A Nation at Rest: the American Way of Homework
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Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis Fall 2003, Vol. 25, No. 3, pp. 319–337 A Nation at Rest: The American Way of Homework Brian P. Gill RAND Steven L. Schlossman Carnegie Mellon University We use several national surveys to provide a 50-year perspective on time spent on homework. The great majority of American children at all grade levels now spend less than one hour studying on a typical day—an amount that has not changed substantially in at least 20 years. Moreover, high school students in the late 1940s and early 1950s studied no more than their counterparts did in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Changes in educational opinion on homework over the last half century have had little effect on student behavior, with only two notable exceptions: a temporary increase in homework time in the decade following Sputnik, and a new willingness in the last two decades to assign small amounts to primary-grade students. Keywords: Cold War culture, “excellence” movement, history of education, home and school, homework IN the 1980s and 1990s, few issues related to form. In 1995, when a maverick school board schooling were as universally endorsed as home- member in the small town of Half Moon Bay, work. Educators, parents, and policymakers of California proposed to abolish homework from all political and pedagogical stripes insisted that the local public schools, he was derided not only homework is good and more is better—a view locally but in the national press (Gill & Schloss- that was promoted most visibly in A Nation at man, 1995). The consensus view was summed up Risk (National Commission on Excellence in Ed- two years later by the state superintendent of ucation, 1983) and What Works (U.S. Depart- public instruction and the state school board ment of Education, 1986).1 Indeed, never in the president of California: “Our children are com- history of American education was there a peting in a global economy,” they warned. “The stronger professional and public consensus in extra hours spent after school on homework in favor of homework (see Gill & Schlossman, Europe and Asia are giving those children an 1996; Gill & Schlossman, 2000). extra boost into the 21st century. We should not Homework has been touted for academic and do less in California” (Eastin & Larsen, 1997).2 character-building purposes, and for promoting Indeed, recent news reports suggest that the America’s international competitiveness (see, pro-homework consensus is in danger of becom- e.g., Cooper, 2001; Keith, 1986; Maeroff, 1992; ing a victim of its own success, based on de- Maeroff, 1989; The Economist, 1995). It has scriptions of the woes of children and parents been viewed as a key symbol, method, and yard- who are losing sleep, burning out, and entering stick of serious commitment to educational re- therapy as a result of heavy doses of homework. The respective authors wish to express thanks to the RAND Corporation and the Hoover Institution for providing the opportunity and support to complete research for this article. Conclusions and opinions expressed in this article are entirely the authors’ own. 319 Gill and Schlossman According to a story in the New York Times, tion on this theme, see Gill & Schlossman, 2003). American students are increasingly “homework Furthermore, homework is a barometer of the bound” by the “gross tonnage of today’s home- success—or the limits—of movements to raise work” (Winerip, 1999). Similarly, the Raleigh academic standards. To succeed, academic excel- News Observer finds students and parents talking lence movements ultimately require students to in- seriously about “surviving” the homework load vest effort in their studies; time spent on homework of first and second grades; meanwhile, the sky is is a ground-level indicator of this effort. Analysis apparently the limit in high schools, as different of historical trends in homework can therefore subject teachers indiscriminately assign home- illuminate the effectiveness of broader educa- work without concern for the overall daily load tion reform movements, both past and present. on students (Hui, 2000). USA Today reports that In this article we reverse the standard chrono- America is in the midst of a period of “homework logical organization of historical argument. We intensification” (Hellmich, 2000). An op-ed piece begin with the present and work our way back to by the former president of Pepperdine University the late 1940s, when the first systematic national concludes that homework “is at an all-time high” data on homework time were collected. (Davenport, 2002). Even talk-show host Oprah Winfrey has joined the debate, devoting a show Time Spent on Homework Today 3 to discussing the “onslaught of homework.” The most systematic evidence on homework The perception that homework has increased time at multiple grade levels across the country in recent years is supported by the results of a re- comes from background questions given to stu- search study that is often cited in newspaper re- dents undertaking the National Assessment of ports. The Institute for Social Research at the Educational Progress (NAEP). In 1999, students University of Michigan found that time spent on taking NAEP tests at three different ages—9, 13, home study by 6- to 8-year-old children more and 17—were asked, “How much time did you than doubled between 1981 and 1997 (Hofferth spend on homework yesterday?”5 Figure 1 com- & Sandberg, 2000).4 The Michigan study is cited pares the proportion of students doing less than not only in news reports, but also in a recent one hour of homework with those doing more book advocating “the end of homework”— than two hours, at each age level.6 provocatively subtitled, “How Homework Dis- The results for 9-year-olds are unsurprising. rupts Families, Overburdens Children, and Lim- These are students who are in third or fourth its Learning” (Kralovec & Buell, 2000). The End grade, when we would not expect large quanti- of Homework, like many of the recent press re- ports, laments “the enormous homework burden ties of homework. It seems clear that very few of borne by our students and their families” (Kralovec these students are seriously overburdened with & Buell, 2000, p. x). homework: only 5% reported spending more Given the strength of the pro-homework con- than two hours the previous night. While the sensus over the last twenty years, it would not be 13-year-olds (surveyed in the fall, when most surprising if the homework burden for typical would have been in eighth grade) are doing more American students today was indeed substantial, homework, their loads likewise do not seem ex- and substantially more than that of earlier decades. cessive: only 8% spent more than two hours But the perception of a heavy and growing home- studying the night before. work load has been based almost entirely on anec- What is perhaps most surprising is the home- dote (with the notable exception of the Michigan work load for 17-year-olds. Surveyed in the study). Scholars have shown little interest in seri- spring, most were in grade 11. The time they spent ously examining issues as mundane as the amount on homework differed only marginally from that of time that students spend on homework, whether of 13-year-old students. Although two hours has homework increases with grade level, or how long been considered an appropriate amount homework loads have changed over time. of study for a high-school junior—especially for That homework is mundane does not make those who plan to attend college—only 12% spent it unimportant. Homework engages the child- more than that the night before the survey.7 Nearly family-school interface on a daily basis—more two-thirds of both 17- and 13-year-old students so than any other school practice (for elabora- spent less than one hour on homework. 320 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% age 9 50% age 13 40% age 17 30% 20% 10% 0% <1 hr >2 hrs FIGURE 1. Time spent on homework, 1999. The limited amount of homework done by most students do indeed devote substantial amounts of 17-year-olds is underscored by an examination time to study.9 Nevertheless, these figures seri- of the low end of the scale: the proportion of ously undermine any claims that homework students who do no homework at all on any par- today involves a large time commitment for most ticular school day. These include students who American students at any grade level. had no homework assigned and those who failed to do assigned homework. Figure 2 compares Homework Trends Over the Last 25 Years these groups at all three age levels. Even if homework loads are not especially As Figure 2 indicates, on any particular school large for most students today, have they increased day, 17-year-olds are less likely than 13-year- since the academic excellence movement that olds or 9-year-olds to do any homework. On any began in the late 1970s made homework central particular school day, nearly two high-school to the goals of educational reform? In fact, the juniors in five are doing no homework at all. evidence from NAEP shows only small increases At all age levels, one quarter of students say since that time period, many of which were not they had no homework assigned yesterday. High sustained through the 1990s. school students, however, are far more likely The clearest evidence suggesting that the pro- than younger students to ignore homework that homework consensus of the last quarter century is assigned—a finding that will surely come as had a positive effect can be found in the proba- no surprise to high-school teachers.8 bility that teachers will assign homework on any Variations in time spent on homework—within given day.