HOMEWORK HOOEY

Another good article rebutting the utter nonsense that American children suffer from too much homework.  The overwhelming EVIDENCE (vs. anecdotes) is that precisely the opposite is true.  A nice plug for KIPP too:

The real problem with both books is that nowhere in their litanies of "so-and-so said" is voice given to schools that value homework as a key to academic success. The KIPP Academies, for example, a nation-wide network of charter schools, require not only longer days and school years (students get only two weeks off in the summer), but also give between two and three hours of homework each night.

And KIPP's record of success speaks for itself. Last year, for example, 100 percent of KIPP's Gaston, N.C., eighth-grade class received above-grade-level scores in reading and math; 79 percent of all KIPP alumni nationwide go on to college, and KIPP Washington, D.C., is the highest performing middle school in the nation's capital. And these are not anomalies.

Homework works for kids. Just as a musician can't learn an instrument by only attending class, and an athlete can't master a sport by watching others play the game, students can't master math, reading and history without extensive practice.

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HOMEWORK HOOEY

By MARTIN A. DAVIS JR.

August 27, 2006 -- THE HOMEWORK MYTH

By Alfie Kohn

De Capo Press, 256 pages, $24

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/books/homework_hooey_postopbooks_martin_a__davis_jr_.htm

THE CASE AGAINST HOMEWORK: HOW HOMEWORK IS HURTING OUR CHILDREN AND WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT IT

By Sarah Bennett & Nancy Kalish

Crown, 304 pages, $24.95

A.A. MILNE had it right: The greatest joy of childhood is the free dom to do nothing. But one can't do nothing forever, as Christopher Robin reminded Pooh in the last of Milne's classic children's stories.

"I'm not going to do nothing no more," Christopher Robin said.

"Never again?" asked Pooh.

"Well, not so much. They don't let you."

"They" are the adults, whose world Christopher Robin is about to enter, presumably as a student. But some adults believe - at least in the realm of homework - that nothing is exactly what children should be doing.

That's Alfie Kohn's solution. Author of "The Homework Myth" and prosecutor of all that smacks of excellence in the American classroom, he claims that the evidence that homework has a positive affect on academic achievement is "dubious." Worse, it's harming kids' emotional development by working them into the ground after the school bell rings.