Schools: the homework controversy

NPR - Educators and researchers have noticed a trend for years now: More teachers are moving away from homework. Some educators and parents say this is a good thing, and students shouldn't spend six or more hours a day at school and have more schoolwork to complete at home. But the research on homework is complex. Some studies show that students who spend more time on homework perform better than their peers. A 2021 longitudinal study of more than 6,000 students in Germany, Uruguay and the Netherlands found that lower-performing students who increased their time on math homework improved in the subject, even one year later. But other studies also show minimal effects of homework on academic performance. A 1998 study of more than 700 U.S. students found that assigning more homework in the elementary grades had no significant effect on standardized test scores. Here’s what else we know about the debate over homework:

✏️ Just like other skills that require training, mastering academic subjects, particularly math, requires practice. Some experts worry that decreasing homework could threaten math achievement at a time when math scores across the U.S. are already low.
✏️ Artificial intelligence has complicated the homework debate. An EdWeek Research Center survey found that 40% of teachers had decreased homework assignments over the past two years. Of those, 29% said that students' AI use had lessened the value of the task.
✏️ Education groups and researchers generally recommend 10 minutes of homework each night per grade level. But it is almost impossible to assign work that will take every student the same amount of time to complete.