Why I Think All Schools Should Abolish Homework

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BY VICKI ABELES APRIL 14, 2017 2:17 PM EDT

How long is your child’s workweek? Thirty hours? Forty? Would it surprise you to learn that some
elementary school kids have workweeks comparable to adults’ schedules? For most children,
mandatory homework assignments push their workweek far beyond the school day and deep into
what any other laborers would consider overtime. Even without sports or music or other school-
sponsored extracurriculars, the daily homework slog keeps many students on the clock as long as
lawyers, teachers, medical residents, truck drivers and other overworked adults. Is it any wonder
that,deprived of the labor protections that we provide adults, our kids are suffering an epidemic of
disengagement, anxiety and depression?

With my youngest child just months away from finishing high school, I’m remembering all the
needless misery and missed opportunities all three of my kids suffered because of their endless
assignments. When my daughters were in middle school, I would urge them into bed before
midnight and then find them clandestinely studying under the covers with a flashlight. We cut back
on their activities but still found ourselves stuck in a system on overdrive, returning home from
hectic days at 6 p.m. only to face hours more of homework. Now, even as a senior with a moderate
course load, my son, Zak, has spent many weekends studying, finding little time for the exercise and
fresh air essential to his well-being. Week after week, and without any extracurriculars, Zak logs a lot
more than the 40 hours adults traditionally work each week — and with no recognition from his
“bosses” that it’s too much. I can’t count the number of shared evenings, weekend outings and
dinners that our family has missed and will never get back.

How much after-school time should our schools really own?

In the midst of the madness last fall, Zak said to me, “I feel like I’m working towards my death. The
constant demands on my time since 5th grade are just going to continue through graduation, into
college, and then into my job. It’s like I’m on an endless treadmill with no time for living.”

My spirit crumbled along with his.

Like Zak, many people are now questioning the point of putting so much demand on children and
teens that they become thinly stretched and overworked. Studies have long shown that there is no
academic benefit to high school homework that consumes more than a modest number of hours
each week. In a study of high schoolers conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development (OECD), researchers concluded that “after around four hours of homework per
week, the additional time invested in homework has a negligible impact on performance.”
In elementary school, where we often assign overtime even to the youngest children, studies have
shown there’s no academic benefit to any amount of homework at all.

Our unquestioned acceptance of homework also flies in the face of all we know about human health,
brain function and learning. Brain scientists know that rest and exercise are essential to good health
and real learning. Even top adult professionals in specialized fields take care to limit their work to
concentrated periods of focus. A landmark study of how humans develop expertise found that elite
musicians, scientists and athletes do their most productive work only about four hours per day.

Yet we continue to overwork our children, depriving them of the chance to cultivate health and learn
deeply, burdening them with an imbalance of sedentary, academic tasks. American high school
students, in fact, do more homework each week than their peers in the average country in the
OECD, a 2014 report found.

It’s time for an uprising.

Already, small rebellions are starting. High schools in Ridgewood, N.J., and Fairfax County, Va.,
among others, have banned homework over school breaks. The entire second grade at Taylor
Elementary School in Arlington, Va., abolished homework this academic year. Burton Valley
Elementary School in Lafayette, Calif., has eliminated homework in grades K through 4. Henry West
Laboratory School, a public K-8 school in Coral Gables, Fla., eliminated mandatory, graded
homework for optional assignments. One Lexington, Mass., elementary school is piloting a
homework-free year, replacing it with reading for pleasure.

Across the Atlantic, students in Spain launched a national strike against excessive assignments in
November. And a second-grade teacher in Texas, made headlines this fall when she quit sending
home extra work, instead urging families to “spend your evenings doing things that are proven to
correlate with student success. Eat dinner as a family, read together, play outside and get your child
to bed early.”

It is time that we call loudly for a clear and simple change: a workweek limit for children, counting
time on the clock before and after the final bell. Why should schools extend their authority far
beyond the boundaries of campus, dictating activities in our homes in the hours that belong to
families? An all-out ban on after-school assignments would be optimal. Short of that, we can at least
sensibly agree on a cap limiting kids to a 40-hour workweek — and fewer hours for younger children.

Resistance even to this reasonable limit will be rife. Mike Miller, an English teacher at Thomas
Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Va., found this out firsthand when
he spearheaded a homework committee to rethink the usual approach. He had read the education
research and found a forgotten policy on the county books limiting homework to two hours a night,
total, including all classes. “I thought it would be a slam dunk” to put the two-hour cap firmly in
place, Miller said.

But immediately, people started balking. “There was a lot of fear in the community,” Miller said. “It’s
like jumping off a high dive with your kids’ future. If we reduce homework to two hours or less, is my
kid really going to be okay?” In the end, the committee only agreed to a homework ban over school
breaks.

Miller’s response is a great model for us all. He decided to limit assignments in his own class to 20
minutes a night (the most allowed for a student with six classes to hit the two-hour max). His
students didn’t suddenly fail. Their test scores remained stable. And they started using their more
breathable schedule to do more creative, thoughtful work.

That’s the way we will get to a sane work schedule for kids: by simultaneously pursuing changes big
and small. Even as we collaboratively press for policy changes at the district or individual school
level, all teachers can act now, as individuals, to ease the strain on overworked kids.

As parents and students, we can also organize to make homework the exception rather than the
rule. We can insist that every family, teacher and student be allowed to opt out of assignments
without penalty to make room for important activities, and we can seek changes that shift practice
exercises and assignments into the actual school day.

We’ll know our work is done only when Zak and every other child can clock out, eat dinner, sleep
well and stay healthy — the very things needed to engage and learn deeply. That’s the basic
standard the law applies to working adults. Let’s do the same for our kids.