Hacker News Reader

Comment by btilly | Hacker News Reader

Wonderful.

Now can we pay attention to all of the research saying that homework creates stress but doesn't work, and have schools stop assigning so much?

More precisely, the research shows that homework done right helps, done wrong hurts, and the result is that more homework increases the correlation between parent's socioeconomic status and student performance. But on average is approximately net neutral for learning.

But there is one very strong correlation. More homework means more conflict in the home...

View on HN

FWIW my 5-year-old started kindergarten this year, and not only is he given about two hours of homework a week (expected to be spread out over a few days), but he is expected to do it without parental help/supervision, beyond getting him started/explaining the assignment (because he can't read).

If you've ever been around a 5-year-old boy, you know how ridiculous this is.

2 hours of homework at 5? That's nuts. 5 year olds should play, and learn through play, not through study.

I've got the feeling even my 10 year old doesn't get 2 hours of homework per week (or if he does, he doesn't tell me).

(I also recently learned that Dutch schools have stopped standardised tests at kindergarten. I was appalled when my oldest son had to do those.)

My 5th grader has never had homework. Each year the new teacher says the same thing: homework has been conclusively proven to not only provide no benefit, and actually to increase negative outcomes. Each teacher says she stopped assigning homework about 5 to 15 years ago, and the result has been categorically positive.

You are misinformed about research on homework. Even when you control for socioeconomic status homework has a large positive impact. [This is a nice review of many papers](http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar0...). The only place where homework is questionable is for very young children, like in kindergarten.

Gains from homework in primary school are derisory and not much better in middle school. Even in high school the gains are a quarter of a standard deviation. Not worth the enormous cost in time, sleep and stress.

———

Homework and attainment in primary schools

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1080/014119299025...

The findings indicated that the highest test scores were achieved by those pupils who reported doing homework ‘once a month’ in each of the core subjects. Homework reported more frequently than ‘once a month’ was generally associated with lower attainment. Multilevel models that controlled for important variables did not lend support to the ‘more is better’ view of homework.

Special Topic / The Case For and Against Homework

http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar0...

Although teachers across the K–12 spectrum commonly assign homework, research has produced no clear-cut consensus on the benefits of homework at the early elementary grade levels. In his early meta-analysis, Cooper (1989a) reported the following effect sizes (p. 71): Grades 4–6: ES = .15 (Percentile gain = 6) Grades 7–9: ES = .31 (Percentile gain = 12) Grades 10–12: ES = .64 (Percentile gain = 24)

The paper by Cooper cited positively in your link claims:

> For elementary school students, the effect of homework on achievement is trivial, if it exists at all https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=86753143098932071...

Which is diametrically different from the “large positive impact” you described in your comment. Maybe by “very young children” you mean to include 5–10 year olds?

(For what it’s worth, I don’t find Cooper’s arguments that arbitrary amounts of homework are beneficial for secondary students very convincing. But we should at least not mischaracterize the claims about primary students.)

Our district has a new policy this year for primary school: no project work at home (This was historically a HUGE time sync), and no at-home writing assignments. Typically, this means homework is whatever math the kids didn't finish in math class. It has been a HUGE benefit vis-a-vis family time and overall stress. Our oldest, now in 5th grade, had a similar experience to another commenter in grades K-4, where he had multiple hours/wk of work, plus writing assignments and periodic projects. So hard on everybody, with extremely limited ROI.

I have 4 children and I actively help them with/cheat on their homework. They are assigned too damn much of it. They are all getting good grades and I don't think it is impacting them academically.

If you're doing it right, it's probably helping.

Good on you. I find the American school system utterly absurd, especially the amount of homework you get.

A more specific case of the general principle that work involves conflict.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com