Homework: How Much is Too Much?
Series Examines Increasing Workload for Young Students

Homework Resources on the Internet • PTA homework guide -- Checklists and other resources for parents that encourage good homework habits • The Family Education Network, more Web resources from the national Parent-Teacher Association • Helping Your Child with Homework -- Advice and resources from the U.S. Department of Education • HomeworkCentral, a free directory of educational Web sites from bigchalk.com • A Nation at Risk, a 1983 critique of America's public school system by the National Commission on Excellence in Education • Johns Hopkins University Center on School, Family and Community Relationships • Synopsis of "The End of Homework: How Homework Disrupts Families, Overburdens Children, and Limits Learning," by Dr. Etta Kralovec with John Buell at the American Youth Policy Forum

March 2003 -- Homework -- the traditional bane of a school-age child's existence -- is once again coming under fire. Some influential researchers say homework does little to improve a student's academic abilities. Others believe homework is excessive, and doing more harm than good.

At the turn of the century, homework was actually outlawed in some areas because it was considered child labor. The theory was to simply let kids be kids. But Sputnik and the space race changed everything. Almost overnight, educators were scrambling to fill the "education gap" with the Soviet Union. And a 1980s report A Nation at Risk warned again that American students were falling behind other nations like Japan in scholastic ability. The homework load increased again.

NPR presents a multi-part series on homework: how educators are balancing mandates to improve test scores against a chronic lack of resources and the need for children to have enough time to be children.

 Part One: Family Stress
Often, for busy, stressed-out parents and struggling children, homework is a major source of tension. NPR's Margot Adler talks to families about how the increasing workload is affecting their family life. Homework is becoming a family event, and many parents are finding that the amount of hands-on help required is totally alien to their own experience growing up.
March 11, 2003

 Part Two: The Achievement Gap
NPR's Claudio Sanchez examines how one inner-city school's careful use of homework can be a lifeline to some children struggling to keep up. Teachers are using homework as a way to involve parents as helpers and motivators, and even offers "homework classes" to parents who want to learn how to better help their children. March 12, 2003

 Part Three: Breaking the Cycle
Homework is intended to reinforce classroom learning, and help students keep up with their studies. But for the students in poorer school districts with the fewest resources, homework can actually cause students to fall even farther behind. NPR's Debbie Elliott looks at how one Alabama school is trying to break the cycle with innovation and hard work. March 13, 2003

 Part Four: Shirley Igo, PTA
Morning Edition Host Bob Edwards talks with Shirley Igo, national president of the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA), about the PTA's parent guide to homework. It covers topics such as the questions a parent should ask about the proper amount of homework, and how parents can help their kids. March 14, 2003

Browse more NPR stories on public education.

In Depth

 April 12, 2002: The End of Homework co-author Etta Kralovec discusses the adverse effects of homework on kids with Talk of the Nation's Neil Conan.

 April 29, 2002: Commentator Ron Wolk, founding editor of Education Week magazine, says schools require students to learn too much useless information, and saddle children with too much homework.

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