It's known that the looming thought of nightly homework and projects is a huge stress on students. But after reviewing recent global school rankings, homework's correlation with high test scores is being questioned by parents, teachers, and administrators. A 2004 survey of 2,900 students ages six to seventeen found that the amount of time spent on homework each week had jumped from 2 hours and 38 minutes in 1981 to 3 hours and 58 minutes. The adding pressure to do well on standardized tests has forced this average to rise even more since then. David Baker and Gerald LeTendre, professors of education at Penn State, have found that in the countries with the best school rankings, teachers give little to no homework. The countries with the lowest school rankings give a lot of homework each night. The United States falls in the middle of the rankings, giving average amounts of homework and getting average test scores. School districts nation wide have started to rethink homework policies. Some have eliminated homework on weekends, some follow the ten minute rule (10 minutes of homework per grade level), and some have set up websites that let families know how long each assignment should take. All of these efforts are following the trends in high ranked countries, such as Finland, where students average only thirty minutes of homework a night.
The recent media has shown that putting high pressure on students has lead to depression and even several suicides. As an education major, I have learned the importance of homework, but I also believe that there should be a limit. The United States has always been in the middle of international school rankings, falling behind countries that many of us have probably never heard of before. If countries such as Japan and Finland score well year after year and give limited amounts of homework, they have obviously caught on to a working method. Educators in the United States should follow the rule "quality over quantity". Doing repetitive work sheets night after night is not beneficial in any subject, even math. As more and more school districts catch on to the trend of lessening homework, I truly believe that our national test score will raise and that we could be highly ranked with countries such as Finland and Japan.
Kristen Mellander
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