Requiring homework on a consistent basis is not an evidence-based practice and actually introduces worse outcomes for kids whose parents/guardians are less present, which disproportionately affects poor kids and kids of color.
Why do we do it? Because there are some parents (you know the ones) who will pester the school and lobby for dropping their funding if they don’t see consistent tangible output from their students. If the kids aren’t coming home with half a dozen papers each day and a bag of books, how can we verify that the teachers aren’t just sitting around on their phones all day not doing shit and collecting a paycheck WITH OUR TAX DOLLARSSSSS?!!!?!?!
So, homework largely serves as busy work to signal to parents that teachers are doing things. And the system is designed for parents to actively encourage and participate in the development of the skills required to regularly complete homework independently by high school. Kids whose parents have less free time are inherently disadvantaged, often labeled as bad kids or lazy early on, and can have a seat on the prison train before they’ve entered middle school. It also harms kids’ self esteem and sets an unhealthy precedent for expectations around work-life balance.
There isn’t a single thing that homework accomplishes by accident which couldn’t be accomplished better on purpose via other methods. Fuck homework.
For real. Kids that take multiple advanced courses in high school are effectively double full-time college students.
My university considered 12 credit hours to be full-time and straight up did not allow you to take more than 18 without explicit permission from your guidance counselor. But high schoolers are all forced to take 30 credit hours no matter what (35 if you count PE I guess). And idk if it's like this across the country, but my teachers gave out homework like it's nothing. On most days I'd have assignments from Math, English, Social Studies, and Science all due tomorrow. It's legitimately the most demanding job I've ever had, I got fucking burn out and suicidal ideation at age 16.