I’m probably an outlier but I think this is a wonderful idea. I have never seen any purpose in giving homework in elementary school.
I actually agree with the policy (and you), especially at the elementary school level.
Where I would oppose is from 8th grade on. I think older kids should be doing writing assignments, math practice sets and other homework. What my son’s school does (and which I like) is to generally assign homework as projecty-type things on Monday or Friday and give the kids a full week to get it done and turned in online. I like that because they still do intensive writing, research and practice, but it helps with time management, it respects schedules and for my family it saved many fights.
I love this idea and would have fully supported it when my kids where this age. I felt like a lot of the work they brought home was busy work and didn’t do a thing to help them grow. I would much rather have had them spend the time reading. I don’t think that homework develops discipline at this age. They spend the day in school learning discipline and need this time to be kids. I agree that as they get older- maybe 7th or 8th grade, they do need to start some homework- especially writing since it is so important to success no matter what area of learning kids end up in.
Sounds like a wonderful idea. I’d send my future young child to a no homework school in a heartbeat.
I agree with the idea behind the change as I hate “busy work”. However, I do think a very limited amount of homework at a young age can help instill discipline and organizational and time management skills for the future. I would worry that in many households the time previously spent on homework would just be spent online or watching tv or playing video games. Personally, I would prefer a small amount of reading and journaling actually assigned as homework.
^^^It is true that I answered this with our household in mind. I suppose there are many homes where kids might come home to an empty house and play video games or watch TV all day.
Hey zoosermom, long time no see! Hope you have been surviving our winter from hell!
I also found my kid’s homework in elementary school was, for the most part, just busy work. They also had this thing were the kids were required to read x amount of minutes a day - starting in kindergarten. So my son would read the required minutes and that was it. Book was closed. Imo, he never developed a love for reading because it was always just another assignment he had to fulfill. To my dismay he still doesn’t love to read. Fortunately, that hasn’t prevented him from a very read intensive major in college, but he still never reads a book for just for pleasure.
When I was working in a very high needs elementary school, all homework really did was punish the kids who were already struggling either at home or in school.
Those whose parents were highly involved in their schoolwork were already reading to them and investing time after school with them. However, those without help or who went home to parents who expected them to watch younger siblings, take care of the house, couldn’t speak English/didn’t understand our school system, etc were the ones who didn’t turn in homework and thus faced consequences that further ostracized them and made them hate school.
Homework at these young ages is often just busy work for those with successful/involved families and a punishment for others. Really, at this age, homework is overwhelmingly a reflection of the family/home life rather than the student and is detrimental to those who need the most encouragement.
Emily, it’s all my husband’s fault. He mocked the snow gods and THIS is what we get. Remember that and curse him accordingly. I certainly am!
Emily, your son always makes me feel hopeful about mine. He never developed a great learning for reading, either, except in the context of very specific interests, all because of the hideous busy work in elementary school.
He once had a teacher in third grade who had worksheets and nonsense every day and was vile about grading it. Doing it wasn’t good enough. It had to be spotless and unwrinkled to get full credit. That was a very ugly year for us.
Nice to have someone I can blame! 
I’m sure your son will do just fine. My kid has managed to get through 4 years of college without taking a single English Lit class (much to my dismay.)
We read plenty to him from the time he was an infant and always had lots of books for him and did a weekly trip to the library, etc., and still no love of reading (though he was always a good, albeit slow, reader.)
My daughter went to a NYC public school where she had homework every day starting in Kindergarten. It was age-appropriate–less than half an hour in Kindergarten and easily accomplished by the student with no help from a parent. I am convinced that it contributed to her excellent study habits.
Romani, that was the reasoning behind my nieces elementary schools not giving homework and I agree in theory. However, whether a direct consequence of this or lowering the whole bar in conjunction with no homework, the end result is that when her family moved to Chapel Hill NC area with more rigorous schools, she had trouble keeping up and she had been honors at earlier school. So yes to no/limited homework, but no to lowering standards.
Yea, call me old fashioned (or mean) but I don’t see a problem with a small amount of elementary school homework each night - if for no other reason than just to help form good study/work habits which will be crucial once the classwork becomes more demanding.
I don’t remember the elementary school homework as being onerous. Some was definitely of the, “Look what I can do now!” variety, especially with reading. We did practice math facts, and I think that Saxon’s math program gave her a great grounding.
My kids had to do things like multiple work sheets and cutting out pictures from a magazine. I hated those crafty assignments because in my house, the glue, tape and scissors are always taken by the Borrowers just when a crafty assignment is due.
Hated the worksheets and half the time H & I couldn’t even figure out what they were asking the kid to do. They were also difficult for us to read as they were all crumpled up by the time they got home.
At least by middle school there were books - but even in middle school homework was a pain because each class kid needed different color folder for and different sized binder. The correct ones never made it home. Also, the insistence that kid use an agenda (which they started using in 1st grade and it still never sunk in with my kid) was a real PITA for him. He would have been much better off with one 5 subject notebook and writing his homework assignments in each classes section. Why they insisted that every kid be organized in the same specific way never made sense to me.
When my kids were in elementary school I had a very good anti-homework friend. But, I never got it at all. K-8 kids have plenty of free time and I see no issue with filling some of it with homework. To this day I just don’t get the anti argument. Even if it doesn’t help, it can’t hurt and as far as some kids living in dysfunctional homes where they can’t find a place to do it. Well, the problem there is not the homework.
Kids have plenty of free time, but I surely didn’t. My home is not dysfunctional, but I worked all day and had a very long commute. I really didn’t need to deal with fights over stupidity.I don’t believe there is anything done as rote homework in elementary school that can’t be done better in some other way.
And for the record: Kid 1 - BA with double major and a minor, master’s degree. Fully employed (and then some) since age 16.
Kid 2: honors BA with distinction with two majors and a minor. Published author. fully employed since age 14.
Kid 3: Honors student in a NYC prep school, national award-winning musician.
Kids 2 and 3 were demons about homework. Kid 1, with no help from anyone, never missed a homework assignment in her entire school career from pre-k through graduate school.
I have never had problems with REAL homework. Making sure a kid actually knows how math works or the grammar rules is fine. It’s a decent test of where you are in the learning curve. I get it. And support it.
But BUSY WORK ( do that, do this, jump up and down 10 times, draw pretty pictures) is nuts. And we suffered through that to the point I considered home schooling.
So in the end…not home schooling but private school prevailed.
I didn’t have an anti-homework argument. I had an anti-busy-work argument. If I was helping my kid doing things it would be on my terms not the schools.