The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) —commonly referred to as the Nation’s Report Card— showed just 35% of high school seniors were proficient in reading, the lowest score since the assessment began in 1992.
The math score for 12th-graders was even worse, with just 22% achieving proficiency, the lowest point since the current test began in 2005.
Sadly, this doesn’t surprise me. My local public high schoolers never had/have any math homework. You know how you get better at math? By doing math! My middle child attended a competitive admissions non-boundary public school. They had a lot of math homework.
Basically, in reading the top 10% improved slightly, the next 15% rennained mostly the same… and the rest, 75% of 12th graders’ reading ability&skills went down, with now 25% at the level only the bottom 10% were at in 1992.
Same trend but much less pronounced in Maths. 
Multiple studies have demonstrated that homework is only effective in limited quantities, even for math.
Solving problem after problem after problem does NOT help a kid learn math. It will help them memorize the templates that they were given. They will not be able to use that math in any other context, nor will they actually understand what they are doing. They just learn how to plug numbers into the formula and churn out answers. Kids learn how to solve equations and get great grades in math, but get to college and do not know what a “variable” actually is. They think that it is a blank space where they should insert different numbers.
Math is about learning problem solving, not about memorizing templates and formulas. Too much repetitive homework interferes with this, and the amount of actual work that a human can do effectively is limited.
Math teaching in the USA has been ineffective for a long time, and the USA has been scoring far lower on math than countries and systems which require a LOT less math homework.
Or how to calculate an unweighted grade point average while looking to see which colleges may be realistic to apply to.
I’m not saying problem after problem, but how about some amount of homework? Even the in class assignments are treated as optional and not graded or given any credit for completion.
