Homework is rarely shown to have any impact on achievement, whether that be measured through standardized testing or otherwise. Numerous studies on homework reflect inconsistent results on what it exactly achieves. (And many experts were shocked at this suggestion.) It’s so normalized that it was odd, when seemingly out of nowhere the President of Ireland recently suggested that homework should be banned. The “10-minute rule”, endorsed by the National Parent Teacher Association and National Education Association, is incorporated into most school policies: there’s 10 minutes of homework per day per grade level – as in 20 minutes a day in second grade or 2 hours a day in 12th grade. Kindergartners, who are usually saved from completing a lot of after school work, average about 25 minutes of homework a night (which to note, is 25 minutes too much than is recommended by child development experts). On average, teenagers spend about an hour a day completing homework, which is up 30-45 minutes from decades past. It’s completely normal for families to spend extra hours each night, even on weekends, completing projects, reports, and worksheets. Homework is such a ubiquitous part of school that it’s considered radical to even suggest that lessening it could be good teaching. And finally, it highlights and exacerbates our obsession with ultra-competitive college admissions and job opportunities, and other detrimental faults of making everything about getting ahead.It contributes to negative impacts at home with one’s family, peer relationships, and just general school-life balance, which causes far more problems than homework is meant to solve.Homework is an inequitable practice that harms certain individuals more than others, to the detriment of those with less resources and to minor, if any, improvement for those with resources.Achievement, whether that be measured through standardized tests or general academic knowledge, isn’t correlated to assigning or completing homework. I’ll summarize four main reasons why homework just flat out doesn’t make sense. Throughout this piece, I will outline several research studies and reports that demonstrate how the negative impact of homework is so evident that any mandated homework, outside of some minor catching up or for incredibly niche cases, simply does more harm than good. At Human Restoration Project, one of the core systemic changes we suggest is the elimination of homework.
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