Is Homework Good for Kids?

Here's
What the Research Says
Katie Reilly
Aug 30, 2016
As kids return to school, debate is heating up once
again over how they should spend their time after they
leave the classroom for the day.
The no-homework policy of a second-grade teacher in
Texas went viral last week, earning praise from parents
across the country who lament the heavy
workloadoften assigned to young students. Brandy
Young told parents she would not formally assign any
homework this year, asking students instead to eat
dinner with their families, play outside and go to bed
early.
But the question of how much work children should be
doing outside of school remains controversial, and
plenty of parents take issue with no-homework
policies, worried their kids are losing a potential
academic advantage. Here's what you need to know:
The issue
For decades, the homework standard has been a "10-
minute rule," which recommends a daily maximum of
10 minutes of homework per grade level. Second
graders, for example, should do about 20 minutes of
homework each night. High school seniors should
complete about two hours of homework each night.
The National PTA and the National Education
Association both support that guideline.
But some schools have begun to give their youngest
students a break. A Massachusetts elementary school
has announced a no-homework pilot program for the
coming school year, lengthening the school day by two
hours to provide more in-class instruction. "We really
want kids to go home at 4 o'clock, tired. We want their
brain to be tired," Kelly Elementary School Principal
Jackie Glasheen said in an interview with a local TV
station. "We want them to enjoy their families. We
want them to go to soccer practice or football practice,
and we want them to go to bed. And that's it."
A New York City public elementary school implemented
a similar policy last year, eliminating traditional
homework assignments in favor of family time. The
change was quickly met with outrage from some
parents, though it earned support from other education
leaders.
New solutions and approaches to homework differ by
community, and these local debates are complicated
by the fact that even education experts disagree about
what's best for kids.
The research
The most comprehensive research on homework to
date comes from a 2006 meta-analysis by Duke
University psychology professor Harris Cooper, who
found evidence of a positive correlation between
homework and student achievement, meaning
students who did homework performed better in
school. The correlation was stronger for older students
—in seventh through 12th grade—than for those in
younger grades, for whom there was a weak
relationship between homework and performance.
Cooper's analysis focused on how homework impacts
academic achievement—test scores, for example. His
report noted that homework is also thought to improve
study habits, attitudes toward school, self-discipline,
inquisitiveness and independent problem solving skills.
On the other hand, some studies he examined showed
that homework can cause physical and emotional
fatigue, fuel negative attitudes about learning and limit
leisure time for children. At the end of his analysis,
Cooper recommended further study of such potential
effects of homework.
Despite the weak correlation between homework and
performance for young children, Cooper argues that a
small amount of homework is useful for all students.
Second-graders should not be doing two hours of
homework each night, he said, but they also shouldn't
be doing no homework.
The debate
Not all education experts agree entirely with Cooper's
assessment.
Cathy Vatterott , an education professor at the
University of Missouri-St. Louis, supports the "10-
minute rule" as a maximum, but she thinks there is not
sufficient proof that homework is helpful for students in
elementary school.
"Correlation is not causation," she said. "Does
homework cause achievement, or do high achievers do
more homework?"
Vatterott, the author of Rethinking Homework: Best
Practices That Support Diverse Needs, thinks there
should be more emphasis on improving the quality of
homework tasks, and she supports efforts to eliminate
homework for younger kids.
"I have no concerns about students not starting
homework until fourth grade or fifth grade," she said,
noting that while the debate over homework will
undoubtedly continue, she has noticed a trend toward
limiting, if not eliminating, homework in elementary
school.
The issue has been debated for decades. A TIME cover
in 1999 read: "Too much homework! How it's hurting
our kids, and what parents should do about it."
Theaccompanying story noted that the launch of
Sputnik in 1957 led to a push for better math and
science education in the U.S. The ensuing pressure to
be competitive on a global scale, plus the increasingly
demanding college admissions process, fueled the
practice of assigning homework.
"The complaints are cyclical, and we’re in the part of
the cycle now where the concern is for too much,"
Cooper said. "You can go back to the 1970s, when
you’ll find there were concerns that there was too little,
when we were concerned about our global
competitiveness."
Cooper acknowledged that some students really are
bringing home too much homework, and their parents
are right to be concerned.
"A good way to think about homework is the way you
think about medications or dietary supplements," he
said. "If you take too little, they’ll have no effect. If you
take too much, they can kill you. If you take the right
amount, you’ll get better."