This is exactly what I am seeing...my sixth grader get homes and starts homework at 4:30 pm every day. He is usually done by 7:30 but some nights it is 9 before he finishes.

Part of the reason for this is because besides homework he has a lot of quizzes and tests. We are teaching him how to study a little bit (about 10-15 minutes) a night for several nights before a test. So the night before is just review. Well add that to the "normal" homework and it really is a load.

There is no way I can home school because my oldest refuses to take instruction from me. He'd rather be wrong and get an F than change an answer I tell him is wrong. We are working on that though.

Your wife rules.

I'm with LW on that. 3 hours of homework is punishment. Let's be realistic. Homework is consolidation not additional grudge-work. Subject teachers, and principals, need to get savvy and realize that homework is a good discipline but is being abused!

You have to realize that it's NOT teachers testing the crap out of kids. It all trickles down from NCLB. My students just spent 3 hours taking a computerized multiple choice test. It was WAY too difficult for them, and while they did their best trying to figure out what the questions were asking, hardly any of them did "well." It was torture for them, and I hated having to drag them down to the computer lab for yet another session. While we have to "proctor" these tests, the mandates come from far above teachers. I haven't talked to a teacher who wouldn't rather show student achievement in more child-friendly, authentic ways versus hours-long multiple choice tests.

You don't want your tax dollars to pay teachers to be test proxies? Email, call, or write your representatives in Washington and in your states and let them know how much you think all this testing sucks. Vote for candidates who are for major NCLB reform.

I know I'd rather spend my time in the classroom working with kids and teaching them the things they need to know and extending that learning versus testing them continuously to see if they know the material that there wasn't enough time to teach.

Umm, some of us have been fighting it since BEFORE it was enacted, Marcie.

I don't believe it should be reformed, I believe it should be ABOLISHED. Fundamentally flawed ideas aren't good candidates for reform.

It varies state to state. Because the state does not pay for our homeschool, however, the state has no business regulating it. And that's the way it should be.

I disagree as to the national standards, Marcie. Is it mere coincidence that our performance has declined overall and dropout rates increased AFTER these standards were put into place? The idea of bringing every child up to the average (the seeming goal of NCLB) is so fundamentally flawed that it would be laughable if it weren't for the fact that our EDUCATORS believe it to be possible! The only way you "leave no child behind" is if you set the bar so low every child can pass over it. Then, ironically, it is our best and brightest who suffer the worst.



Wrong, Marcie. It is the teacher's unions who have pushed these mandates, and these unions are made up of teachers. Want to fix the problems? Get some real leaders into your unions (or, better yet, abolish them altogether) and boot the socialists out!

Well, you need to kick your union reps out, Marcie. If the majority of educators in your district think it blows, it's time you make the union reps do their jobs.



I'm not in competition with the public schools, though. It would be pointless, and I don't believe in using my kids as pawns to make a political point.



I believe that if an educational institution is supported in any way by tax dollars, there should be accountability. I believe in a voucher system and doing away with the "public school" monopoly. I believe if a school doesn't compete on the market, let the decline in enrollment shut its doors.

They do that. There are three teams in the 6th grade. Three teachers and a helper are assigned to each team. All the kids on that team have only those three teachers. Those teachers work together, so say if they are studying Propaganda in Social Studies, then the Math and Science teachers also try to tie their stuff in with it.

Part of the problem is while it doesn't always "look" like a lot of homework, when you factor in most kids are still slow writers at this age...it takes for freaking ever.

In most subjects my son averages about 5 worksheets a night...after reading a chapter in a book or reading several pages of handouts he does the worksheets. That is no exaggeration. And this doesn't include long term assignments like book reports and science projects, OR studying time.

I go over them when he is done to make sure he is grasping the material. It takes me about thirty minutes to go through it all. And if there is an area he's not getting....whoa, there is war at our house. He doesn't want to correct anything, partly because he hates when I am right, and partly because hell, he just spend HOURS doing it...he's D-O-N-E. Put a fork in him.

Another thing....lots of kids who were getting straight A's in elementary are barely getting by this year. It's not because they are dumb...most of these kids have parents who work, and they don't have time to go over hours of homework. My son is smart but I still have to be available to him during the hours he's doing homework because most of the time he has questions.

Well, you need to kick your union reps out, Marcie. If the majority of educators in your district think it blows, it's time you make the union reps do their jobs.

You're making an AWFUL lot of assumptions.

Why do the kids need homework while that young?  If they are getting taught in school, why do they need homework each night?

I understand reading each night, as there isn't enough time in school to read, but why homework?

My daughter had homework every night last year.  It was a horrible year for her and she felt stressed all the time.  This year, she has a teacher that sends homework home once or twice a week.  My daughter has learned more with this teacher, isn't stressed, and can do her homework without help.

If you are teaching the kids in school, why do you need to send them home with yet another 1/2 hour of work? 

The teachers on;y teach it once, then?

The current teacher that my daughter has is very good.  She goes over the same subject matter throughout the week, and attacks it from different angles.  My daughter has had very little homework.  The homework that she has had is very advanced, but she breezes right through it.

In contrast, last year she had a teacher that barely covered the subjects.  She had homework every day, and I was literally teaching her what she wasn't learning in school.

Sorry, but I don't think homework is that helpful and I don't see it as "discipline".  I see it as lazy teachers leaving part of their jobs up to the parents to complete.

I never had homework until i was in middle school.  Oddly enough, I still ended up OK.  Of course, back then, teachers were concerned more with teaching the kids than politics and standardized testing.

Unless of course...you know...they have no idea what the hell they're doing. I don't think my parents helped me with any homework after first grade.

~Zoo

No of course not but it's one thing to do the work under the teacher's care and gudance in the classroom and another in a diff setting. Repetition helps to cement what was taught in the classroom. When they do the HW and see the corrected paper later they can learn from their mistakes.

Diff teachers have diff methods and personalities. I found with my kids and others along the way that there were certain personality conflicts that come into play. Sometimes a child just doesn't do well with a certain teacher. Sometimes it's plain and simple the teacher is just not a good communicator and while may know the material, may not be very good at transferring her/his ideas to the kids.

That and sometimes you do just run into a lazy teacher who is there to collect a paycheck. Rare, but seen it happen a few times.



who?



I agree with this. I know one of my kids had a problem with fractions and by doing HW together he got it. I was able to put it in a way he could understand. Maybe the teacher didn't speak his language or maybe he needed the one to one instruction but regardless the HW time was what helped him finally "get it."

Thanks, Zoo!

Freire's a stud too, for the record.