Issues in Education: Homework?

Back to School: Cramming Doesn't Work in the Long Term
News release from the Association for Psychological Science, Science Daily, August 29, 2007

When you look back on your school days, doesn't it seem like you studied all the time? However, most of us seem to have retained almost nothing from our early immersion in math, history, and foreign language.

Were we studying the wrong way during all those wee hours? Well, as it turns out we may have been. Psychologists have been assessing how well various study strategies produce long-term learning, and it appears that some strategies really do work much better than others.

Key lessons: What research says about the value of homework
The Center for Public Education, March, 2007

Whether homework helps students—and how much homework is appropriate—has been debated for many years. Homework has been in the headlines again recently and continues to be a topic of controversy, with claims that students and families are suffering under the burden of huge amounts of homework. School board members, educators, and parents may wish to turn to the research for answers to their questions about the benefits and drawbacks of homework. Unfortunately, the research has produced mixed results so far, and more research is needed. Nonetheless, there are some findings that can help to inform decisions about homework. What follows is a summary of the research to date.

"The Truth about Homework: Needless assignments persist
because of widespread misconceptions about learning"
Commentary by Alfie Kohn, Education Week, September 6, 2006

There’s something perversely fascinating about educational policies that are clearly at odds with the available data. Huge schools are still being built even though we know that students tend to fare better in smaller places that lend themselves to the creation of democratic, caring communities. Many children who are failed by the academic status quo are forced to repeat a grade even though research shows that this is just about the worst course of action for them. Homework continues to be assigned—in ever greater quantities—despite the absence of evidence that it’s necessary or even helpful in most cases.

Note: Alfie Kohn is the author of "The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing," 
Da Capo Press, 2006.