Posted on 06/27/2011 8:13:40 AM PDT by van_erwin
Vanessa Perez was a homework scofflaw. The Marshall High School senior didn't finish all of it — largely because she worked 24 hours a week at a Subway sandwich shop.
Alvaro Ramirez, a junior at the Santee Education Complex, doesn't have his own room and his mother baby-sits young children at night. "They're always there and they're always loud," he said, explaining his challenges with homework.
The nation's second-largest school system has decided to give students like these a break. A new policy decrees that homework can count for only 10% of a student's grade.
Critics — mostly teachers — worry that the policy will encourage students to slack off assigned work and even reward those who already disregard assignments. And they say it could penalize hardworking students who receive higher marks for effort.
Some educators also object to a one-size-fits-all mandate they said could hamstring teaching or homogenize it. They say, too, that students who do their homework perform significantly better than those who don't — a view supported by research.
But Los Angeles Unified is pressing forward, joining a growing list of school districts across the country that are taking on homework — including Fontana and Pleasanton, N.J. In many districts, limits are being placed on the amount of homework so students can spend more time with their families or pursue extracurricular activities like sports or hobbies. The competition to get into top colleges has left students anxious and exhausted, with little free time, parents complain.
In Davis, a policy that took effect this year specifies homework maximums, with some exceptions for advanced courses. And it prohibits assigning homework over weekends and holidays while also addressing the quality of the assignments.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
“In many districts, limits are being placed on the amount of homework so students can spend more time with their families or pursue extracurricular activities like sports or hobbies. “
Activites such as flash mobbing, hobbies like video games, street basketball?
LA gives up on education.
LA gives up on students being able to get any job.
In the early ‘70s I worked three hours (3 - 6) every afternoon after school, and another 16 on Saturday and Sunday at a Sunoco service station. Somehow, I got all my homework done in a house full of noisy siblings. (No, I didn’t have my own room, lol.)
Why is the LA Times only picking on Hispanics? Can't they find some Asian examples?
When I was in high school,we had study halls, and this ensured that we all did a minimum amount of homework per day. Today, they load-up students’ time with too many junk courses to allow for study halls.
Homework - 5%
Classwork - 5%
Tests - 5%
How well the students feel about themselves - 85%"
You need a couple of additional categories: Marching against The Man (Wisconsin) and Marching for La Raza (California).
Where was this rule when I was in school. Homework and I never got along, but I aced all my tests. The combination of nearly zero homework done and A on all my tests squeaked me through school, with this rule I’d have gotten Bs.
24 hours a day, and they might have a point.
But how will they be prepared for the challenges of all the green jobs that are being “created”?
I was the same as you. I despised having to do busy work once I already knew the material. Aced all the tests, refused to do homework. Had a 2.8 graduating High School because of it. With this rule, I would have had at least a 3.5.
My middle son had incompetent teachers. He studied the material, conducted evening review sessions for his fellow students who cared enough to study and substituted for the seat warmer paid by the school district when that "teacher" was totally incapable of conducting the class. I reviewed his compositions for English classes after the "teacher" had "graded" the work. Inexcusable. Spelling errors and grammatical errors were not flagged. I held his feet to the fire. It made a difference.
The Vietnamese kids seemed to do much better than their peers at school. Why? Their parents required them to sit down at the kitchen table and complete their homework before they could "play" after school. My parents had the same rule, but didn't supervise the effort. The honor system was good enough for me.
Grades in High School and College should be the result of test scores alone.
I was just like her as a teenager. Of course, I was taught more working for McDonald’s and Subway than at school. Most of my homework was mind numbing and repetitive. on the other hand, I was an assistant manager by the time I was 18. Most homework serves little to no purpose besides repetition. If a student can pass a test on the subject, that is the true measure of their knowledge of the subject.
Education or learning? I always did most of my learning by reading, just not usually text books. Most of the “school” stuff I learned was just from in class. Homework always felt boring and repetitive to me, I’d already learned it and didn’t feel a need to keep writing it down, and the more A’s I got on tests the less interested I was in homework.
I think what really killed me was when my Jr High English class entered the mythology section of the course. Not even sure why we were learning Greek mythology in English class but I’d just finished obsessing on mythology, having read pretty much every single book on it our public library had, including the book that was handed out to us. That lead to a month long nap, and my figuring out that I could learn on my own. After that for me school became about proof not about learning.
I thought ‘showing up was 90% of life’. I guess, in LAUSD, it’s even more than that.
“Some educators also object to a one-size-fits-all mandate they said could hamstring teaching or homogenize it.”
Yet the praise the same approach to health care and net income.....
Not that I don’t acknowledge the usefulness of homework in the learning process. When I didn’t understand stuff in class I would do the homework, it was having to do the homework when I actually got it in class that irritated me. I was never interested in chasing points, I had books to read.
Personally, I have little regard for homework; it’s almost always mindless busy work that turns kids off to learning.
I remember a woman caller to Dr. Laura saying how she told her boss that she had ADHD and if he can forget about her meeting a project deadline.
Best teacher I ever had was a stats professor in college. We had our first test covering the first two chapters of the course materials on the third day of class.
He stood up in front of the class and said anyone with less than %70 on that test should just go drop his class and stop wasting his time.
I was sick when I took the test and scored a 49. He made me mad. I said to myself I’ll show that SOB. I dug down like I had never had to dig before. School had always been easy for me. I passed that class with an A. I never missed more than 2 point on any other exam or assignment.
The funny thing was about halfway through the class I realized what a great teacher he was and his motivation for saying what he said that day. It turned in to one of the best classes I had and it was a fun challenge as well.
To this day I remember my stats well!
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