Homework to students, instead asking parents to spend quality time with their kids. How much homework is too much . Should schools eliminate homework . We have special lines for todays question. Parents can call 2027488000. Teachers can call 2027488001. All others can call 2027488002. You can also reach us on social and also onitter facebook. Sent home tot was secondgrade students in texas sparked a debate about how much number is too much. Thats how much homework is too much. Said after Much Research the summer, im trying something new. Ofework will only consist work you are child did not finish during the school day. That is the note that went home to some secondgrade students in texas, sparking a debate as to how much homework is too much. A debate that is playing out in the headlines, including from the Washington Post. Out parents are just opting saying this was a moment, a fiery moment in the debate over education and how students spend their time. Arents can call 2027488000 teachers, 2027488001. Everyone else, 2027488002. Lets take a look at what the teacher had to say about her decision. [video clip] new homework policy homework will only consist of work your student did not finish during the school day. There will be no formally assigned homework this year. Research has been unable to prove that homework improves student performance. Things i ask that you do that lead to student success. Eat dinner together, play outside i want students to live their lives. Develop their whole person. My students go home, they have other things they have to learn their. There. Have to learn the homework needs to be meaningful and engaging. I decided it wasnt relevant and it wasnt engaging for my kids. , learningnting money time, subtracting two digit numbers. These are very basic things and parents are informed. Supportive parents are welcome to practice at home. I think that is wonderful. We have a number of computer programs that i encourage them to use at home. Took a picturets of the note and posted it to their facebook saying she loved her new teacher and she was excited and it took off from there. Host that was brandy young, a secondgrade teacher in texas, talking about why she eliminated homework in class. The Washington Post article talking about this decision pointed out what happens when parents simply stop forcing their kids to do homework. Those interviewed by the post explain their reasoning to and say and principals they were mostly met with support and their children did not fall behind. That is one of the reactions, some of the reaction from that not assigning homework to students. Jeffreys calling in from greensboro, North Carolina. You are a parent. What do you think . Is there too much homework being assigned . Caller at a point, i think not. The circumstances in North Carolina that we dont have a lot of teacher days. It appears there so many days that come up where students miss a lot of days. In his absences arent made up. Is your child really getting a . Roper education youre hoping that these professionals are trained to instill that knowledge and learning process for Elementary School children. Host do you have Elementary School age kids . Caller yes, i do. Can you quantify the amount of homework they get . Is it too much, too little . Caller its just about right. If you look at certain breakdowns today, a lot of teachers express the frustration of the expansion of students in the class, the teacher not being able to give the full attention to all students. If you take away the homework iscess, its like, how much the child come pending . That comprehending is that child comprehending . Once a teacher is reviewing the homework, she can see the strong points and weak points per student. If they are turning in their assignment, they can at least focus in on the students that are having difficulties. Host how much time do your kids and spend on the homework . Do your kids spend on homework . Caller no more than an hour and a half. Host some figures we have according to the metlife survey of the american teacher, 45 of students say they do an hour or more of homework each night. Grades 36, 37 . 50 spend more than grade 712. Ght minnesota. Good morning. Caller this is the most idiotic thing i ever heard. I mentor kids. From a veryuated Prestigious University because we work with them. And you have totally eliminated the Little Bridge you had with the teacher. You need that. When the kids come home from must be donework host what about students who parents oworking two working parents who might not have as much time . Caller dont use that excuse, two working parents. I had a fulltime job, my wife is working fulltime, we had a parttime business and im 67 years old and i still work, i still mentor the kids. Best they this work. This is what i see with the kids i work with today, the coworkers i have. But all i wanted to say. That is all i wanted to say. Host elizabeth is a retired teacher calling in from conway, south carolina. Do you think homework be eliminated . Aller no, i dont i think it is very important. Im a retired teacher and i have grandchildren as well. Important in our family. Working parents usually the kids receive instructional homework. The parents can help them with the hard parts. Sometimes my friends say the kids dont remember that say they sometimes my friends say they dont remember how to do the work their kids are assigned. Cant if the parents learn the Elementary School math , maybe they need to. I think homework should be relevant and engaging. I know the homework i was giving was not that, so i decided not to give homework. Why not improve the homework assignments . Citedone of the reasons in the Washington Post piece i mentioned earlier, it pointed out a bit of disparity that can exist when teachers decide not to give homework. Parents opting out of homework are generally in a place of privilege. Cooper said these are typically parents who have the resources and capacity to substitute their own choices of academic things to do after school. Parents whose first language is not english or parent to work long hours, homework can be a good resource. Thats parents parents who work long hours, mark can be a good resource. Kathy is calling from california. Homework can be a good resource. Kathy is calling from california. Caller when i was a kid in school, i hate homework. Day. H sweat it every it was way too much. Im 69, so that was many years ago. Homework, no. But projects, yes. Projects, some kinds of book reports. Yes, definitely. For the average person who works for a living i worked for 45 years you dont have homework when you get home from work at night. You go to work, you come home. Our kids go to school, they come home, they should be able to play and do what they should do. Host do you think perhaps for to third orkids up fourth grade, there should be a difference in how much homework is given . None, actually, i think all the way through high school. Unless it is a project. I do think projects are very important. You have to do research and study and bring back your product. I think that should still remain. But daily homework, the daily grind, half hour to an hour and hour a day, i have children and grandchildren and now i have greatgrandchildren. I cannot see them coming home from school and working another work. Nd a half on school host up next, beverly calling in from michigan. Should schools eliminate homework . Caller i believe that a lot of parents are not able to help their kids with homework anymore. In some areas, they are not even practicing cursive. I have grandkids. Helped theirs wife kids with their homework, and they did worse. Why are we talking about this . How about having juliana sans on ge onscuss julian assan to discuss corruption in our country . Host this is one of many issues we discuss on washington journal. According to the Christian Science monitor on the issue of homework, a recent study published by the american journal of Family Therapy found Elementary School students are doing far more homework than they should be. Up next, ginnys calling in from odenton, maryland. Should schools eliminate homework . Caller absolutely not. Please dont cut me off. Child was labeled as gifted and talented a couple years ago. Had to take four different standardized tests to be labeled as gifted and talented. This year, the school year to started last week and we got an email from the county, all the gifted and talented classes have been eliminated. We were like, what is going on . Learnant all the kids to the same or be up to the same standards, but the problem is, not all kids are up to those particular standards for whatever reason. Should schools eliminate homework . No. My oldest child completes homework within five minutes because the homework is not to the standard that she has been labeled as gifted and talented. So, i give her extra homework to do. Theres particular websites that parents can go to. Calleds a very good site el. Com. It is very comprehensive. Do . what should students you are clearly taking a very active role in your childs education, but parents not all parents have the ability to do that. Should the onus be on the parent or should more be done by the school . Caller it is a collaborative effort. Apparent decided to have the child, so they should take onus for educating the children. A parent decided to have the child. Child would be bored out of her mind. When she comes home, i have to give her additional work. Eight hours a day, she is sitting there, not really learning anything. The standards should be higher overall in the country. That is the problem. Host robert calling in from tuscaloosa, alabama. You are a retired teacher. Should homework be eliminated in schools . Caller absolutely not. Some students dont grasp the concepts of whats being taught in the class at the time. I think it is the amount of homework that should be considered. I was a math teacher. Problems on a10 new skill that students can go over at home. It should be correlated among teachers. The students do the same homework every night. It should absolutely not be eliminated. Host when you were a teacher, how did you gauge how much is too much . Out . Id you figure that caller i realized they had five or six other classes. I would maybe give them five problems with a skill that is good enough for them to practice with. Most teachers give busywork that is wrong. Busywork. Achers give that is wrong. Each problem should be gone over and graded. Teachers give a lot of homework and then take it and throw it away. The amount should be limited in most cases. Host results of another study, this one from the american journal of Family Therapy on homework and family stress. An overload of homework associated with the decline in Overall School performance. Parents viewload, of their ability to assist with homework and language and cultural factors can contribute to family stress. Toledo, calling in from ohio. Youre are a teacher. Should homework be eliminated . Caller absolutely not. I tell my kids school just started for us. How many are in band . They will raise their hand. How many are in choir . They will raise their hand. Do you guys go to practice . You go to practice and practice before game day. Thats what we do with homework and all day during our day at school. We practice. , youit comes to game day had the opportunity to practice. The practice football, they practice band, they practice choir, gymnastics, whatever. Host when you have practices like sports, they have coaches there and they know who the coaches are. In the case, the parents study, not every parent has the same ability to assist their. Ids at home how do you compensate for that as a teacher . Caller what do you mean by unable to . Host they are unable to assist with work, whether it is because there is a limited barrier, parents at home may not speak lish, they may be working not every child has the same amount of support at home. From the time i walk in that building to the time i leave, every minute, if you need help, i am there to help you. I have 102 kids this year. 132 kids this year. ,ll these people have phones they can do all that. At some point, parents have to be accountable for their children. We do all we can. To have a child is a wonderful thing, but you have to have accountability. It cannot always be on the school. With the phones and youtube, i give notes as simple as pie. When i give homework, i do not grade it for how many are right. s say i give 10 problems isthis spot or this stage where the breakdown is. I can help them there. When you do homework, to me, that is practice. I would not expect it to be perfect. Host according to the National Education association, there are benefits to doing homework. Homework usually falls into one of three categories. Practice, preparation or extension. The purpose usually varies by grade, individualized assignments that happened to studentss existing skills or tapped into studentss existing skills or interests. Parents can call 2027488000. Teachers, 2027488001. All others can call 2027488002. Up next, gil calling in from jamestown, North Carolina. The you think homework be eliminated do you think homework should be eliminated . Caller i taught at the college level. I do not believe homework be assigned for first, second and third graders. I agree 200 with the previous caller with the students doing projects. Homework should start around the fourth great. About 2030 minutes of homework. Host why should the younger kids not have homework . Caller projects are much better. I have a grandson who did a very nice project. It allows the young people to work on a specific project, say a geography project or a project on a book that theyve read at that age. I want to make another suggestion to follow up on learning. Schools start much too early for these children. Andol should start at 9 00 run perhaps until 4 00. In then maybe a period afternoon where students can recap with a teacher or ask for on something theyve been exposed to earlier in the day. School, theyng to are tired, they are not awake yet, they are not alert. Starting the school day at 9 00, perhaps ending at work clock caps ending at four clock would allow for more attention 4 00 woulding at allow for more attention. Beginning after sixth grade and on through high school, there has to be more ,egimented, more structured called andfolks have sing the benefit of homework fits in there. Saying the benefits of homework fits in there. Host jay is calling in. As the students move up the ladder, homework will be more difficult. Comes in terms of parenting able to help their child. The conversation has to be made in terms of accountability. Students are being held accountable. Homework becomes a very integral part of the success of the schools and students. Push back a little bit with the account ability part. Part. Ountability open the conversation about too many tests. This, we me ask you are not quite at labor day yet, what about the length of the school year . Is there enough time during the day for teachers to be able to teach lessons to students and should that be extended to lighten the homework load . Caller that is a conversation to have. It is very hard to get a there are a lot of factors that go into it. We have just one kind of answer and unfortunately, we do not get a consensus. The school year should be extended. We know how we stack up against other countries and so forth. We have to do better. , practice,y to do it practice, practice. That also means more time at school. Communities,ther they would argue we dont have to do that. That one answer thinking we can get everyone on the same page is something that just cant because schools are more locallybased and so forth. Host what is the level of school you are a principal at . Caller id had the benefit of working at k8, primarily. What works in one community does not always work in another. We know our schools have to be better. We have to balance the process schools are being held accountable. We are blamed for everything but we control nothing. Host thank you for your call. Tracy calling in from new york. Good morning. Caller good morning. Host what do you think about homework . I do want to say, i have a lot of experience i grew up with my family and a family business. Initially, my father pulled me out of ninth grade and i worked in the family business. I went back to get my ged. I tried for about eight years. That was a big problem for me. One day, i got inspiration from my godfather after my father passed to push me to go and get my ged. , it wase best teacher the right timing, i was prepared. It was also the best time of day. I was a lot more alert. When i finished, i was so when i got to college because i started in journalism, i wanted to write. I did stop because i had to take a break because of the fact that i had to change my major as i , my gpa started dropping because every time i ,sked for help in prealgebra the professor would say i cannot help you anymore. Your how do you think experience before and whether you had enough is it because of the homework issue . Help and i ask for was told to get a tutor. I studied with the tutor. Even when i tried to ask for help again from another professor, they would still reject me after a few too many i was told you can never ask too many, you can never ask a dumb question. What do i come here for . Simplyid their job is to guide me and give me the thermation to basically be paper tosser and not the information provider. They told me to get a tutor. I have an attention deficit i dont know. When i really enjoy something and im awake and alert, i really get into it. Light up when i learned how to do something i spent years trying to figure out. When i learned how to do algebra , i managed to learn algebra with my tutor. I tutor was wonderful. I ended up taking a break because i could not handle the fact that there was so much this if my gparegard went down, i was always the one raising my hand, eager to participate. Host students need that extra help from their parents. Caller yeah. It was an Afterschool Program in georgia. , there were three other rooms with three other teachers. I end up making it beneficial. Or the children lines, thisthose piece has some guidelines as to how to make the homework routine early,art your routine not things out, have a specific homework area and create a dedicated space for doing that homework. Work things out. Homework is not always going to be fun. If you go into the routine dreading each day, your childs response will be just as negative. On how to make the homework experience better. Guy is calling in from west virginia. Should homework be eliminated . Caller it should be