective.

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• Criminal Justice

Oklahoma Takes a Step to Help Incarcerated Survivors of Domestic Violence

Some of them are locked up for longer than their abusers. now courts can shorten their sentences..

Samantha Michaels

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Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a bill that will allow courts to shorten the prison sentences of people who can prove they committed their crime because they were experiencing domestic violence—a significant reform in a state that incarcerates many domestic violence survivors for fighting back in self-defense, doing drugs to cope, or failing to protect their kids from the abuse.

Stitt’s decision to approve the Oklahoma Survivors’ Act came last week, after he vetoed a similar bill with the same name in April. Oklahoma has the country’s highest rate of domestic violence per capita and among the highest rates of female incarceration. Under the new law, sentences of life without the possibility of parole could be reduced to 30 years or less; sentences of 30 years or more could be reduced to 20 years or less; and so on.

Incarcerated survivors in Oklahoma cheered the news of the law’s passage, though it came with a catch: To get the governor’s signature, compromise language was inserted into the bill that could make it harder for some of them to shorten their sentences. Bolts reported on the specifics:

The compromise language…raised the burden of proof for those convicted of violent felonies , such as assault, manslaughter, murder, and robbery. To qualify [for resentencing], they must provide documentation that the victim of the crime was also the perpetrator of the defendant’s abuse, the person who trafficked them, or that their action was coerced by their abuser.

Documentation can include trial transcripts, court briefs, law enforcement reports, or other records, according to Colleen McCarty, executive director of the Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, which advocated for the bill.

The compromise language could affect survivors who are incarcerated for failing to protect their kids from an abuser, a plight I covered in a Mother Jones investigation . Although many of these survivors committed no violence themselves, “failing to protect” a child is often charged as a violent felony in Oklahoma. As a result, in order to get resentenced under the new law, these survivors will have to prove that they didn’t stop the child abuse because they were coerced by the abuser. Some of them, disproportionately mothers of color, are serving more prison time than the men who harmed them and their kids.

The Oklahoma Survivors’ Act goes into effect in August . McCarty has already identified more than a dozen people whom her organization plans to help with resentencing petitions under the law.

Oklahoma Is Finally Trying to Cut Prison Time for Abused Moms

She Never Hurt Her Kids. So Why Is a Mother Serving More Time Than the Man Who Abused Her Daughter?

Story by Samantha Michaels, Video by Mark Helenowski

Under Glenn Youngkin, Parole in Virginia Has Nearly Vanished

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A Mass Shooter’s Mother Explains How She’s Trying to Stop the Next Tragedy

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Ozempic Cuts Risk of Chronic Kidney Disease Complications, Study Finds

A major clinical trial showed such promising results that the drug’s maker halted it early.

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By Dani Blum

Dani Blum has reported on Ozempic and similar drugs since 2022.

Semaglutide, the compound in the blockbuster drugs Ozempic and Wegovy , dramatically reduced the risk of kidney complications, heart issues and death in people with Type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease in a major clinical trial, the results of which were published on Friday. The findings could transform how doctors treat some of the sickest patients with chronic kidney disease, which affects more than one in seven adults in the United States but has no cure.

“Those of us who really care about kidney patients spent our whole careers wanting something better,” said Dr. Katherine Tuttle, a professor of medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine and an author of the study. “And this is as good as it gets.” The research was presented at a European Renal Association meeting in Stockholm on Friday and simultaneously published in The New England Journal of Medicine .

The trial, funded by Ozempic maker Novo Nordisk, was so successful that the company stopped it early . Dr. Martin Holst Lange, Novo Nordisk’s executive vice president of development, said that the company would ask the Food and Drug Administration to update Ozempic’s label to say it can also be used to reduce the progression of chronic kidney disease or complications in people with Type 2 diabetes.

Diabetes is a leading cause of chronic kidney disease, which occurs when the kidneys don’t function as well as they should. In advanced stages, the kidneys are so damaged that they cannot properly filter blood. This can cause fluid and waste to build up in the blood, which can exacerbate high blood pressure and raise the risk of heart disease and stroke, said Dr. Subramaniam Pennathur, the chief of the nephrology division at Michigan Medicine.

The study included 3,533 people with kidney disease and Type 2 diabetes, about half of whom took a weekly injection of semaglutide, and half of whom took a weekly placebo shot.

Researchers followed up with participants after a median period of around three and a half years and found that those who took semaglutide had a 24 percent lower likelihood of having a major kidney disease event, like losing at least half of their kidney function, or needing dialysis or a kidney transplant. There were 331 such events among the semaglutide group, compared with 410 in the placebo group.

People who received semaglutide were much less likely to die from cardiovascular issues, or from any cause at all, and had slower rates of kidney decline.

Kidney damage often occurs gradually, and people typically do not show symptoms until the disease is in advanced stages. Doctors try to slow the decline of kidney function with existing medications and lifestyle modifications, said Dr. Melanie Hoenig, a nephrologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center who was not involved with the study. But even with treatment, the disease can progress to the point that patients need dialysis, a treatment that removes waste and excess fluids from the blood, or kidney transplants.

The participants in the study were extremely sick — the severe complications seen in some study participants are more likely to occur in people the later stages of chronic kidney disease, said Dr. George Bakris, a professor of medicine at the University of Chicago Medicine and an author of the study. Most participants in the trial were already taking medication for chronic kidney disease.

For people with advanced kidney disease, in particular, the findings are promising. “We can help people live longer,” said Dr. Vlado Perkovic, a nephrologist and renal researcher at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, and another author of the study.

While the data shows clear benefits, even the researchers studying drugs like Ozempic aren’t sure how, exactly, they help the kidneys. One leading theory is that semaglutide may reduce inflammation, which exacerbates kidney disease.

And the results come with several caveats: Roughly two-thirds of the participants were men and around two-thirds were white — a limitation of the study, the authors noted, because chronic kidney disease disproportionately affects Black and Indigenous patients. The trial participants taking semaglutide were more likely to stop the drug because of gastrointestinal issues, which are common side effects of Ozempic.

Doctors said they wanted to know whether the drug might benefit patients who have kidney disease but not diabetes, and some also had questions about the potential long-term risks of taking semaglutide.

Still, the results are the latest data to show that semaglutide can do more than treat diabetes or drive weight loss. In March, the F.D.A. authorized Wegovy for reducing the risk of cardiovascular issues in some patients. And scientists are examining semaglutide and tirzepatide, the compound in the rival drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound, for a range of other conditions , including sleep apnea and liver disease.

If the F.D.A. approves the new use, it could drive even more demand for Ozempic, which has faced recurrent shortages .

“I think it’s a game changer,” Dr. Hoenig said, “if I can get it for my patients.”

Dani Blum is a health reporter for The Times. More about Dani Blum

A Close Look at Weight-Loss Drugs

Reduced Disease Complications: Semaglutide, the compound in Ozempic and Wegovy, dramatically reduced the risk of kidney complications , heart issues and death in people with Type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease in a major clinical trial.

Supplement Stores: GNC and the Vitamin Shoppe are redesigning displays and taking other steps  to appeal to people who are taking or are interested in drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy.

Senate Investigation: A Senate committee is investigating the prices that Novo Nordisk charges  for Ozempic and Wegovy, which are highly effective at treating diabetes and obesity but carry steep price tags.

A Company Remakes Itself: Novo Nordisk’s factories work nonstop turning out Ozempic and Wegovy , but the Danish company has far bigger ambitions.

Transforming a Small Danish Town: In Kalundborg, population under 17,000, Novo Nordisk is making huge investments to increase production  of Ozempic and Wegovy.

StarTribune

Timberwolves' summer project: jaden mcdaniels and unlocking offensive potential.

Coach Chris Finch had stated a few times in recent weeks that the involvement level of Jaden McDaniels is the "barometer" as to how his Timberwolves are playing in a given game.

If that had been an accurate assessment, then the barometric pressure inside Target Center for Game 5 of the Western Conference finals might have been low enough to create dangerous winds.

Which wouldn't have been the first indoor weather event during this series, since there were raindrops coming from Target Center's sod-covered roof in select areas on the wet day of Game 1.

McDaniels is a true 6-foot-10, a lithe leaper, and started this series by drilling three-pointers from hither and yon to lead the Wolves to a 62-point first half. He finished 9-for-16 with 24 points in that 108-105 opening loss.

By Game 5, McDaniels' teammates were back to ignoring him, he slapped his way to five fouls in frustration, and he finished Thursday night 3-for-6 with eight points in 21 minutes.

He was sitting with two fouls for much of the time when the score went from 18-18 to 40-19 for Dallas and remained the invisible forward — whether sitting or watching Anthony Edwards dribble around, hoping a crack suddenly would appear in the Mavs' wall of defense.

The Ant Man was considerably more dynamic with his postgame interviews than with his play in this series.

Sean Sweeney, the former Cretin-Derham Hall Raider and St. Thomas Tommie, is the defensive specialist on the Mavericks coaching staff . Sweeney might be getting head coaching interviews soon, and he can bring along videos of the Mavs' work vs. Edwards.

He went 11-for-33 in the two home losses that started this series and sealed the Wolves' fate. Ant's numbers were better in Games 3 and 4, but the flurry of threes in the third quarter that saved Edwards' stat line for Game 5 … we love you, Ant, but too late.

As for defense, the Wolves' alleged calling card: They gave up 69 points in the first half, and then the Mavericks waltzed to a 124-103 final .

Meantime, the No. 1 defensive team in the NBA after the trading deadline (the final quarter of the schedule) was Dallas, even with the great scorer, Luka Doncic, shuffling around, offering "guard that guy" points to teammates.

The Mavs gave up a pair of future No. 1 draft picks and expendable players to acquire center Daniel Gafford and forward P.J. Washington at the deadline.

Sweeney was in the crowded Target Center hallway as the Mavs' celebration was winding down in the locker room. He was asked if those trades gave the coaches confidence that this was now a team to make a playoff run.

"For sure," he said. "We had two of the best players in the world, Luka and Kyrie [Irving], but we needed more inside. Rebounding, defense, toughness.

"And an added thing about Luka, with tremendous scoring … he rebounds."

Doncic had 10 rebounds, all defensive, on Thursday. Gafford had nine and Washington seven. And rookie Dereck Lively II, the alternate center with Gafford, had eight.

And if you want a barometric check: McDaniels had one rebound.

Finch and his coaches had a great summer of 2023 figuring out how Rudy Gobert and Karl-Anthony Towns could form a winning combination.

Many observers did not think that was possible. We were wrong, as the Wolves went 56-26 to finish a game out of first place in the rugged Western Conference.

Now, Finch and company have another summer job: figure out how to make consistent use of McDaniels — on both ends of the court, not just defense.

You're paying him a ton. If you're satisfied to have him stand in the left corner and go 1-for-3 on threes with three rebounds, it's a complete waste.

Start giving McDaniels the ball more often to make plays when the schedule starts in late October and, when the playoffs arrive next April, Edwards might not have so many defensive walls to try to maneuver through.

As a comparison in the local sports-scape, the Game 5 flop was remindful of the Vikings' 34-7 debacle in Philadelphia in January 2018, one week after Stefon Diggs and the Minneapolis Miracle.

The manner in which these Timberwolves overcame Denver and Nikola Jokic in the second round was also miraculous. That was over the course of seven unpredictable games, not 10 seconds, but unhappily, our sports barometer was pointed straight down at the finish in both cases.

Patrick Reusse  is a sports columnist who writes three columns per week. Write to Patrick by e-mailing [email protected] and including his name in the subject line.

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• Reusse: Top Mavericks assistant has big fans in Wolves country May. 21
• Connelly plans to stay at the top with soaring Wolves • Wolves
• Reusse: Jaden McDaniels and the Wolves' summer project • Wolves
• Scoggins: Why the boos in Target Center? Wolves offense failed • Wolves
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• Karl-Anthony Towns confident he'll be back with Timberwolves • Wolves

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