No Homework Article

After I expressed surprise that none of the kids I was working with had completed a brief writing assignment, a teacher told me, “Oh yeah—I should have told you.

After I expressed surprise that none of the kids I was working with had completed a brief writing assignment, a teacher told me, “Oh yeah—I should have told you.

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For example, there’s something called “retrieval practice,” which means trying to recall information you’ve already learned.

The optimal time to engage in retrieval practice is not immediately after you’ve acquired information but after you’ve forgotten it a bit—like, perhaps, after school.

The following year, the superintendent of a Florida school district serving 42,000 students eliminated homework for all elementary students and replaced it with twenty minutes of nightly reading, saying she was basing her decision on “solid research about what works best in improving academic achievement in students.” Many other elementary schools seem to have quietly adopted similar policies.

Critics have objected that even if homework doesn’t increase grades or test scores, it has other benefits, like fostering good study habits and providing parents with a window into what kids are doing in school.

Even if teachers do manage to assign effective homework, it may not show up on the measures of achievement used by researchers—for example, standardized reading test scores.

Those tests are designed to measure general reading comprehension skills, not to assess how much students have learned in specific classes.

Those arguments have merit, but why homework boost academic achievement?

The research cited by educators just doesn’t seem to make sense.

One possible explanation for the general lack of a boost from homework is that few teachers know about this research.

And most have gotten little training in how and why to assign homework.