>
>That has only gotten worse under the No
>Child Left Behind routine. Testing was fairly big when I was young -
>I remember the yearly drama of the Iowa Test from elementary school -
>but it's only gotten bigger.
>
>Doug
There's been a lot of criticism of homework load and content lately. Critics say kids are being assigned piles of counterproductive busywork every night.
I know the public elementary school my daughter attends assigns more homework than I ever had to do at her age. The worst year was second grade. Third grade was a bit better and fourth grade has been a real relief so far, but that may be because the teacher has a newborn to take care of. Second grade was really frustrating because a million times I wanted to keep going with one concept the kid was starting to grasp but we had to move on to another assignment to get everything done. More than once I said screw it, we'll finish the rest tomorrow.
Brookings says worries about too much homework are bunk.
http://stophomework.com/the-case-against-homework
http://www.brookings.edu/events/2003/1001education.aspx