Photo: iStock
The studies are in. The results are conclusive. Homework in elementary school is useless.
In fact, it’s worse than useless. The stress of homework disrupts kids’ sleep and can make them hate school.
Harris Cooper of Duke University is the pre-eminent scholar on homework. Over the course of 16 years, from 1987?2003, he surveyed 120 studies on the efficacy of homework and reviewed another 60 studies in 2006, finding that giving high school kids less than two hours of daily homework moderately furthers their education. But middle school (grades 7 and 8) students only benefit from a small amount of homework. And what about elementary students" Cooper found that homework had no academic benefit on those kids?but it did make them have negative feelings towards school. Cooper?s study came out 10 years ago, but it’s back in the news thanks to posts on Time and Salon by Heather Schumaker, author of It?s OK to Go Up the Slide. She wants to ban all homework in elementary school and argues that if we wanted kids to have better memories and higher test scores we would make sure our kids were getting more sleep, as well as more outdoor time.
The issue is that, no matter how loud or how often researchers say that homework doesn?t help kids, teachers, schools and parents insist that it’s instilling good skills, habits and is a necessary part of kids’ education.
I have fought my fair share of homework battles in the last 10 years, at ...