I’m really surprised at all the comments here. I assume most of these posters are much younger than me. We are producing a nation of idiots. Reducing the amount of homework will only make them dumber.
People here are smarter than you think, and I'm sure these comments are based on personal experience.
Kids in school today do far more homework than I ever did. I see kids walking to school in my town, and half of them are dragging home their books in wheeled luggage. If we're producing a "nation of idiots" then maybe that's part of the problem.
I'm 53 and agree with the teacher. Maybe I agree because that's how my elementary school years went. The only homework we had was that which we didn't finish in class. That's a strong incentive to be busy at school.
Of course, we stayed very busy after school too. No cable TV, video games and couch stuff.
After 10th grade, I did have assigned homework in upper level classes.