Many high schools are getting the message about student stress and are looking for ways to lighten the homework load. "We really need more work on subject matter, on homework quality, on the level of inquisitiveness that it engenders and the way it motivates," says Cooper, who believes high school students need some homework because it can help them learn how to study independently if they move onto college. Harris Cooper, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University and author of "The Battle Over Homework: Common Ground for Administrators, Teachers, and Parents," says homework can lead to improvements in student learning in higher grades if it is designed and implemented properly. Evidence that homework is beneficial to elementary school students is virtually non-existent. (The National Education Association and the National Parent Teachers Association endorse the "10-minute rule," which states that that students should do no more than 10 minutes a night per grade level.) Other studies have identified homework as a major source of stress for all students - a repercussion educators and parents have been calling attention to for years.Īs to its impact on student achievement, the research is at best mixed. Long before Young's letter, however, many schools had already begun to question the assumptions behind homework, namely its academic value and overall appropriateness for students in elementary school.Ī 2015 study published in The American Journal of Family Therapy suggested that elementary students were being assigned significantly more homework than what is recommended. There were a few dissenters, but the buzz the letter generated was the latest and perhaps strongest sign yet that homework - a stalwart tradition of K-12 education in the United States - was in the doghouse. An approving parent posted the letter on her Facebook page and it quickly went viral, eliciting scores of supportive comments from parents, educators, and, of course, students.
Last April, Brandy Young, a second-grade teacher in Texas, sent a short note to her students' parents informing them that she would not assign any homework for the remainder of the school year.
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