Case Against Homework
!"##$%&%'&(%)')$)*$%+$,)-./*0012&%2%10034%305600578"039:
The Case Against Homework: A Fact Sheet
WHAT THE RESEARCH SAYS c c
c
According to a 2001 review of more than 120 studies of homework and its effects by Professor Harris Cooper of Duke University, the country’s leading homework researcher, and his updated 2006 review of an additional sixty studies, there is very little correlation between the amount of homework and achievement in elementary school and only a moderate correlation in middle school. Even in high school, “too much homework may diminish its effectiveness or even become counterproductive,” writes Cooper in his latest research review [Harris Cooper, The Battle Over Homework, second edition, page 26, and Does Homework Improve Academic Achievement? A Synthesis of the Research 1987–2003, the Review of Educational Research (Spring 2006)].
Many countries with the highest scoring students on achievement tests, such as Japan, Denmark, and the Czech Republic, have teachers who assign little homework. Meanwhile, countries such as Greece, Thailand, and Iran, where students have some of the worst average scores, have teachers who assign a lot of homework. American students do as much homework as their peers in other countries—if not more—but still manage only to score around the international average. [National Differences, Global Similarities: World Culture and the Future of Schooling by David P. Baker and Gerald K. LeTendre, Stanford
University Press, 2005]
Most teachers do not take courses specifically on homework during teacher training. In fact, research shows that the great majority are unaware of the research on the problems with homework [Stephen Aloia, “Teacher Assessment of Homework,” Academic Exchange Quarterly (Fall 2003)]. That’s why, as
Cooper told the authors of The Case Against Homework, when it comes to homework, “most teachers are winging it.”
RECOMMENDED HOMEWORK GUIDELINES
c
c
According to
The Case Against Homework: A Fact Sheet
WHAT THE RESEARCH SAYS c c
c
According to a 2001 review of more than 120 studies of homework and its effects by Professor Harris Cooper of Duke University, the country’s leading homework researcher, and his updated 2006 review of an additional sixty studies, there is very little correlation between the amount of homework and achievement in elementary school and only a moderate correlation in middle school. Even in high school, “too much homework may diminish its effectiveness or even become counterproductive,” writes Cooper in his latest research review [Harris Cooper, The Battle Over Homework, second edition, page 26, and Does Homework Improve Academic Achievement? A Synthesis of the Research 1987–2003, the Review of Educational Research (Spring 2006)].
Many countries with the highest scoring students on achievement tests, such as Japan, Denmark, and the Czech Republic, have teachers who assign little homework. Meanwhile, countries such as Greece, Thailand, and Iran, where students have some of the worst average scores, have teachers who assign a lot of homework. American students do as much homework as their peers in other countries—if not more—but still manage only to score around the international average. [National Differences, Global Similarities: World Culture and the Future of Schooling by David P. Baker and Gerald K. LeTendre, Stanford
University Press, 2005]
Most teachers do not take courses specifically on homework during teacher training. In fact, research shows that the great majority are unaware of the research on the problems with homework [Stephen Aloia, “Teacher Assessment of Homework,” Academic Exchange Quarterly (Fall 2003)]. That’s why, as
Cooper told the authors of The Case Against Homework, when it comes to homework, “most teachers are winging it.”
RECOMMENDED HOMEWORK GUIDELINES
c
c
According to