Some Bay Areas schools are reducing or eliminating homework!

My kids certainly wouldn't have been going to that school! I think homework should be age and grade appropriate. I refused to let my children do any more than 15 minutes homework for each grade until they hit highschool, then I restricted it to 3 hours per night. I found that most teachers agreed with me on this, and my kids weren't penalized if they only did one of their math questions or half of theirspelling or history or geography homework. The school is supposed to teach the children, not just take up yesterday's homework, which I see many schools now doing. i had a friend whose children were in aschool like this, and I soon set them straight after she went to the hospital for 10 days and I looked after her children. They had given a kindergarten student 4 hours of homework to be completed by the next day. I went in a yellsed at the principal and all their teachers combined, then called the school board, and the homework assignments were quickly changed. Asd for assigning homework for theparents, they'd get mine back with a large F#*#* YOU written across the page, and a note that I gave the teacher a zero grade. I got my education alredy, and its better than many teachers I've met

I think it is good for children to have homework. They need to learn how to study independently for when they go to college or have to study when they are working. I don't think it hurts them to work at home, in fact its probably better than watching tv or playing computer games.

I do not think it is a good idea to eliminate homework completely. Reducing the amount of homework is okay as sometimes it can be overwhelming on the child and the parents as well but they should not get rid of homework. They need to have this to learn more and also learn with the help of their parents. Doing homework can be a good way for a child and parent to spend time together and help each other grow and learn new things. Keep the homework but reduce the amount of homework given.

All i can say is... I wish i was in one of these schools when i was a kid.. boy, was i drowned in home work or what ? LOL.. On a serious note - reducing homework is an excellent idea, eliminating it all together... NO..

Wow, first I want to say GREAT discussion. This is a subject that I have very strong views about. Forgive me if this gets a bit long winded, but I promise to make my point. I grew up and went to schools on both the east and west coasts. While on the east coast I rarely had homework, mostly just projects and reports on occasion. Never on the weekends or during breaks unless I was finishing up for the due date. When I moved to the west coat this drastically changed I had hours upon hours of homework after school, weekends and during my breaks. It was overwhelming and while I had always enjoyed school I grew to HATE it. I send my children to school for an education, I pay taxes for them to be taught at school, not for me to try and teach them math, science, history ect... My job as a parent is to teach my children how to be good people with manners, respect and right and wrong. I correct them when they speak incorrectly. I'm not saying that they don't need homework at all and that I shouldn't help them when they need it, what I'm saying is their should be limits to how much and how often. They should also not be sent home homework until they fully understand it, it's been a long time since I was in school and since I don't use all of what I was taught, I can't always help them do it. Children should be allowed to be children they spend 6 to 7 hours in school. People work on average 8 hours at their job, most do not bring work home with them, so why should it be different for children. I have complained over and over about this issue in my children's schools and seem to be the minority in this. I'm glad to hear that a school here in California is doing something different and truly hope that positive things come out of this for other schools to follow suit. Although I don't agree with homework for parents either. LOL So while I'm not against homework entirely I'm against the hours upon hours that they spend to do it. I believe that we would find our children less stressed, if they were able to enjoy being kids instead of constantly stressing about homework. One other thing that I would like to point out is the fact that while many parents work outside of the home and come home after a long day at work to have to harp on the children about homework issues. Homework on a daily basis also interferes with important family functions that go on from time to time. We all have lives and on many an occasions homework has interfered or caused my family to not be able fully participate and plans to have been canceled. So that's my feelings on the subject. I could go on for hours on this subject. I know that many won't agree and that's fine. This is just my 2 cents worth. :)

Giving homework to elementary students isn't really worthwhile, this is a time when they're discovering the world around them and should be learning how to deal with other children and adult authority figures that aren't mom and/or dad. As they mature, though, some homework should be given to teach personal responsibility and time management. It also serves as a tool for busy parents who don't actively communicate with their children's teacher. Would you rather find out your child has a problem with a subject when you're helping them at the kitchen table or when they bring home a bad grade? I think completely eliminating homework would damage a child's education in the long run.

The only way I would be for getting rid of homework is if the kids either had an extended school day or if they had fewer vacation days. Either of those would allow them to absorb the information at school and not need the homework. I am starting to find that most of my sons homework is pretty useless and doesn't always cover what they did in class that day.

Well it is about time to as I always said they where getting to much, I used to feel so sorry for my Children. No wonder a lot of Children would not do their Homework. My Kids used to come home after spending the time at School from 8.30 till 3.30 and then have homework, they where to tired and not able to switch of. So I do hope that they get rid of Homework.

Homework is a part of education and probably of better quality than goes on inside the walls of the school. They will be taking away good learning from the students and they will have even more of a hard to get a job and keep a job with less education. They will not be learning to apply themselves and prioritize their time and efforts. I think that it is a bad move. Not sure what assigning homework to parents will do. Unless they make the kids do it, then they have homework and more chance for learning.

I don't think eliminating it completely is a good idea. I don't like the homework being piled on. It's like the teachers expect that their whole life is school. They have other activities and leisure outside of school. Is school the teacher's whole life? I don't think so. I certainly would be agreeable to reducing the homework... depending on the age... I think elementary school should be no more than an hour. Right now it is 10 minutes per grade meaning my grade 8 daughter is to have a maximum of 80 minutes of homework at night. I think that is too much. She has other activities that we have paid money for. I don't like it when she says she can't go to Taekwondo because she has too much homework. We are paying for those Taekwondo classes and they are a learning experience as well. I don't think teachers spend enough time teaching in class. Leave the homework for the work they didn't complete in class, not pile it on for punishment as my daughter's teacher is won't to do.

I have mixed feelings. But it's funny I found this post cause I was just talking to another mother about it last night. My daughter is in grade 4 and she gets tons of it. Too much in my opinion. Now her teacher is new to teaching grade 4. He previously taught grade 7 and I think he sometimes forgets they are grade 4's. He piles it on. I know its good for them to learn good study habits and to be prepared for highschool, etc.... but at the same time kids need some down time and kids need to be kids. Shes in school more then 6 hours a day I think that is enough. I would rather see her come home and have some fun for the rest of the evening.

I feel children should have homework to do at home but not so much that it's taking them hours to get it done. In our area, it's pretty common for the kids to have around an hour of homework to do at home. I think this is reasonable. Homework is important but children also need to time to go out and play and sometimes just time to sit and be with their parents talking, playing a game or just relaxing. It's important for the schools that are giving hours upon hours of work to understand that even in today's world, kids are kids and they should be allowed to have a childhood outside of summer vacation.

i think they should make the kids stay one more hour in school so when they go home they can chill.cos then they need to switch their minds off and engage in other things ..it would be better..just some weekend work should be o.k mthey need some time to rest too..

I agree with this only to a certain extent. When I was in high school and due to take my finals, they eliminated homework because we had so much coursework in class to do. They decided instead to just have us take our coursework home and do it that way. I think that reducing homework is a good idea for sure. Kids are under enough pressure to do well to start with. I don't think that eliminating it altogether will be a good idea though. Homework is a good way of gauging how well kids have picked up things learned in class. I'm not sure how they'll gauge things without homework being done.

My children go to a public school in Tasmania (Aust) and they hardly ever get any homework. The most they get is a nightly reading book to read a few pages. I think this is a wonderful idea as a few years ago they went to a private school in Queensland and had masses of homework. It was more stress for all of us at the end of the school day that noone needed.

To eliminate homework all together is not a good thing. It is impossible to learn all you should in the 8 hours of school. The teacher would have to reduce the amount they teach in order for the student to comprehend it all. And homework is good for you in spite of how painful it can be at times. It truly puts the responsibility on you to learn and not have it handed to you. I do agree it can be way over done however. And becasue each teacher has thier own agenda it is difficult to control that amount.

Hey, i think it is GREAT that some schools are diminihing or eliminating homework. i have always believed that hey, they did all that work in class at school. Home is their own time.

Absolutely. The best way for kids to learn is when they're having fun at the same time. The more homework, the less fun, the more they'll hate studying, and the more ignorant they'll get. Teachers and principals need to find ways to make the learning process both informative and enjoyable at the same time.

homework elimination is not a gud idea it should b light but not eliminated.wht i htink is that heavy homework r full vth pressure . u do that just arranging from somewhere not really interested in that sometimes it is full of pressure which tenses that how we will perform it ,also it can give infereer feeling that we can't do it. so better to lighten homework instead of eliminating it .

While I agree that a certain amount of homework is good, I find that each subject teacher assumes that she is the only one giving out the homework, so my daughter ends up with homework for all three lanuages, math, science, social studies, it all works out to a lot. If she does not complete the work, she gets punished, but there are only so many hours in the day, and when does she get the chance to be a child and PLAY? I think there should some limits set!