Rethinking Homework

Best Practices That Support Diverse Needs

Cathy Vatterott

• Publisher: ASCD
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781416626596
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

In this updated edition, Cathy Vatterott examines the role homework has played in the culture of schooling over the years; how such factors as family life, the media, and "homework gap" issues based on shifting demographics have affected the homework controversy; and what recent research as well as common sense tell us about the effects of homework on student learning. She also explores how the current homework debate has been reshaped by forces including the Common Core, a pervasive media and technology presence, the mass hysteria of "achievement culture, " and the increasing shift to standards-based and formative assessment.

The best way to address the homework controversy is not to eliminate homework. Instead, the author urges educators to replace the old paradigm (characterized by long-standing cultural beliefs, moralistic views, and behaviorist philosophy) with a new paradigm based on the following elements:

• Designing high-quality homework tasks;
• Differentiating homework tasks;
• Deemphasizing grading of homework;
• Improving homework completion; and
• Implementing homework support programs.

Numerous examples from teachers and schools illustrate the new paradigm in action, and readers will find useful new tools to start them on their own journey. The end product is homework that works—for all students, at all levels.

---

Chapter 1

---

The Cult(ure) of Homework

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Homework is a long-standing education tradition that, until recently, has seldom been questioned. The concept of homework has become so ingrained in U.S. culture that the word homework is part of the common vernacular, as exemplified by statements such as "Do your homework before taking a trip," "It's obvious they didn't do their homework before they presented their proposal," and "The marriage counselor gave us homework to do."

Homework began generations ago, when schooling consisted primarily of reading, writing, and arithmetic, and rote learning dominated. Simple tasks of memorization and practice were easy for children to do at home, and the belief was that such mental exercise disciplined the mind. Homework has generally been viewed as a positive practice and accepted without question as part of the student routine. But over the years, homework in U.S. schools has evolved from the once simple tasks of memorizing math facts or writing spelling words to complex projects.

As the culture has changed, and as schools and families have changed, homework has become problematic for more and more students, parents, and teachers. The Internet and bookstores are crowded with books offering parents advice on how to get children to do homework. Frequently, the advice for parents is to "remain positive," yet only a handful of books suggest that parents should have the right to question the amount of homework or the value of the task itself. Teachers, overwhelmed by an already glutted curriculum and pressures related to standardized tests, assign homework in an attempt to develop students' skills and extend learning time. At the same time, they are left frustrated when the students who most need more time to learn seem the least likely to complete homework. Teachers are afraid not to give homework for fear of being perceived as "easy."

Despite there being more diversity among learners in our schools than ever, many teachers continue to assign the same homework to all students in the class and continue to disproportionately fail students from lower-income households for not doing homework, in essence punishing them for lack of an adequate environment in which to do homework. At a time when demand for accountability has reached a new high, research fails to prove that homework is worth all that trouble. (The research on homework is discussed in Chapter 3.)

Although many people remain staunchly in favor of homework, a growing number of teachers and parents alike are beginning to question the practice. These critics are reexamining the beliefs behind the practice, the wisdom of assigning hours of homework, the absurdly heavy backpack, and the failure that can result when some students don't complete homework. There's a growing suspicion that something is wrong with homework.

This more critical view represents a movement away from the pro-homework attitudes that have been consistent for decades (Kralovec & Buell, 2000). As a result, a discussion of homework stirs controversy as people debate both sides of the issue. But the arguments both for and against homework are not new, as indicated by a consistent swing of the pendulum over the last 100 years between pro-homework and anti-homework attitudes.

A Brief History of Homework

The history of homework and surrounding attitudes is relevant because the roots of homework dogma developed and became entrenched over the last 100 years. Attitudes toward homework have historically reflected societal trends and the prevailing educational philosophy of the time, and each swing of the pendulum is colored by unique historical events and sentiments that drove the movement for or against homework. Yet the historical arguments on both sides are familiar. They bear a striking similarity to the arguments waged in today's debate over homework.

At the end of the 19th century, attendance in grades 1 through 4 was irregular for many students, and most classrooms were multi-age. Teachers rarely gave homework to primary students (Gill & Schlossman, 2004). By the 5th grade, many students left school for work; fewer continued to high school (Kralovec & Buell, 2000). In the lower grades, school focused on reading, writing, and arithmetic; in grammar school (grades 5 through 8) and high school, students studied geography, history, literature, and math. Learning consisted of drill, memorization, and recitation, which required preparation at home:

At a time when students were required to say their lessons in class in order to demonstrate their academic prowess, they had little alternative but to say those lessons over and over at home the night before. Before a child could continue his or her schooling through grammar school, a family had to decide that chores and other family obligations would not interfere unduly with the predictable nightly homework hours that would go into preparing the next day's lessons. (Gill & Schlossman, 2004, p. 174)

The critical role that children played as workers in the household meant that many families could not afford to have their children continue schooling, given the requisite two to three hours of homework each night (Kralovec & Buell, 2000).

Early in the 20th century, an anti-homework movement became the centerpiece of a nationwide trend toward progressive education. Progressive educators questioned many aspects of schooling: "Once the value of drill, memorization, and recitation was opened to debate, the attendant need for homework came under harsh scrutiny as well" (Kralovec & Buell, 2000, p. 42).

As the field of pediatrics grew, more doctors began to speak out about the effect of homework on the health and well-being of children. The benefits of fresh air, sunshine, and exercise for children were widely accepted, and homework had the potential to interfere. One hundred years ago, rather than diagnosing children with attention deficit disorder, pediatricians simply prescribed more outdoor exercise. Homework was blamed for nervous conditions in children, eyestrain, stress, lack of sleep, and other conditions. Homework was viewed as a culprit that robbed children of important opportunities for social interaction. At the same time, labor leaders were protesting working conditions for adults, advocating for a 40-hour workweek. Child labor laws were used as a justification to protect children from excessive homework.

In 1900, the editor of the Ladies' Home Journal, Edward Bok, began a series of anti-homework articles. He recommended the elimination of homework for all students under the age of 15 and a limit of one hour nightly for older students. His writings were instrumental in the growth of the anti-homework movement of the early 1900s, a harbinger of the important role media would play in future homework debates. By 1930, the anti-homework sentiment had grown so strong that a Society for the Abolition of Homework was formed. Many school districts across the United States voted to abolish homework, especially in the lower grades:

In the 1930s and 1940s, although few districts abolished homework outright, many abolished it in grades K–6. In grades K–3, condemnation of homework was nearly universal in school district policies as well as professional opinion. And even where homework was not abolished, it was often assigned only in small amounts—in secondary schools as well as elementary schools. (Gill & Schlossman, 2000, p. 32)

After the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik 1 satellite in 1957, the trend toward less homework was quickly reversed as the United States became obsessed with competing with the Russians. Fearful that children were unprepared to compete in a future that would be increasingly dominated by technology, school officials, teachers, and parents saw homework as a means for accelerating children's acquisition of knowledge:

The homework problem was reconceived as part of a national crisis: the U.S. was losing the Cold War because Russian children were smarter; that is, they were working harder and achieving more in school … the new discourse pronounced too little homework an indicator of the dismal state of American schooling. A commitment to heavy homework loads was alleged to reveal seriousness of purpose in education; homework became an instrument of national defense policy. (Gill & Schlossman, 2004, p. 176)

Within a few short years, public opinion had swung back to the pro-homework position. During this period, many schools overturned policies abolishing or limiting homework that had been established between 1900 and 1940. However, homework in the early elementary grades was still rare (Gill & Schlossman, 2004).

By the late 1960s and early 1970s, in the midst of the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement, a counterculture emerged that questioned the status quo in literally every aspect of personal and political life. A popular book, Teaching as a Subversive Activity (Postman & Weingartner, 1969), attacked traditional methods of what was labeled "the educational establishment." Indicative of the times, a new debate emerged over homework and other educational activities. The anti-homework arguments were reminiscent of the progressive arguments of the early 20th century—again, homework was seen as a symptom of too much pressure on students to achieve.

Two prominent educational organizations went on record opposing excessive homework. The American Educational Research Association stated,

Whenever homework crowds out social experience, outdoor recreation, and creative activities, and whenever it usurps time that should be devoted to sleep, it is not meeting the basic needs of children and adolescents. (In Wildman, 1968, p. 204)

The National Education Association issued this statement in 1966:

It is generally recommended (a) that children in the early elementary school have no homework specifically assigned by the teacher; (b) that limited amounts of homework—not more than an hour a day—be introduced during the upper elementary school and junior high years; (c) that homework be limited to four nights a week; and (d) that in secondary school no more than one and a half hours a night be expected. (In Wildman, 1968, p. 204)

Not surprisingly, by the late 1960s and during the 1970s, parents were arguing that children should be free to play and relax in the evenings, and again the amount of homework decreased (Bennett & Kalish, 2006).

But by the 1980s the pendulum would swing again. In 1983, the study A Nation at Risk became the "first major report by the government attempting to prove that the purported inadequacies of our schools and our students were responsible for the troubles of the U.S. economy" (Kralovec & Buell, 2000, p. 50). The report claimed that there was a "rising tide of mediocrity" in schools and that a movement for academic excellence was needed (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983). A Nation at Risk planted the seed of the idea that school success was responsible for economic success. It ratcheted up the standards, starting what has been called the "intensification movement"—the idea that education can be improved if only there is more of it, in the form of longer school years, more testing, more homework. A Nation at Risk explicitly called for "far more homework" for high school students.

In 1986, the U.S. Department of Education published What Works, which also recommended homework as an effective learning strategy. "Whenever you come across a particularly savage attack on the state of public education, it's a safe bet that a call for more homework (and other get-tough messages) will be sounded as well" (Kohn, 2006, p. 120).

The pro-homework trend continued into the 1990s, as the push for higher standards resulted in the conclusion that more homework was a remedy. As noted earlier, this was not the first time homework became the scapegoat for the perceived inadequacies of public education:

Whenever reformers attempt to improve the academic outcomes of American schooling, more homework seems a first step. The justification for this probably has more to do with philosophy (students should work harder) and with the ease of implementation (increased homework costs no extra money and requires no major program modifications) than with new research findings. (Strother, in Connors, 1991, p. 14)

During the late 1980s and the early 1990s, an occasional journal article would question whether more homework was necessarily better, but those voices were few and far between. Most journal articles and popular books about homework took the safe position of being pro-homework and focused on strategies for getting children to complete homework. In 1989, Harris Cooper (now considered a leading expert on homework research) published an exhaustive synthesis of research on homework (1989a) that seemed to have little effect on popular practice and received little media attention. In 1994, a board member in the school district of Half Moon Bay, California, made national news by recommending that the district abolish homework. The board member "was widely vilified in the national press as just another California kook" (Gill & Schlossman, 1996, p. 57). The general media reaction was dismissive; the story was treated as cute and quirky, as if the idea of abolishing homework were just plain crazy.

By the late 1990s, however, the tide would turn against homework once more. With increasing frequency, articles critical of traditional homework practices were published in educational journals. In 1998, the American Educational Research Association conducted a symposium on homework practices. In 1998, Harris Cooper's latest research about homework (Cooper, Lindsay, Nye, & Greathouse, 1998) garnered much more public attention, catapulting the topic of homework into the popular press and landing him on Oprah and Today. In March 1998, the cover of Newsweek featured an article titled "Does Your Child Need a Tutor?" along with another article titled "Homework Doesn't Help" (Begley, 1998). In January 1999, Time magazine's cover story, "The Homework That Ate My Family" (Ratnesar, 1999), generated considerable media buzz. It portrayed homework as an intrusion on family tranquility and as just one more stressor in an already overstressed life, especially for two-career families. The article also cited a University of Michigan study showing that homework for 6- to 8-year-olds had increased by more than 50 percent from 1981 to 1997.

As homework increased, especially for the youngest students, and parents began feeling overwhelmed, stories detailing the struggle appeared widely in the popular press. Now the mood was one of concern for overworked students and parents. In 2000, Piscataway, New Jersey, received national attention for implementing a homework policy that limited the amount of homework, discouraged weekend homework, and forbade teachers from counting homework in the grade (Kohn, 2006). Unlike the story about Half Moon Bay only six years earlier, this story was given serious media coverage, and the school district was deluged by requests from schools seeking a copy of the policy.

Also in 2000, Etta Kralovec and John Buell's book The End of Homework: How Homework Disrupts Families, Overburdens Children, and Limits Learning received massive media attention and spawned an ongoing debate between the anti-homework and pro-homework contingents. In 2006, two popular-press books kept the debate going: Alfie Kohn's The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing, and Sara Bennett and Nancy Kalish's The Case Against Homework: How Homework Is Hurting Our Children and What We Can Do About It.

Since the first edition of this book was published in 2009, the debate has continued, with a strong anti-homework movement emerging, similar to the anti-homework cycles of the 1930s and 1940s and the late 1960s to early 1970s. Canada and the United Kingdom were two of the earliest countries to sound the alarm: a ban on primary homework was recommended in the United Kingdom in 2009, and in 2010, Toronto's school policy prohibited homework in kindergarten and on weekends and holidays. Around the same time, a smattering of elementary schools in the United States began limiting or eliminating homework. More and more newspaper articles appeared questioning the value of homework: "Do Kids Today Have Too Much Homework?" (Lawrence, 2015), "Homework: Is There Any Point?" (Norton, 2013), "As Students Return to School, Debate About the Amount of Homework Rages" (Hauser, 2016). In 2013, a particularly influential article appeared in The Atlantic. Titled "My Daughter's Homework Is Killing Me," th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Dedication
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• 1. The Cult(ure) of Homework
• 2. Homework in the Context of the New Family
• 3. Homework Research and Common Sense
• 4. Effective Homework Practices
• 5. Homework Completion Strategies and Support Programs
• Afterword
• Appendix A. Homework Survey for Students (Short Version)
• Appendix B. Homework Survey for Students
• Appendix C. Homework Survey for Teachers
• Appendix D. Homework Survey for Parents
• Appendix E. Homework Policy Planning Template
• Appendix F. Calgary Roman Catholic School District Number 1 Administrative Procedures Manual
• References
• Related ASCD Resources
• About the Author
• Copyright