Tom Loveless, Brown Center on Education Policy, Brookings Institution and RAND Corporation
October 1, 2003
Over the last several years, reports Tom Loveless of the Brookings Institution, when it comes to homework the "typical story" in U.S. newspapers and magazines has been that "dramatic increases in the amount of homework are robbing American students of their childhood, turning kids off learning, and destroying family life." Yet according to this new report by Loveless, released yesterday by Brookings Institution, "Almost everything in this story is wrong." Indeed, the intensifying anti-homework revolution is the result not of an actual increase in the amount of homework assigned to the typical student - in fact the opposite appears to be true - but in the over-dramatization of anecdotal evidence from a few schools and families. In other words, yes, a handful of kids are buried in homework, but the typical American student is not. In truth, "the amount of weekly time devoted to studying increased from 1 hour 53 minutes in 1981 to two hours 16 minutes in 1997." That's an increase of 23 minutes per week - and means the average student spends 19 to 27 minutes on homework per day. Hardly cause for alarm. Even more interesting, the number of students who do any homework each week actually shrank between 1981 and 1997. Among children ages 9-12, for instance, 62 percent spent time doing homework in 1997 compared with 82 percent in 1981. So while the average amount of time some students spent doing homework rose slightly, the overall number of students who studied at home at all dropped significantly. This is worthwhile reading for anyone seeking the truth about how much homework our kids can handle. To get a copy for yourself, go to http://brookings.edu/comm/news/20031001brown.htm.
"Not quite piling on the homework," by Jay Mathews, Washington Post, October 1, 2003
