The Truth about Homework

Alfie Kohn, in his article, "The Truth about Homework," in School-Age Notes (November 2006; www.SchoolAgeNotes.com) makes these observations...

"There is something perversely fascinating about education 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 even greater quantities — despite the absence of evidence that it's necessary or even helpful in most cases.

"The dimensions of that last disparity weren't clear to me until I started sifting throught the research for a new book. To begin with, I found that decades of investigation have failed to turn up any evidence that homework is beneficial for students in elementary school. Even if you regard standardized test results as a useful measure, homework (some versus none, or more versus less) isn't even correlated with higher scores at these ages. The only effect that does show up is more negative attitudes on the part of students who get more assignments....

"In short, regardless of one's criteria, there is no reason to think that most students would be at any sort of disadvantage if homework were sharply reduced or even eliminated. Nevertheless, the overwhelming majority of American schools — elementary, secondary, public, and private — continue to require their students to work a second shift by bringing academic assignments home. Not only is this requirement accepted uncritically, but the amount of homework is growing, particularly in early grades....."

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