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

Kralovec, Etta; Buell, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0807042196 ISBN 13: 9780807042199

Publisher: Beacon Press, 2001

Synopsis

The Book That Ignited the Great Homework Debate Etta Kralovec and John Buell are educators who dared to challenge one of the most widely accepted practices in American schools. Their provocative argument first published in this book, featured in Time and Newsweek, in numerous women's magazines, on national radio and network television broadcasts, was the first openly to challenge the gospel of "the more homework the better." Consider: * In 1901, homework was legally banned in parts of the U.S. There are no studies showing that assigning homework before junior high school improves academic achievement. * Increasingly, students and their parents are told that homework must take precedence over music lessons, religious education, and family and community activities. As the homework load increases (and studies show it is increasing) these family priorities are neglected. * Homework is a great discriminator, effectively allowing students whose families "have" to surge ahead of their classmates who may have less. * Backpacks are literally bone-crushing, sometimes weighing as much as the child. Isn't it obvious we're overburdening our kids?

About this title

About the Author

Etta Kralovec, a recent Fulbright Fellow, took her Ed.D. from Teachers College, Columbia University. She was a high school teacher for over twelve years and professor of education and director of teacher education at the College of the Atlantic for eleven years.

John Buell, author of Democracy by Other Means and Sustainable Democracy, took his Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts. He has taught at the College of the Atlantic.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The End of Homework

How Homework Disrupts Families, Overburdens Children, and Limits LearningBy Etta Kralovec

Beacon Press

Copyright © 2001 Etta Kralovec
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780807042199

Preface

Beth sits in increasing horror as her daughter's fifth-grade teacherreproaches the class's parents: "Many of the kids have after-schoolactivities like Hebrew school or town soccer league or piano lessons,but you should all remember that homework must alwaystake priority."

    Every night Helene dreads coming home to a familiar scene:her fourth-grade daughter sits surrounded by a mess of papers atthe kitchen counter, grumpy or weepy, unable to complete herhomework and making everyone else share her misery.

    Bob hardly ever sees his son, a sophomore in high school whodoes an average of four hours of homework a night and also workson the school paper, competes in debate, and manages the schooltrack team?all at his guidance counselor's urging. Greg leaves forschool at 6:30 A.M., rarely gets home before 6:00 P.M., and almostnever joins the family for dinner, since he always has exams to preparefor or papers to write. His weekends are often entirely consumedby meets, debates, and study.

    Pat sits in an orthopedic surgeon's waiting room. Her daughter,Anna, has had back pain for quite some time. Pat is convincedthat her daughter's thirty-eight-pound backpack is contributingto her daughter's back problems. Anna is not alone. The AmericanAcademy of Orthopedic Surgeons (A.A.O.S.) reported that thousandsof kids have back, neck, and shoulder pain caused by theirheavy backpacks.

    Margie phones her best friend Edna practically every night for"help" on the math homework. She really doesn't get fractions.What she really wants are the answers to the problems, and mostof the time she gets them. Neither girl wants to cheat, but Margiedefinitely will get into trouble if she doesn't turn in the homeworkand Edna just can't say no to her friend.

    For the past eight years, we have been writing and speakingabout the problems associated with homework. During this time,we have never ceased to be amazed by the strong initial reaction toour work: "What? Are you crazy? Homework is good for kids,"or, "How can we compete with the Japanese if our kids don't dohomework?" Equally amazing, however, has been the number offolks who eventually come back to us and say, "You're right aboutone thing: homework is making a mess of our family life."

    For a number of reasons, we believe that it is time for a publicdiscussion about the place of homework in the daily lives ofschools, children, and families. The topic is central to current debatesabout school reform. Before we abandon the public schoolsystem in favor of some form of privatization, we need to take ahard look at the schooling practices that undermine social life andcontribute to a growing sense of alienation and stress in students,their families, and the larger community.

    Life for American families has changed dramatically over thepast twenty years. The requirements and expectations of theworkplace now take up a substantially greater proportion of theadult's day. It's not just the well-documented longer hours but alsothe cell phone, the portable computer, and e-mail that extend theworking day. This phenomenon is an increasingly common topicon talk shows, in news analyses, and at neighborhood barbecues.

    Work and schoolwork are part of our system of core values,and they play a vital role in our lives, but they do not define the totalityof those lives. It is entirely legitimate and appropriate periodicallyto question the extent to which even core values shoulddominate our existence. Discussion about reasonable homeworklimits is more than just a debate about education; it provides an entréeinto other core concerns about our civilization.

    We live in dread of what might happen if the enormoushomework burden borne by our students and their families wasreduced. We fear falling further behind other nations on certainstandardized tests. We are afraid our kids won't perform wellenough to get into the best colleges. We seem to have lost sight ofthe importance of family and community life.

    If parents were no longer held captive by the demands of theirchildren's schools, they could develop their own priorities forfamily life. If students were permitted more freedom to structuretheir own time and to explore their own interests, they would findit much easier to develop both an authentic self and a meaningfulsocial life.

    We believe that reform in homework practices is central to apolitics of family and personal liberation. Taking back our homelives will allow us to begin the process of enriching our communitylives. Drawing a clearer line between the school and thehome may enable families to reconstitute themselves as families,and help parents pass on to their children something other thanthe exhaustion of endless work.

Introduction

"There's just too much," Janet whispered to another motherduring soccer practice at their children's elementary school inthe coastal community of Blue Hill, Maine. Later that afternoon,over vegetables at the market, Rosalie asked a friend, "Do youthink they have too much homework?"

    The same question was repeated throughout the communityas the amount of homework assigned to the seventh grade keptgrowing. Finally a group of mothers approached the principalabout the issue. Principal Patrick Phillips did what most prudentschool administrators would do: he formed a committee.

    Fourteen interested members of the school board and thecommunity at large met to grapple with what a small group ofparents perceived as the "homework problem." Two key issues laybehind the parents' concern. First was the stress experienced bythe middle school students as they tried to balance the demands ofhomework with extracurricular activities and the need for familytime. Second was the inequity inherent in the fact many studentslacked the resources at home to compete on an equal footing withthose of their peers who had computers, highly educated parents,and virtually unlimited funds for school supplies.

    The committee members were charged with formulating anew homework policy that would ultimately be presented to theschool board for approval. In late fall 1994, the group identifiedthe major concerns and questions being voiced around town:

    What is homework? How much homework is too much?What are and should be the purposes of homework? Can differentassignments be given to different kids in one class? Who is responsiblefor homework?kids or their parents? How is homeworkgraded, scored, or assessed? What about quality versus quantity?How are age and developmental level factored into assignments?Is stress management an issue? How do extracurricular activities?school-sponsoredand family-based?factor in? What's thebest way to deal with students who put extra time into theirwork (i.e., the overachievers)? How are assignments coordinatedamong teachers?

    Principal Phillips provided committee members with packetscontaining the homework policies of schools in surroundingcommunities, as well as recommendations from organizationssuch as the National School Boards Association. The real debatebegan at the next meeting, when members reported that studentshad said there was more homework in the middle school than atthe local high school. The two school board representatives on thecommittee, the only men other than the principal, stressed thevalue of homework in instilling a sense of responsibility in studentsand in helping them learn to budget their time.

    The other committee members, mothers all, agreed that responsibilityand effective time management were important, butthey wondered aloud if there weren't other ways for kids to masterthose same qualities. Some noted that the vast economic disparitybetween the richest and the poorest in the community might havea significant impact on the poorer students' ability to do homework.One mother raised the question of the stress caused by excessivehomework. On the positive side, a few mothers suggestedthat when the kids actually completed all their homework, theyfelt better about themselves.

    After two months of meetings, the committee realized thathomework was merely a piece of a much larger puzzle: any discussionof homework needed to be coordinated with considerationof many other aspects of the school, including its overall philosophyand value placed on its athletic program, as well as the community'sown beliefs about learners.

    The school board wanted a new policy to be presented at anearly-spring meeting. Anxious to prepare a statement that wouldreflect the central themes raised in its discussions, the committeewent about the task of setting time limits for homework in eachgrade while stressing the need for equity, coordination, and supportfor individual differences.

    Probably no one was really surprised that the homework timerecommendations forwarded to the school board in April 1995were exactly the same as those put forth in the previous homeworkpolicy, adopted in January 1987. Although the new policy wasmore complete in the sense that it made explicit the concernsraised by the committee, its substance remained unchanged, prescribingso many minutes of homework a night, increasing to onehour by middle school.

    According to Blue Hill principal Phillips, homework debatesare framed by two often competing American beliefs, the twindemands for excellence and equity in education. Because schoolscannot control the home environment, homework raises the profoundlydifficult question of how to achieve a level playing field.

    Phillips also reflected that the very topic of homework blurredthe lines between education and social services. For him, the"homework problem" comprised issues that cast the school inthe role of a social service agency, a role he did not feel it shouldplay.

    The work of his committee raised the question of the limits ofthe school's authority and mission, and tested the boundary betweenthe home and the school. While the school's philosophy isbased on a belief in the importance of educating the whole child,the committee's work asked, in effect, how we can raise "wholechildren" when they have little time to do anything other thanschoolwork. As Phillips put it, "How can you become a wholeperson, a sane person? We need to reconsider our time priorities."And yet the new-old policy provided no relief for Janet and Rosalieor their children.

    In other communities, the debate has been less restrained thanthe exchange in Blue Hill. Even as Blue Hill worked through itshomework debates, the coastal community of Half Moon Bay,California, was grappling with the same issues. When a schoolboard member there called for an end to homework, Half MoonBay got its fifteen minutes of fame: the board member appearedon national television, and the news story was picked up aroundthe world. Headlines on the front page of the Los Angeles Timesread "Kicking Homework Out of School: Half Moon Bay ConsidersAbolishing an Educational Icon. Proposal Ignites a GlobalStorm and Refuels Debate over Whether Such Assignments ReallyHelp."

HOMEWORK AND THE CONTEMPORARY FAMILY

Why write a book about homework? Like mowing the lawnor taking out the garbage, homework seems to be a fact of life.Whether we live in a city, in a small town, on a farm, or in a housingdevelopment, when our kids get into school, the homeworkbegins to come home. Parents did their homework in their ownday?or didn't do it, but don't tell their children that. We havegenerally accepted, or at least resigned ourselves to, our kids' havingthe same obligations.

    One reason we have written this book is that the subject ofhomework is once again on the political agenda in Washington.President Clinton has emphasized the importance of parents'spending more time helping their children with homework.Nonetheless, even as the President and Congress urge us to hit thebooks with our kids, homework is not always treated with the reverenceit was once accorded. In magazines and on TV talk showsand news specials, the common wisdom that more is always betterwith regard to homework is beginning to be questioned. And ifthe debates in towns such as Blue Hill and Half Moon Bay are anyindication, local school boards are likely to face this issue with increasingfrequency in the next few years.

    We have found that questioning homework's value nearly alwaysevokes an impassioned response. Challenging the practicerequires us to "think outside the box," to use business parlance.And thinking outside the box has never been popular in the worldof education. Experimentalism is fine for science and business, thefeeling seems to be, but when it comes to the education of ourkids, give us the tried and true. Parents survived their own childhoodhomework experiences and worry if their children aren'texposed to the same demands.

    Parents have high aspirations for their children, and homeworkis one way they believe they can help them get ahead. Teachershave structured their classroom life around homework, and revisingthe practice would mean changing the very way schooloperates. Politicians and policy elites have focused public attentionon getting students to work harder, rather than on doingsomething about the deteriorating state of public schooling inAmerica. All of these factors have the effect of closing out the possibilityof even discussing the topic.

    In order to read this book, you, the reader, must suspend yourbelief that homework is the sure road to lifetime achievement, andthat by helping your child with his or her homework, you are beinga responsible parent. This book asks you to examine the effectof homework on the quality of life in your home, especially inyour relationships with your children. We are asking that you reflecton the experiences you and your children must forgo to completehomework assignments. We hope that while reading thisbook, you will open up a dialogue with your children, solicit theirviews on homework, and listen to their concerns. We also recommendthat you talk to your friends about the ideas that are presentedhere.

    We all have a sense that things are going terribly wrong in oursociety. In opening our minds to the possibility that central socialpractices could be different, we are taking the first step towardchange. Maybe the social and economic order we accept as an articleof faith makes unreasonable demands of both children andparents. Perhaps children would thrive and even learn better, notonly in the long run but even on a day-to-day basis, if they had alittle more space for a world of play and fantasy, if their lives werenot fully colonized by the demands of schools or parents. It is ourconviction that, at the very least, we would all benefit from a sustainedconsideration of these alternatives. If the case for homeworkis as solid as its proponents claim, it can stand a little exploratorycritique.

HOMEWORK, LEISURE TIME, AND ECONOMICS

Simply put, American parents no longer have the time to givetheir children the help they need with their homework. The demandsmade on full-time workers have increased dramatically inthe last quarter century, reflecting the ability of corporations torequire longer hours; the desperation of employees who are, orwho fear, slipping down the economic pyramid; and the declineof organized labor as an effective influence in protecting the rightsof workers. Economist Barry Bluestone reports that in the lasttwo decades the average two-earner couple has taken on an additionalfour months of full-time work outside the home, but hasseen only an 18 percent gain in total wages over that same span.The increased transportation, clothing, and child care costs incurredby two-income families mean that most have been barelyable to maintain the status quo. And only in the most educatedsegment of the workforce do two-income families manage tokeep pace with inflation.

    But if time pressures are primarily economic, they also reflectequally broad cultural trends. The two-decade explosion in therate of divorce and the consequent number of families in whichone parent?usually the father?is absent mean that economic,educational, and household responsibilities all fall on the otherparent, typically a single mother. Then, too, the kind of communityin which that single mother must meet her obligations has itselfchanged dramatically. The extended family, or even the kindof community in which one knows and trusts one's neighbors, isdisappearing. Women who used to be mainstays of their middle-classneighborhoods now work outside the home.

    As the old saying goes, the rich have gotten richer. Over thelast two decades, the middle class has shrunk. Shifts in the tax burdento the working class, the erosion of tax breaks for families,massive cuts in federal assistance for college, and a new class of thepermanently unemployed, characterize contemporary Americanlife. Whereas schools in middle- and upper-middle-class communitiesmay boast computer labs, indoor swimming pools, or state-of-the-artfacilities, schools in poor communities may be closedfor good due to asbestos contamination. The face they show to thecommunity is boarded-up windows, metal detectors, and chain-linkfences. Jonathan Kozol, in his work Savage Inequalities, remindsus that differences in income and job security among communitiestranslate into disparities in educational funding and thusinto severely unequal educational opportunities.

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

    Political or popular reluctance to fund the public schools furtherexacerbates this situation. As quality and morale deteriorate,parents' dissatisfaction increases, and vouchers and private educationbecome the preferred escape for some. In such a context, policyelites can still insist that schools perform up to standards andthat students work as hard as possible both in and out of school.Yet there are reasons to believe that such a strategy will inevitablyfail.

    Those who demand that our schools employ tougher standardsand testing to ensure that American students will measureup to the purported global norm often forget that education is farbetter supported in other highly industrialized countries. Moreover,these critics are engaged in a kind of apples-to-oranges comparison.In many cases, the foreign students who do best representa much smaller segment of their nation's population, or are olderwhen they take the tests.

    We would argue that homework is likely to become one of thesignature issues of the next decade. It is a classic case of an irresistibleforce meeting an immovable object. The belief of many corporateand business leaders is that the problems of poverty and joblessnesscan be solved if only our students will study harder andperform better in the workplace. Failing such a miracle cure, theseleaders hope to convince a large majority of America that such acourse is the only appropriate one in any case, that hard work is theAmerican way, and that it always pays off.

    Fortunately or unfortunately, those being asked to shoulderthis burden at home, parents and students, simply cannot rise tothe challenge. The time and the cultural and educational resourcesrequired are just not there.

    We would like to suggest that the inability to meet the challengeof working longer and harder at home may be an opportunityrather than a tragedy. Our own backgrounds in education andpolitical economy have led us to take a longer-term look at therole homework has played in our educational and economic history,at the research on which faith in homework is based, and atthe place that homework actually occupies in families embeddedwithin different cultural and economic strata within our society.

    Our hope is that by asking readers to contemplate the connectionsbetween such seemingly disparate topics as hours at work,the global economy, homework, and the quality of family life, wemay initiate a broadly democratic discussion of some of our mostfundamental practices and the ways in which they do or do notserve our best interests. If there is one thing we are sure about, it isthis: homework has not always played the same role in Americanlife, and the demands we make of our children often reflect theworst as well as the best in ourselves.

Continues...

Excerpted from The End of Homeworkby Etta Kralovec Copyright © 2001 by Etta Kralovec. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Beacon Press
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0807042196
• ISBN 13: 9780807042199
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 132