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EOY Argumentative Essay

Alyssa Regner
Miss Ericksons Literacy Class
5/23/2014
Core 4

Homework affects almost every student going to school today. In 2007, students from grades 9-12 with a white
ethnicity who do their homework, worked on homework for an average of 6.8 hours a week outside of school. From
that, about 44.3 percent work on their homework for five or more days. Today students are working on homework
about the same as in 2007, if not a little more. ("Youth Indicators 2011) It is easily noticeable that students today spend
lots of time on their homework. Are students still benefitting from homework and receiving the practice that they need,
or is it too much work and a waste of time? Should schools continue to assign homework to its students? Those in favor
of keeping homework claim that homework allows for more learning and better understanding on topics, it has a
positive benefit on academic performance, and students are given a reasonable amount of homework. Those in favor of
getting rid of homework among schools, claim that homework is not the key to improve the skills of students, it does not
make a difference on academic performance, and students spend too much time on homework.


Advocates for keeping homework state that homework allows for more learning and better understanding
among students. When students have homework, they can review and use information learned in class to better
understand topics, or prepare for their class for the next day. Homework is not just assigned to torture students or to
bombard their lives with work. From an article titled, Lets do Homework, written by the US department of education, it
is expressed: Teachers assign homework for many reasons such as helping students practice what they have learned in
school, getting ready for the next day's class, use resources, such as libraries and encyclopedias, and learn things they
don't have time to learn in school. Homework can also help children learn good habits and attitudes. It can teach

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children to work by themselves and encourage discipline and responsibility. (Lets Do Homework!) This is all very
true. Homework is given for the students benefit to make sure that they understand what they are being taught. If they
dont do the homework and dont understand, then that is their fault because they chose not to do so. However, this
may make teachers unhappy because their job is to try to teach the students and if students arent making an effort to
do what they are supposed to do, this makes it difficult for teachers to teach information and for students to get
something out of it and learn. Just as the information from this article stated, homework is a working and time
management skill that students need for future jobs and careers. If they cannot accomplish it at a young age, and they
continue to follow patterns of not doing work, then this is most-likely what their attitude will be like towards their work
in a future job. In addition, a public Pittsburgh student named, Downing, says that he feels like they should have
homework in every class. That would allow for more learning. It would give students a better chance to understand
things. ("Homework: Too Little or Too Much? It Depends.") Hearing this from a students shows that students are aware
of what is happening in school and for homework. If students want to have homework and know it's benefits, then there
is no reason to not have homework. Most students know that it will help guide them in the right direction for the future.
Alfie Kohn writes and speaks widely on human behavior, education, and parenting. In her article titled, "Do
Students Really need Practice Homework?" she informs that, In reality, its the children who dont understand the
underlying concepts who most need an approach to teaching thats geared to deep understanding. The more theyre
given algorithms and told exactly what to do, the farther behind they fall in terms of grasping these concepts. Students
may memorize the fact that 0.4 = 4/10, or successfully follow a recipe to solve for x, but the traditional approach leaves
them clueless about the significance of what theyre doing. Without any feel for the bigger picture, they tend to plug in
numbers mechanically while applying the technique theyve been taught. As a result, they often cant take these
methods and transfer them to problems even slightly different from those theyre used to. Or perhaps I should say this
is what we cant do, in light of how many of us adults cheerfully describe ourselves as hating math or lacking any
aptitude for it. (Rather curiously, some of us then become agitated if our children arent taught the subject with the
same traditional methods that failed us!) (Kohn, Alfie)


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Those who oppose having homework, are to explain that homework is not the key to improve skills of students.
If students do not understand a topic, and they are given homework on it, it is not going to make them understand it
better. Students need to get help from the teachers themselves instead. On the other hand, if students understand a
topic, they should not have to continue working and practicing it, if they already know how to do it. Dr. Tish Howard, a
newly retired elementary school principal who continues to work with ailing schools as CEO of Edu-Linx Consulting, has
never been a proponent of what she calls "tedious homework." "If a child is struggling, homework is not the key to
improvement," she said, noting how few children have parents at home to help them if they're having trouble with their
homework. "Our schools need to embed intervention time at the end of each day to support the learning of that day
and ensure conceptual understanding before new learning is added the next day." (Wallace, Kelly) This shows that
students who struggle on certain topics and have homework on it, are not benefitting from it because homework is not
meant to teach students how to do the skills, but to review and practice the skills they already know. Therefore,
homework does not help students understand skills better and this may be why some students and parents view
homework as a waste of time.When asked how homework can negatively affect children, Nancy Kalish, author of The
Case Against Homework: How Homework is Hurting Our Children and What We Can Do About It, says that many
homework assignments are simply busy work that makes learning a chore rather than a positive, constructive
experience. (Fuglei, Monica) When homework starts to become a chore, then students arent really learning anything.
They can continue to complete the assignments, but not learn anything because they dont care about doing it and dont
want to do it, which causes homework to not help them improve their skills.
According to Brian Gill, a senior social scientist at the Rand Corporation, there is no evidence that kids are doing
more homework than they did before. "If you look at high school kids in the late '90s, they're not doing substantially
more homework than kids did in the '80s, '70s, '60s or the '40s," he says. "In fact, the trends through most of this time
period are pretty flat. And most high school students in this country don't do a lot of homework. The median appears to
be about four hours a week." (Wilde, Marian) This shows that we have been doing about the same amounts of
homework now, as we were as far as sixty years ago. Is this amount of homework causing students to perform good

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enough. Would more homework cause student to do better in school and get better grades? Furthermore, from the
article titled, High School Homework: Are American Students Overworked? by Laura Miller, a professional writer on
the topic, it has been found that If a student does a math worksheet with 50 problems but completes them incorrectly,
he will likely fail the test. According to the U.S. Department of Education, most math teachers can tell after checking five
algebraic equations whether a student understood the necessary concepts. Practicing dozens of homework problems
incorrectly only cements the wrong method. (Miller, Lauren) Giving students a lot of homework that they may not
understand can be bad if they have 35 math problems of the same type and they get them all wrong because they didnt
understand the topic. By repeating the wrong process over and over, they are getting the process memorized which is
incorrect. Then these incorrect patterns can be hard to fix.


The proponent explains that there are more reasons to giving homework than to just force kids to complete the
assignments. School, and homework included, are all skills that students need to learn before they get a job. Skills such
as time management and responsibilities to get work done, are all needed for jobs I the future. If students cannot
manage their time or get their work done, this becomes a problem. Homework is used to structure and develop these
skills that students need to know. Choosing not to do homework causes students to have a loss in these skills for the
future. It is also very nicely put by Alfie Kohn about students that dont understand homework assignments and dont do
them. Students who are behind and/or dont understand how to complete their homework, tend to fall behind in class
and assigning more homework is not a solution to help them learn these skills. A tradeoff to this would be that those
students who dont complete the homework assignments, arent getting these advantages. Also, these skills arent all
learned from all students because students complete their homework in different ways and there are different types of
homework that can teach different skills.
However, those who oppose having homework, informed that homework does not benefit those who are
struggling. If students do not understand what they learned in class, then they will not understand how to complete the
homework. Therefore, assigning homework is not a solution to help students understand the information. Everyone, at

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least ten times in their life, dont understand something that they are taught in school or just from general instructions.
When subjects of information is not understood from school, then that means that every student has been taught
information that they do not understand. If they do not understand it, then this means that every student has had
homework on something that they didnt understand. If they dont understand the information when they are taught it
in school, then homework is not helping them understand it any better. This is very strong because if there are so many
people that have not understood how to do something in school before, this means that they are not understanding the
homework because they do not understand the information from the lesson. Therefore, homework does not help many
students which tend to care less about school. However, all students dont struggle on assignments. Those students who
dont struggle very often in school when learning in school, usually dont have problems with completing their
homework. Usually the students who dont pay attention in class are goofing around or dont care about what is being
taught. Therefore, this is what could be causing the homework to not help them, because they do not pay attention in
class, and this is why they cannot complete the homework. But for many students, homework does help them better
understand what they were taught in class and it can really benefit them.


Advocates of keeping homework claim that homework has a positive benefit on academic performance. The
more homework that is given to students, the more that they will understand and will do better in school and get better
grades. Harris Cooper, a professor of psychology and director of Duke's Program in Education, explains that "the
relationship between the amount of homework students do and their achievement outcomes was found to be positive
and statistically significant," (Duke Study:) This shows that homework is really helping students do better in school by
reviewing and practicing what they have learned. Harris Cooper, also informed that, Indeed, homework was invented
for a good reason -- as Cooper's research shows. At least 70% of studies indicated that students who do homework had
higher achievement scores than those who didn't. But that effect is strongest for kids in high school, he tells WebMD.
"For elementary school students, homework has little impact on how well they will do in school." Jeanie Lerche Davis,
formerly with WebMD, wrote daily news stories and health features. She interviewed Harris Cooper and found out the

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previous information. (Davis, Jeanie Lerche) This really means that homework is not as important for younger students
and doesn't really affect achievement as much because their homework is not as intense and doesn't require much
thinking. Older students have to concentrate more on their homework and they have to learn generally harder topics
and the homework has the ability to help them more. A study from The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics,
emphasize that the correlation between academic achievement is not as great in elementary school as in middle and
high school. The reasons for it are expressed by the following in the article titled, Homework: What Research Says Brief,
First, research in cognitive psychology indicates that younger children are less able than older ones to tune out
distractions (Plude, Enns, and Broudeur 1994). One might imagine that the distractions present in a younger students
home would make studying there less effective for them than for older students. Second, younger students have less-
well-developed study habits (Dufresne and Kobasigawa 1989). (Copper, Harris) An example that was given in the article
was that older students spend more time than younger ones working on harder assignments and projects. Older
students are also more likely to use self-testing strategies (such as creating note cards or looking back at notes to review
skills) to monitor for themselves, showing how much of the material they have learned.

Those who oppose having homework claim that homework does not make a difference on academic
performance. No matter how much homework is assigned, it is not proven that students will perform better. While it's
clear that homework is a critical part of the learning process, Harris Cooper said the analysis also showed that too much
homework can be counter-productive for students at all levels. "Even for high school students, overloading them with
homework is not associated with higher grades," Cooper reported. (Duke Study:) All in all, shoving more homework on
students is just going to stress them out and not affect academic performance.a recent study led by an Indiana
University School of Education faculty member has found little correlation between time spent on homework and better
course grades for math and science students. It did, however, identify a positive relationship between homework time
and performance on standardized tests. The authors examined a survey and transcript data of more than 18,000 10th
grade students, focusing on individual classes. They suggest that factors like class participation and attendance may

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mitigate the association of homework to stronger grade performance, while the type of homework assigned may cater
to standardized test preparation versus retaining knowledge of class material. (Kuczynski-Brown, Alex.)


Advocates of keeping homework previously implied that about 70% of students who do their homework have
had higher achievement on the topic for tests and quizzes. Students practice and study for their assessments and quizzes
and the homework helps to further develop their skills and do better in school. Conceptual thinking and analysis
questions, allow students to deepen their thoughts on information used in class. Physical projects, presentations, and
research projects, allow students to learn at a higher level because they can get lots of information from online sources
and by teaching the class. These projects and assignments can all be types of homework assigned to a class that allow
students to develop the skills that teach. Students that dont do these assignments, are not gaining any of the skills that
are developed from them. It was also stated that students in elementary school do not gain as much from homework
and that students in middle and high school gain more because they have better study skills. However, they also stated
that the more homework given will increase achievement in school, but they did not explain why. Why does more
homework and just in general, giving homework, help students more in school?
Those who adverse to having homework implied that homework does not increase academic achievement but
does improve scores on standardized tests. However, Harris Cooper stated that there are other factors such as class
participation, attendance and attention to material in class, that would affect how much students actually learn in class.
If they miss class time or dont participate in class, then they are obviously not going to learn as much and will have to
catch up on homework and may not get the usual attention that they would get in class to get what they need to, done.
The exact decision on whether or not homework has an effect on academic achievement in school, cannot be
brought to a conclusion because there are too many different studies and results which all contain different students.
Everyone is different and trying to compare studies with different capabilities and habits, can be hard to compare.
Therefore, there cannot be a very accurate solution to whether homework affects student academic achievement.


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Believers of keeping homework state that students are given a reasonable amount of homework. Students are
not given too much homework and are given time in class to complete assignments as well. They have plenty of time to
work on their homework during these times. In an article titled, Are you Down or Done with Homework? by Lori
Hough, an editor at Harvard Graduate School of Education, she discusses that Some school districts have started using
the 10-minutes per grade rule (Hough, Lory) which was made by the National Education Association (NEA). (Miller,
Lauren) This rule is where each grade gets ten minutes more homework than the last. For example, 2nd graders would
get 20 minutes whereas 6th graders would get 60 minutes, etc. This is a good rule to have because it keeps students
doing the right amount of homework and probably limits them to certain times that they can complete their homework
since some kids would like to go over. It gives students enough time to have fun and be a kid for once. In the same
article, Lori also notes that: Ideally homework should be about taking something home, spending a few curious and
interesting moments in which children might engage with parents, and then getting that project back to school an
organizational triumph. (Hough, Lory) This is basically saying that students should just be spending a little time on
homework or learning, outside of school, and then the rest of their evening should be filled with fun and playtime.


Advocates of eliminating homework claim that students spend too much time and are given, too much
homework. Students are not able to balance their life with both family time and school assignments. Students get
exhausted and stressed out from the amount of homework they are given.
Students actually can get sick from doing too much homework or being stressed to the point where they can't
handle it. From the article titled, High School Homework: Are American Students Overworked? According to William
Crain, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at City College of New York, "Kids are developing more school-related
stomachaches, headaches, sleep problems, and depression than ever before." The average student is glued to his or her
desk for almost seven hours a day. Add two to four hours of homework each night, and they are working a 45 to 55 hour
week! (Miller, Lauren) Although it was noted by Brian Gill earlier, that the amount of homework has stayed the same

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for about the same 60 years, it is now claimed that students are working harder and longer than ever before. Because of
that, students are getting sick and having problems sleeping. Could it be possible that students have always had this
amount of homework and since it is done in different ways and styles, this is what is causing students to take longer to
complete their homework? Critics call homework a form of child abuse and say that it prevents children from engaging
in wholesome activities. Government surveys say that most students spend an hour a day or less on homework. Yet the
campaign against homework never seems to lower, says Diane Ravitch in the article titled, Why Homework is Good for
Kids. (Ravitch, Diane) Even though some schools get little amounts of homework such as the government says, many
schools are striving to give out more.
In the article, How Much Homework is Too Much? written by NBC News in the Childrens Health section, it is
documented in Books like "The Case Against Homework" (Crown, 2006) and "The Homework Myth" (Da Capo, 2007)
which have argued that too much of today's homework is mindless busy work that takes away from family time and
does not improve academic performance. Homework's critics argue that kids should instead be reading for enjoyment,
exploring and being creative. (How Much Homework Is Too Much?) At a young age, students need to have fun while
they can before they get older, have a job and a family of their own to have responsibility for. Now, when they are
young and dont have any of these powerful responsibilities invading in on their life, is the perfect time to start having
some fun.


The advocates of keeping homework found that many school districts are starting to use the 10-minute rule to
control the amount of homework that students are to do on different days. This is good for managing the amount of
homework that students do without overworking them. Its not like an hour of homework for a sixth grader is too much;
it seems pretty reasonable. On the other hand, this rule may not work as well because every student takes a different
amount of time to complete certain tasks and just because 80 or 90 minutes may be the average amount, doesnt mean
that it will take them a shorter or longer amount of time to complete their assignments. Also pointed out was that
homework should not take tons of time. Students should only have to work a little bit on homework and the rest should

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be time that they can have fun, watch television and relax. However, this is also not always true because the amount of
homework that is assigned and the time that students need to complete it, are very widespread relationships.
The advocates of getting rid of homework acknowledge that students spend too much time on homework
because they are given too much. Students are becoming sick, stressed and depressed from their homework loads and
this is not good for their health. The government says that students only work on homework for an hour or less per day
when many of them spend much more than that. A huge characteristic of being kids that homework takes away, is the
ability to have fun and enjoy life. Students are forced to do too much homework and dont end up having enough time
to spend at family gatherings or going to sleepovers with their friends. Overall from the amount of homework that
students are working on, is way to high and the ones who have tons of homework, are missing out on their childhood
and before they know it, they will have a job, and their own responsibilities to do without much time to have fun.
Overall, it is hard to decide whether schools are assigning too much homework or not enough because all
schools assign different amounts. With that given, the feelings that students have about their homework load are
inconclusive because of the differences in amounts of homework in different schools and school districts.


Those in favor of keeping homework as a requirement in school have explained that homework allows for better
understanding of topics and more learning, it has a positive influence on academic performance, and that students are
given a reasonable amount of homework and still have time to have fun. On the other hand, those in favor of
eliminating homework proposed that homework is not the solution to helping students learn a topic, it does not affect
academic performance among students, and too much time is spent on completing the homework that is assigned and
then students dont have enough time to have fun and spend time with their family. Advocates of keeping homework
indicated that homework is not just given to students to torture them, but that it is given for a purpose. Most teachers
assign it because it helps students prepare for class for the next day, practice what they learned in class from the current
day, and it teaches them time management and responsibility. But at the same time, those who dont wish to continue
homework assignments, verified that if students are struggling on a subject and they have homework for that subject,

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they will be pushed to do several problems on a topic they dont understand and/or an incorrect path could be taken
and the student could interpret the wrong way to do the skill. Supporters of keeping homework also reveals that
homework has a positive influence on academic achievement, especially on the higher grades where their study skills
and maturity towards their education, is more serious. Homework allows for more practice of skills and can help
students do better on tests, quizzes and in class in general. In spite of that, challengers of keeping homework highlighted
that homework did not help students perform better in class but helped them perform better on standardized tests. It
was proved that no matter how much homework is assignedno matter what the gradestudents will most-likely not
show a relationship between the homework and performance. Lastly, backers of agreeing with homework in school
expressed that students are given a reasonable amount of homework and can balance their school, and family, friend
and fun experiences to manage a healthy lifestyle. Adversaries of assigning homework in school articulate that too much
homework is assigned and students do not have enough time to have fun and create a balance in their life. Too much
homework is assigned and students get stressed out and sick from the level of interaction with thinking and processing
their learning.
Homework can be an intruder in a student's life or a lifelong tour of learning to lead to one's future. No matter
what decision is made, someone will be unhappy with the outcome. As Joel Olsteen says, Youre going to go through
tough timesthats life. But I say, nothing happens to you, it happens for you. See the positive in negative events.
(Tough Times Quotes) The decision on whether we have homework or not is not a tragic or cheerful event that
happens to someone; but one that happens for that person, because its meant to be and God knows it is the right path
for their life to take on the rest of its journey.







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Works Cited

Copper, Harris. "Homework: What the Research Says Brief." Homework: What the Research Says Brief. N.p.,
n.d. Web. 20 May 2014.


Davis, Jeanie Lerche. "Do Kids Have Too Much Homework?" WebMD. WebMD, n.d. Web. 20 May 2014.


"Duke Study: Homework Helps Students Succeed in School, As Long as There Isn't Too Much." Duke Today.
N.p., 7 Mar. 2006. Web. 20 May 2014.


Fuglei, Monica. "The Homework Debate: The Case Against Homework." Concordia University Portland Online.
N.p., n.d. Web. 20 May 2014.


"Homework: Too Little or Too Much? It Depends." Newsela. N.p., 25 Mar. 2014. Web. 20 May 2014.


Hough, Lory. "Are You Down With or Done With Homework?" Harvard Graduate School of Education. N.p., n.d.
Web. 20 May 2014.

"How Much Homework Is Too Much?" Children's Health on NBC News. N.p., 14 July 2009. Web. 20 May 2014.


Kohn, Alfie. "Do Students Really Need Practice Homework?" Do Students Really Need Practice Homework? N.p.,
n.d. Web. 20 May 2014.


Kuczynski-Brown, Alex. "Homework Doesn't Improve Student Course Grades, But Could Boost Standardized
Test Scores: Study." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 16 Nov. 2012. Web. 20 May 2014.


"Let's Do Homework!" Archived: Learning Partners --. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 May 2014.

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Miller, Lauren. "High School Homework: Are American Students Overworked?" The Huffington Post.
TheHuffingtonPost.com, 02 Nov. 2011. Web. 20 May 2014.


Ravitch, Diane. "Why Homework Is Good for Kids." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 22 Mar.
2007. Web. 20 May 2014.


"Tough Times Quotes." BrainyQuote. Xplore, n.d. Web. 20 May 2014.


Wallace, Kelly. "The Great Homework Debate: Too Much, Too Little or Busy Work?" CNN. Cable News
Network, 01 Jan. 1970. Web. 20 May 2014.


Wilde, Marian. "Do Our Kids Have Too Much Homework?" GreatSchools. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 May 2014.
"Youth Indicators 2011 America's Youth: Transitions to Adulthood." National Center for Education
Statistics. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 May 2014.