I think too much is expected from students. After a long day at school everyone is tired and students are stressed out by the amount of homework they receive.

I know the last thing I want to do when I get home from school is do more school related work.  Some schools are putting more emphasis on homework, but is homework actually important?

School administrators and teachers are under increasing pressure to meet the state standards and have high test scores in their schools. Homework is now contributing to an epidemic of academic stress.

Teachers often say that the homework they give won’t take that long, but when you combine that homework with other classes it begins to add up.

If you have six classes and thirty minutes of homework per class that ends up being about three hours of homework each night. Most people don’t have time for that.

Gabbie Cocom, who is currently a sophomore at Dimond, said, “Sports and other extra-curricular activities make it hard to have enough time to do homework and other things I need to do after school”. I think many other students would probably agree with what she said.

Busy families with busy schedules may find it hard to fit lots of homework into an average day. The stress of trying to keep up and do well might be doing more harm than good.

Most high school students don’t see any value in doing extra assignments out of school and sometimes they just don’t do them which eventually brings their grades down and that could end up impacting their future.

I don’t think homework really helps you learn because most of the time you are just rushing to finish it whenever you can so you can go do other things you want or have to do.

I think getting good grades is something most students strive for at any age. That’s a hard thing to achieve when there isn’t a lot of time to do homework, study for tests/quizzes, go to practice for the sport you play, do some other extra-curricular activity and get enough sleep to be able to concentrate the next day.

Some people might disagree and say that homework helps you learn by reinforcing the concepts you learned at school or that it prepares you for upcoming tests or quizzes. Although, I think homework is only valuable to a point and some kinds provide more benefits than others do.

I asked six parents at my brother’s football practice if their child or children get a lot of homework each night and almost all of them said, “Yes”.  Two of the parents said the amount of homework their child receives is good and should not be increased or decreased.

The guideline recommended by both the National PTA and the National Education Association for homework is about ten minutes and then adding ten minutes to that per grade level.

If all teachers were to follow this then by twelfth grade students would have about two hours of homework per night and that doesn’t include studying for tests or anything else.

Students can’t be expected to do really good at everything if there isn’t enough time.