The Excessive-Homework Backlash

Consider it my epiphany, the moment I began wondering if we’ve gone a little overboard in our effort to avoid academic mediocrity.

I was at a forum for parents of prospective students at one of the city’s elite high schools--one that has dozens of applicants for every space in ninth grade. The counselor described its curriculum (demanding), its sports program (winning), its students’ community service (required), its reputation (stellar).

“Any questions?” he asked, surveying the rapt crowd. One hand went up; one brave parent who dared to ask what many of us must have been wondering: About how much homework would a student have each night, to fit in between water polo practice, writing poetry and reading at the old folks’ home?

“About four hours,” the counselor said, straight-faced. “Certainly some nights there is more or less, but our ninth-graders spend, on average, four hours on homework every night.”

Around me, parents nodded and murmured approvingly. I shook my head and rose to leave.

Are these people crazy, or is it me?

Even kindergartners have homework these days. It was a revelation to me 12 years ago, when my oldest child started school, that Los Angeles Unified, like most school districts, required homework for every child, every day.

I didn’t balk. It made sense. Homework, I understood, was not just about building skills, but developing a work ethic, a study routine. Parents’ role, the teachers told us, was simply to arrange a place, provide supplies and make sure our children set aside the time. Most nights back then, homework was easy, fun even ... cutting out pictures from magazines, making the letter “A” out of pinto beans.

But too much of a good thing is still too much. And today, the whining about homework comes not just from kids, but from stressed-out parents resentful that growing homework loads have family lives in a stranglehold.

Although research shows that homework adds little value to children’s education in the primary grades, it’s not uncommon for students in some elementary schools to have two hours of homework a day. The average 10-year-old spends almost four hours on homework each week, an hour more than a decade ago. Half of all parents say their efforts to get their kids to finish homework sometimes leads to tantrums--by the kids, not the parents--and almost one-quarter admit they sometimes resort to doing their kids’ work.

Now parental grumbling is beginning to make inroads. The giant New York City school district dropped its required homework minimums two years ago. Then the nearby Piscataway Township district in New Jersey went a step further and became one of the first to put limits on the amount of homework teachers can assign.

Last week, the battlefield moved close to home, as the high-achieving Conejo Valley Unified District in Ventura County replaced its homework mandates with a policy that calls for no more than 10 minutes per grade level of homework each night, discourages weekend assignments and prohibits teachers from using homework--or lack of homework--to bring down a student’s grade.

“We’re trying to focus on the idea that homework needs to add value to what the kids are learning ... and should not be dependent on Mom or Dad to be completed,” said Richard Simpson, assistant superintendent for instruction.

Of course, that’s easier said than done. What one kid can breeze through in 15 minutes may take another 45. And some dawdlers may need the push of a parent to complete an assignment, while others work without complaint on their own. And teachers and parents tend to have divergent views of how much homework is too much.

The dialogue was fascinating as the Conejo Valley policy was hammered out, Simpson said. “You had parents and teachers sitting at the same table with totally different perspectives of what life is like with homework. The teacher’s saying, ‘I gave a half-hour.’ And the parent says, ‘That assignment took three hours.’”

Polls show many teachers think parents shirk their responsibility when it comes to homework. And parents fault teachers for sending home assignments that require too much parental help or have not been explained in class.

Simpson suspects the new policy will be a hard sell to some faculty members, who consider homework the oil that makes the engine run.

“It’s going to be an education process all the way around,” he said. “It seems how you feel about homework depends largely on what decade you grew up in and what your experience with your own children has been.”

I realize that homework teaches kids valuable lessons that don’t get graded--time management, the meaning of sacrifice, the wisdom of preparation and the folly of procrastination.

And we shouldn’t delude ourselves into thinking that less homework will translate to more friendly, family games of Scrabble, trips to the museum, visits to elderly relatives. The reality is our children would probably opt to spend the extra time shooting baskets, talking on the phone or watching TV.

But maybe less homework would mean more kids would get to sleep at a reasonable hour and fewer would trundle off to school bleary-eyed in the morning. And I’d welcome the chance to pass one night without having to order a child inside or force her to put away her book because homework dictates that she finish a word search puzzle or fashion a set of clothes for Colonial paper dolls.

After all, what counts in the long run is not how many hours a kid tallies at the kitchen table doing math worksheets or gluing sugar cubes together.

What matters is whether the child can do the work a class requires and takes responsibility for being an equal partner in the learning process.

It’s common sense, Simpson says: “If Johnny knows calculus, he’s mastered the concepts, what’s the logic of lowering his grade because he hasn’t turned in all his homework assignments?”

And I think back to another parent-teacher session, this one at my daughter’s middle school last fall.

“I don’t particularly care if they do their homework,” announced the math teacher, a battle-weary public school veteran. “I count it because the district makes me.” She ignored parents’ raised eyebrows and rolling eyes.

“What matters to me is whether they can do the work.... If they need to practice what we learn in class, it’s up to them to do their [homework] assignments. But homework’s for their benefit, not mine. It’s what they do on the tests that counts toward their grade.”

In other words, homework is best regarded as a means to an end ... in life, as well as in math class.

Sandy Banks’ column is published Sundays and Tuesdays. Her e-mail address is sandy.banks@latimes. com.