Should homework count?

June 28, 2011 By Joanne 36 Comments

Homework will count for only 10 percent of a student’s grade in Los Angeles public schools, a new policy dictates.  The goal is to equalize grading for students with “varying degrees of access to academic support at home.” Some teachers fear students won’t bother to complete assigned work.

Because many teachers grade on effort, rather than performance, the policy will lower grades, predicts Darren, who teaches math in Sacramento.

In my classes, homework counts for 20% of a student’s grade–still too much for LA Unified, but much less than so many others teachers. This means that 80% of a student’s grade comes from tests and quizzes, which are measures of performance.

In my classes, students must demonstrate some level of mastery of the material in order to pass the course; I don’t give courtesy D’s for those who learn nothing but “try” all the homework.

I don’t think teachers should assign homework that requires “academic support” at home.

-->Filed Under: Education Tagged With: grades, homework, Los Angeles, parents About Joanne
CommentsBB says: June 28, 2011 at 12:35 pm

You are not nurturing a child or teen if you don’t help them develop the ability to practice her/his academic skills outside the classroom (and without parental hovering/assistance).

Lightly Seasoned says: June 28, 2011 at 12:55 pm

I count homework as 10%. I haven’t noticed it making much of a difference in completion rates — obviously, if they do the homework, the assessments are much better. Some stuff — reading guide questions, vocab sheets, that sort of thing — if they don’t need to do it to ace the exam, what’s it to me? The bright kids usually don’t need the questions to figure out what to pay attention to in a text — I swap out something more challenging/interesting for them usually.

Michael E. Lopez says: June 28, 2011 at 1:03 pm

Joanne-

I think the idea is that just getting a place to sit and do homework quietly and without interruption is part of “academic support”. Making homework a large part of the grade means that some students are put at a disadvantage because their home lives don’t really take homework into account; there are different expectations, and maybe parents think the kid should be watching his or her siblings instead of studying.

I could be wrong of course, but I think that’s a big part of what’s intended by that sentence.

Richard Aubrey says: June 28, 2011 at 1:09 pm

Restricting the instruction, including practice, to what can be done in class restricts the total instruction.
I once knew a teacher who couldn’t even test for what he assigned to be learned, but not turned in, or he’d get above a 50% failure rate, which was not allowed.
He dumbed down the instruction to whatever he could get across in class.
In the unfairness rodeo, this must have some weight.

Richard Aubrey says: June 28, 2011 at 1:10 pm

What is it with this thing?
And the planted axiom is that only a lack of academic support at home–a couple of hours undisturbed–results in failure to turn in homework.

Deirdre Mundy says: June 28, 2011 at 1:21 pm

I know that if it was me, and if it was say…. a ninth grade history class and we were only being graded on tests, I wouldn’t have done any homework. Why waste time coloring maps and doing crossword puzzles when you can just pay attention in class, read the book, and ace all the tests? That’s still a 90%, ignoring extra credit.

I had AMPLE academic support at home— but why do pointless busywork (as opposed to say, a math problem set) if it doesn’t count for the grade? Especially when you could be out riding bikes or hanging around inside and reading a novel?

This policy will most benefit the kids who hate busy-work but ace tests. I predict that it won’t even last for an entire year, when they realize who it actually helps.

Cal says: June 28, 2011 at 2:13 pm

As is always the case, there are two or three different issues.

In Title I schools, you have a lot of kids whose skills are Basic or higher but are getting Fs because they don’t do homework and their teacher ranks homework as 40-60% of the grade. In these same schools, kids are getting As and Bs despite their terrible skills because they do their homework–this is what Darren is referring to in his post. The teachers came up with the policy to help kids pass, but they failed to realize that lots of kids simply would never do their homework and don’t care if they fail.

In the context of a high poverty school, where hundreds of kids have poor skills and the school is getting dinged for terrible test scores, it makes no sense at all to aggravate the matter by failing kids who can do the work. You just lose a high percentage of the few high skilled kids they have.

In suburban, middle or higher income schools (which this policy is clearly NOT aimed at), it will improve life for white boys, who are the most likely to do well on tests while neglect their homework. It will hurt girls and Asians with weak skills, as they are more likely to compensate weak performance by extra credit and homework.

I only count homework as 10%, and I’m very much in favor of this. I’m tired of teachers confusing effort with ability and rewarding their preferred behavior with As.

Patti says: June 28, 2011 at 2:13 pm

In the fall of last year I was placed at a school where there were several kids in our class (third grade) who went home to be the parent. That is, they fed younger siblings if there was any food in the house and put everyone to bed if they could. These kids could not have done homework if they wanted to. Their regular teacher gave them time during lunch and recess to get the homework done, but she only made them do the homework that she felt would directly benefit their learning or practice because of the limited time. My question about that is, if there are assignments that don’t support learning or practicing what’s been learned, why is it being assigned?

I do agree that assigning some homework, particularly in middle school and high school, is important. Any professional career involves doing work outside of what you’re assigned at your desk, and getting into the habit is a good thing. Seeing that the effort you put in (homework and studying) results in good outcomes on tests is a powerful motivator for going the extra mile. I also see homework as a way for teachers to assess how instruction is going on an ongoing basis so that adjustments can be made.

But I do see a lot of homework that’s busy work. Worksheets for the heck of it, artsy assignments that don’t reinforce or assess what’s being learned, and miles of practice problems for things that should have been mastered grade levels before. I have no quibble with good, meaningful homework. It would be nice if teacher preparation programs spent a little more time teacher future teachers the hows and whys of assigning good homework. High-achieving kids don’t need busy work and low-achieving kids shouldn’t waste their precious time remaining in school doing busy work.

To LAUSD: Don’t hamstring teachers by telling them how to grade homework. Instead, teach them to assign good homework.

Peace Corps says: June 28, 2011 at 3:11 pm

Homework only counts 10% in my classes, but I would be upset if my district tried to dictate the weighting of assignments and tests. If it were just guidelines, OK, but grade weighting should ultimately be the teachers choice.

tim-10-ber says: June 28, 2011 at 3:11 pm

Yes…homework should count and 10% is perfect and grading for effort does not help the student. I don’t understand where teachers and administrators got this idea. You are being too soft on the kids…

Homework needs to reinforce what was learned in the classroom –math, spelling, vocab, reading, history facts. science facts, etc. Don’t give homework for the sake of giving homework…make it meaningful.

How do actors, musicians, athletes learn their craft? If not by practice what? Why in god’s name is school any different.

Educators have been too soft on kids. This truly needs to stop. Please…the kids well excel…get them in the right environment, right ability grouping, give them the tools to excel, the right foundation and they will…

Kids are naturally curious…if kids cannot do homework at home then find the time for them to do it at school…

Please!

Crimson Wife says: June 28, 2011 at 3:45 pm

I think my college courses had it right: assign problem sets but allow the student to complete as much or as little of it as he/she deems necessary to pass the exams. Why force a student to complete 50 problems (or suffer a grade penalty for refusing to do so) when 5 would suffice?

Musicians aren’t forced to spend hours practicing Mary Had a Little Lamb over and over when they are capable of playing Eine Kleine Nachmusik. They demonstrate mastery of the easier piece and then are allowed to move on.

Parker says: June 28, 2011 at 3:56 pm

One problem with the homework discussion is that people are not very specific about what they mean by homework. Also, different students and different populations may require different approaches.

I think homework can be useful at some levels to help students learn but if 75% (very real possibility in some schools) of your students are not going to do it then it is not that useful. If the majority will do the homework, then appropriate homework will be useful. This of course also depends on the expectations of the population being served. You may be able to cover more material with students doing lots of the practice outside of school and if this is expected then great, use lots of homework but if the population expectations are that there should be less homework then give less and cover less material.

I tend to give homework but I do not count it very much, if at all. “Here are some problems over what we have done in class, make sure you can do these.” I often even give the answers with the assignment. They will be graded when they have to show their knowledge in class. For most, practicing with the homework will probably improve their class performance but not because they got credit for completing the homework.

Darren says: June 28, 2011 at 4:08 pm

If I give homework, it’s to reinforce my in-class instruction and provide an opportunity for students to practice what they were supposed to learn. I can’t imagine giving a crossword puzzle or a coloring assignment in high school math.

Busy-work is a sign of poor teaching.

gahrie says: June 28, 2011 at 4:29 pm

I’m convinced.

I’m going to tell every sports team, academic team and the band that practice doesn’t count anymore, and they only need to show up for the games and performances……

North of 49th says: June 28, 2011 at 4:31 pm

My district has had this policy in place for a long time — more than 10 years, anyway. We may not count (for grades) any work except what is done at school. This is not only to level the playing field on “academic support,” but to filter out “work” that is actually done by parents or siblings. When students have a project assigned, they may do *parts* of the work at home — for example, make notes, color maps, get illustrations, but they must do the actual project in both rough and final form at school.

We have a separate section on the report card to evaluate “learning skills” and homework completion is graded in that section. Homework is regularly assigned, and of course completing it (especially in math) affects the grade the student gets based on in-class work, tests and summative assessments.

I don’t know if this system is better or worse than the other, but it does cut the rug out from under parents who insist their child is a fabulous reader and budding Pulitzer Prize writer, but whose work in school is of low quality. I’ve had parents bring in samples of work supposedly done by their child at home, complaining that the work they do at school is too easy. I always reply with a smile, Let’s get him to do something like that right now! And of course, the obvious differential between what the child can do independently and what he putatively did at home is immediately apparent.

Parker says: June 28, 2011 at 4:39 pm

“I’m going to tell every sports team, academic team and the band that practice doesn’t count anymore, and they only need to show up for the games and performances……”

If the kid can play the band songs to the expected level and that is all the students wants to do then they don’t need to practice any more. If they want to get better, then practice is required. If a kid can do the math without much practice then great.

Michael E. Lopez says: June 28, 2011 at 5:12 pm

At the risk of pointing out the obvious, team/group practice is a little different than individual homework.

Parker says: June 28, 2011 at 5:30 pm

Agree Michael. I think it is a bad analogy. One that I try not to use.

Dennis Fermoyle says: June 28, 2011 at 5:35 pm

I’m not saying this isn’t the case for Darren, but if I had students who were making an honest effort, and they weren’t able to demonstrate any level of mastery, I’d feel like I was doing something wrong.

Robert Wright says: June 28, 2011 at 7:38 pm

What we mean by “academic support” might vary.

Does it mean having a parent who can help solve quadratic equations?

Or does it mean having a parent who can turn off the TV?

I assign a lot of homework.

It levels the playing field for students who need more time to complete assignments.

But all things considered, is it the right thing to do? I’m not sure.

Bill Leonard says: June 28, 2011 at 9:42 pm

…and the rest of the world continues to eat our lunch in science, engineering and technology generally. I question whether this discussion would even occur in India or China.

Parker says: June 28, 2011 at 10:13 pm

“…and the rest of the world continues to eat our lunch in science, engineering and technology generally. I question whether this discussion would even occur in India or China.”

This is just absurd. Most of the people in China are basically illiterate; I would love for China to attempt to educate its entire populace to the levels that the US tries. Or India.

Parker says: June 28, 2011 at 10:17 pm

Maybe, not illiterate. I don’t want to over state the reality, but I’m tired of the assumption that all the Chinese and Indian people are being educated to obscene levels.

Gifty says: June 29, 2011 at 5:17 am

Homework is a kind of practice that we give to student for their improvement.
It is one of the important part of student’s educational improvement!
I agree with this “but grade weighting should ultimately be the teachers choice.”

Homeschooling Granny says: June 29, 2011 at 5:45 am

Having read through this discussion, it seems clear that a significant amount of what teachers can do is determined by what parents do. Teachers can give meaningful homework and be fair to all students only if all homes support the doing of homework. And yet in much public debate we speak as if only the quality of the teachers matters. It seems that to mention the equal importance of parents and home life is the third rail of the debate about education.

How can we solve the problems of educating all our children if we can’t have an honest discussion? Do we really expect schools and teachers to equalize the inequalities in home life? The truth is that a stable home life with two parents and family meals together give children an advantage in school. How are teachers to compensate children who do not have these basics?

Blaming teachers while ignoring the impact of home life is like the drunk looking for his car keys under the street light, not because that is where he lost them but because it is easier.

Cranberry says: June 29, 2011 at 6:45 am

10% of the overall grade would be a full grade level. Thus, a student who aces tests and quizzes, but hands in no homework, would only receive a B, not an A. For the students who care about their grade point average, 10% is a significant incentive to complete and hand in homework on time.

I think it’s a good policy. School systems often institute placement policies which take students’ GPAs into account. With a 10% penalty, a student who has mastered the material, but forgot his homework frequently, isn’t barred from more challenging courses. On the other hand, with only a 10% boost, a student who has no clue about the subject matter, but whose parent (or tutor) completed the homework and stapled it to his forehead, isn’t going to be placed into courses above his level of mastery (i.e., 30% could transform a C-level in-class performance on tests and quizzes into an A, but 10% will only make it a B.)

It will be interesting to see if such a policy changes the composition of honors classes, resulting in a greater range of SES status (or not.)

Cal says: June 29, 2011 at 7:06 am

Thus, a student who aces tests and quizzes, but hands in no homework, would only receive a B

The grading software disagrees with you, I find.

But even if it did, what nasty, revolting moralisty would give a B to a student who didn’t need homework to ace the quizzes?

Teachers who want to pretend ability doesn’t exist in favor of the hard work they had to do to achieve any sort of competence are just really unpleasant people.

Crimson Wife says: June 29, 2011 at 7:52 am

If the student can ace the tests without the practice, why are we forcing him/her to waste valuable time doing tedious, unchallenging “busywork” or face a grade penalty for failing to do so?

Deirdre Mundy says: June 29, 2011 at 8:37 am

Also, (from personal experience) just because a student isn’t turning in HW doesn’t mean she’s not DOING it.

In High School, I had several teachers who collected and graded the homework once a quarter. (These were usually math teachers). As an ADHD maelstrom of disorganization, I found keeping the work for a whole grading period to be rather….. difficult.

I’d do it every night– these teachers assigned valuable problem sets, and we had frequent quizzes and tests and I quickly discovered that if you do the work as you go along, you never actually need to STUDY because you learned the math right the first time…….

So I was one of the kids who got A’s on tests and quizzes, a C in the class, but a 5 on the Calc BC test. For me, a 10% cap on homework (which would have given me a 90, and probably a 95 since I usually scraped SOMETHING together to turn in) would have been a Godsend.

But for the kid who was conscientious, neat, and had a B+ in the class and a 2 on the AP Calc exam? It would have been disasterous—and those were the kids who had parents who’d complain……..

Michael E. Lopez says: June 29, 2011 at 10:48 am

I hear you, DM.

A 10% cap on homework would have raised my high school GPA probably around .6 on a 4-point scale. I know in one case it would have changed an “F” to a “B+”.

I was just lazy, though — not disorganized.

Deirdre Mundy says: June 29, 2011 at 10:53 am

Re: organization — the funny thing is, my teachers claimed that they were doing me a favor, because these “note-book keeping” skills would be TOTALLY NECESSARY when I had a job.

Except, I have NEVER had a job where I had to save every piece of paper from a 9 week period. In fact, I spent more of my work time tossing stuff than saving it. And what did get saved could be put IMMEDIATELY into a file cabinet where it would stay unmolested until needed.

And most important day to day stuff is done on the weird device called a “computer” with things like a “hard drive” that you can organize and search.

So the whole organization segment of the math classes turned out to be a waste. Luckily, they were also good math teachers, and I learned my stuff—but anyone who thinks that grades (rather than test scores) are an accurate reflection of mastery is kind of crazy, IMO.

Deirdre Mundy says: June 29, 2011 at 10:53 am

Basically, most grades really measure the degree to which that particular student pleased that particular teacher.

Deirdre Mundy says: June 29, 2011 at 10:54 am

And completing stupid busy work neatly and cheerfully is what pleases many teachers………

bandit says: June 29, 2011 at 1:00 pm

” The goal is to equalize grading for students with “varying degrees of access to academic support at home.”

all goals should have a built in excuse for failure.

Peace Corps says: June 29, 2011 at 3:18 pm

Nothing pleases this teacher more than having a (hopefully more than one) student ace my test. Unfortunately for me that doesn’t happen very often, and I put bonus questions on my tests. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that next year will be better.

Deirdre Mundy says: June 29, 2011 at 3:31 pm

PC– if it makes you feel better, I think a lot of “Acing Tests” has less to do with the teacher than with the student.

So, if you get one of the “Acing tests” sort of kids, you’ll have a student who aces tests. If your class is composed of kids who think a C is good enough and plan to goof off all Semester and cram for the final, well….. you can’t really force them to care about learning the material.

I had a student once who was very bright AND believed that anything less than 100% mastery was the same as failure. She aced every test she took, but because she cared about learning the material–not because of any particularly good teaching–all she really needed was someone to present the material.

Anyway, I hope you get a test-acer next year— but it really is a drive that comes from within. If a student doesn’t care, he won’t ace tests. And you can’t MAKE him care, Hollywood tropes aside.

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