Is Homework Working?
Homework should be independent practice for the student, Ms. Mangione asserts. It should not be graded, and it should not require the parents' help to complete.
BY NOW, I've grown familiar with the prelude. "I have a teacher question for you," my friend asks me on a fairly routine basis. Invariably, there is a parent/teacher meeting pending, and she fears it might get ugly. Her son has gotten another less-than-stellar grade on a homework assignment that ate an entire weekend and required the assistance of two adults with advanced degrees.
The latest assignment is just one of many that have taken their toll on my friend's family. In fact, she attributes the case of shingles she developed last year to a "Welcome to the New World" brochure that had to be typed and tri-folded (no cutting and pasting allowed). Despite repeated efforts to learn the intricacies of desktop publishing software, she and her son were unable to master the formatting. At 11:30 p.m., they admitted defeat and decided to submit the information typed, but in paragraph form, bracing themselves for the hit. Surprisingly, they still couldn't make this assignment go away. Deemed unacceptable by the teacher, it was handed back to the student, who was forced to outsource it to yet another adult.
Contemplating her case for the fateful meeting, my friend wonders aloud, "Am I being unreasonable?" In the depth of her sighs, I hear both outrage and defeat.
As a special education teacher (now termed "consultant teacher"), I do not routinely dole out grades, but I collaborate with my colleagues (the "general education" teachers) to design, facilitate, and evaluate instruction that is fair and appropriate for the students in question. Regardless of the assignment, I can ask my colleagues: What is the curricular goal? What is it you want them to know and understand? If the goal is to demonstrate an understanding of the reasons why immigrants came to America, then how that understanding is assessed can take myriad forms. A brochure? Sure! But designing the brochure should not become more important than the point of the brochure, as seemed to be the case with my friend's son.
For many teachers reading this, that idea does not come as a revelation. Many of us have received enough hours of professional development to earn another degree: asking "essential questions," adhering to "backwards design," and focusing on "process over product" are all part of our repertoire. We get it already.
Or do we? The more conversations I have with friends and relatives who are panicked and confused over the homework that their children receive (and are incapable of completing on their own), the more outraged I become. As a new parent, I wonder what position I'll take when my own daughter has a doozy of an assignment. Do I let her tackle it independently, even if it means she will stumble occasionally? Or will I succumb to the pressure of ensuring that she gets "good grades," even if those grades scarcely reflect any real understanding?
The heart of the matter is this: Is this a parenting issue, or a school policy issue? In my own experience, my father, a veteran teacher, never once hovered over me as I did my homework (that is, when I did it). Admittedly, I was not always as dutiful and tenacious about it as he would have liked, but that was my work, and the grades were reflective of my output, not his. (I think it may have been the best parenting lesson I could have received.)
And what about those students who will not get help with their homework, simply because the adults at home are unable or unwilling to help? Should those students be penalized for a home environment that doesn't enforce -- or, more accurately, ensure -- that their grades stay "in the black"?
If the responsibility rests with the source, would that be the school or the individual teacher? After all, homework is generally assigned and graded at the discretion of each teacher. In that regard, I still defer to the advice my father gave me when I was baffled over assigning and grading homework during my first year of teaching: "Homework should be independent practice," he said. And then -- using a sports metaphor I could actually understand -- he compared homework to the practice that athletes endure: they may mess up, but that's the point of practice. "After all," he continued, "it only counts in the game."
My father's position was that homework should be used to reinforce what was already modeled and taught. It should be met with guidance, never graded. Of course, that would require that it actually be done, which is why so many teachers feel it must be graded. How else, they argue, can you see that students do it? If that policy worked (using grades as both positive and negative reinforcers), then this entire discussion would be moot; grading would solve everything. Then again, if grades were not used as leverage and homework assignments solely provided an opportunity for reinforcement of newly learned concepts, then the quality of student performance would be tied to their efforts in practice. (They just better not miss practice.)
To be fair, not all teachers grade homework, and of those who do, not all of them necessarily grade it harshly. But the range of what constitutes a reasonable assignment is so far-reaching that "homework" is an entirely different animal from school to school, class to class, teacher to teacher, ranging from rote memorization of spelling words to long-term projects that encompass an entire unit of study. Given so broad a range, how can the grades be considered valid? What do they mean, anyway? A grade of 75 in Ms. Stickler's class -- even if backed up by a rubric -- is still likely to have a subjective slant. More important, if the work behind the scenes was actually the work of little elves (make that big parental elves), then the grade -- on which so much hinges -- has even less connection to the student's understanding.
Still, even if grades were removed from the equation, it is doubtful that homework would suddenly become attractive to most students. Unfortunately, the students who most need the practice and discipline of self-guided assignments are the ones who just never do them. The fact that we continually penalize these students baffles me. During the school day, they are the ones for whom you stand on your head, devise rewards, and do whatever works -- all in a futile attempt to motivate them. Still, we expect these same kids to skip home, plop down at a kitchen table (where I assume a wholesome snack of milk and cookies is waiting), and spend an additional two or three hours poring over what they refused to do earlier. Interesting logic. We may think that grading homework sends a message that it isn't optional, but the fact is, the students who are most at risk will almost always opt out.
So, if the kids who really need the practice aren't attempting the homework and are getting little support at home, and the ones who do complete it are often getting too much support, is homework working for anybody?
While the debate over homework isn't new, it has resurfaced with some recent findings that there is a negative correlation between the time spent on homework and student achievement. In other words, there is a point of diminishing returns. According to Duke University professor Harris Cooper's research, elementary students get no academic benefit (other than reading practice), while middle and high school students see no gains beyond one-and-a-half to two hours per night.1 Arguably, the efficacy is not related exclusively to quantity but depends on quality. The real issue is, what are the kids spending that hour or two doing?
Cooper himself does not advocate banning homework altogether, even at the elementary level, but he does call for specific guidelines for school districts, teachers, and teacher training programs. And despite recommending a mix of "mandatory" and "voluntary" assignments, homework, he says, should not be graded. (Mandatory assignments that are missed would result in remediation, not a failing grade.) In addition, Cooper insists that parent involvement be minimal and geared mostly toward creating an "optimal environment for self-study."2
I can't help but feel satisfied when I read Cooper's recommendations. The country's foremost researcher on the subject of homework confirms my own view. But can I really take credit for it? After all, I did have to ask my dad for help.
1. Valerie Strauss, "As Homework Grows, So Do Arguments Against It," Washington Post, 12 September 2006, p. A-4; see also Alfie Kohn, "Abusing Research: The Study of Homework and Other Examples," Phi Delta Kappan, September 2006, pp. 8-22.
2. Harris Cooper, "Homework Research and Policy: A Review of the Literature," available at http://cehd.umn.edu/carei/reports/Rpractice/Summer94/homework.html.
LISA MANGIONE is a special education teacher at Sweet Home Middle School in Amherst, N.Y., and a fellow of the Western New York Writing Project.
