The Homework Delusion

weeklystandard.com ^ | 03/01/2004 | David Skinner

[RightWhale]

It might be interesting to note that Harvard will forgive all fees to students from families with less than $40,000 annual income. The student must get into Harvard in the first place of course. Is Harvard only for rich, liberal families? Ha! Do your homework, maybe you will get the key to the universe--a Harvard diploma.

[writer33]

What gave this story credibility were its academic sponsors, Etta Kralovec and John Buell, authors of "The End of Homework." What robs their oft-cited work of its credibility, however, are their half-cocked research and political fervor. They reference a newspaper article linking a spate of suicides in Hong Kong to excessive homework, except that the article is from a newspaper in Zimbabwe. Homework, they argue, is anti-democratic and "pits students who can against students who can't." Kralovec and Buell sound like fever-swamp socialists, especially when they complain that homework "fits the ideological requirement of those who maintain the status quo in our politics and society."


This includes you homeschool parents. We don't need your children competing against each other. That's not what it's like in the real world. No one out here really competes. (Denote the heavy use of sarcasm)

[international american]

What about the 26 grand tuition??

[ClearCase_guy]

5 percent of fourth graders have more than two hours nightly

Someone could try to prove this to me, but they'd have a real hard time of it.

[GiveEmDubya]

What do American students need? More homework!

Easy for you to say...

[international american]

95% dont:)

[proxy_user]

Actually, the confusion is understandable. A certain percentage of American children are working all-out to achieve success in a highly competitive world. They go to private schools, or schools in wealthy suburbs, that are measured by how many students they get into top colleges.

Everybody else is in front of the boob tube, preparing for life as a WalMart greeter.

[paulat]

"The amount of time that 3- to 5-year-olds spend on homework per week has risen by 11 minutes since 1981, raising the total homework burden to 7 minutes per night."



Ummm...I'm not all that bright...but would they have to start out with a "homework deficit" to make this equation work? And how would one do that???

[Agnes Heep]

I remember verbatim the wording of a letter that my junior high school sent out to all parents in the mid '60s. It said, "Don't let your child tell you that he has no homework. He has homework--and plenty of it."

Those were less-enlightened days.

[RightWhale]

That's right. Forgiven. Do your homework, young person. Especially if you are from a 'poor,' under $40,000 family.

Maybe this is what Rawls was blabbing about, although I doubt it.

[Conspiracy Guy]

We were so poor, we could not afford homework. We envied the kids who had homework.

CG

[Political Junkie Too]

Could it be that the 3Rs are being pushed entirely into homework because there is no time left in the day after all the social engineering instruction?

-PJ

[RightWhale]

Everybody else is in front of the boob tube, preparing for life as a WalMart greeter.

Should school teach one what one needs to get and do a job? Or should school prepare one for starting and running one's own business? Jobs are apparently from a bygone era. Too bad TV doesn't teach more how to think rather than what product to buy.

[Redcoat LI]

"5 percent of fourth graders have more than two hours nightly"

Yeah,right.

I find it hard to believe that the N.E.A would allow one of their minions to work hard enough to assign and/or correct two hours of homework.

[TontoKowalski]

This includes you homeschool parents. We don't need your children competing against each other. That's not what it's like in the real world. No one out here really competes. (Denote the heavy use of sarcasm)

LOL! Loved the quote you referenced in your post! Actually, as a homeschool parent, I can tell you that my son has NO "homework" to do at night. School continues until the lessons are complete. End of story.

I find it fascinating that the "experts" claim the amount of homework is rising, while other "experts" tell us that the amount of time a child spends parked in front of a television is also rising. Seems contradictory to me, but I'm just a little ole country boy. (Note skillful use of wide-eyed innocence.)

[international american]

Reminds me of a friend who won a full scholarship to Harvard, and then the Harvard Medical school....and he was white.

Admissions officer: Why do you want to transfer from Rutgers to Harvard?

Answer: I want to get into Harvard Medical School!

Admissions officer: You can apply to Harvard Med if you do very well at Rutgers!

Yeah, I can apply, but I won't get in!

Harvard accepted him for transfer:)

[international american]

"I am tempted to steal this....in fact I will!!

[independentmind]

later

[jaj_dad]

"The amount of time that 3- to 5-year-olds spend on homework per week has risen by 11 minutes since 1981, raising the total homework burden to 7 minutes per night."
Ummm...I'm not all that bright...but would they have to start out with a "homework deficit" to make this equation work? And how would one do that???
Nope - they're mixing units on you. Risen 11 minutes per week to produce 7 minutes per night - meaning an increase of about 2 minutes per night.
Of course, for these kids, that basically translates to one more page of reading - not a bad thing, is it?