Eat their homework

"Most of the parents that were against the homework policy felt that students need a large quantity of homework to prepare them for the rigorous AP classes in high school and to get them into Harvard," she says. Stephanie Conklin, Ed.M.'06, sees this at Another Course to College, the Boston pilot school where she teaches math.

Upon returning from winter break, you’ll probably have a handful of students saying the dog ate their homework or it got blown away in a winter storm. But you’ll probably be surprised to learn that some research suggests assigning too much homework can be a bad thing.

In his telling, the dog was not his but one in the street who ate some of the papers after a wind blew them out of his hand. This elicits the same response, rendered in Standard English rather than dialect. The excuse for the brevity of the document did not become the punchline for another 18 years.

Students, they say, particularly younger students who have seen a rise in the amount of take-home work and already put in a six- to nine-hour "work" day, need less, not more homework. Who is right? Are students not working hard enough or is homework not working for them?