Los Angeles School District Suspends Homework Limit Policy

A new policy that caps homework as a percentage of a student's overall grade has been suspended.

Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent John Deasy announced Wednesday that the policy, which limited homework's weight to 10 percent of a student's grade, was enacted without enough public input. The policy went into effect July 1.

The homework rule was originally designed to allow for heavier emphasis on in-class assignments, tests and papers. But the policy was put in place by administrative order and lacked input from the community and Board of Education.

"We cannot and will not implement a policy of this magnitude without actively soliciting and incorporating recommendations from our constituencies," Deasy said in a statement, the Los Angeles Daily News reports.

Chief Academic Officer Judy Elliot told the Los Angeles Times that the 18-month process of drafting the rule aimed to ensure that students were being graded based on their mastery of the subject matter rather than homework completion. Officials were distraught to find that students with high test scores were failing some of their courses, she said.

Officials are looking to develop a new, agreeable, district-wide policy following meetings parents, teachers and administrators, KABC reports. They plan to present a proposal to the Board of Education next spring.

Comments

[elblanc0]

02:42 PM on 07/24/2011

Piling more and more homework on students, and then extending the school day and school year in the 'hope' that they'll learn more and catch up where we've fallen behind is pointless. It doesn't work. It discourages and burns students out. If it worked, it already would have.

It only exposes the inefficiencies of our pedagogy and curriculum. Our system is broken. If you're training employees to do something and class after class consistantly underperforms, the first step is not to train them longer, it's to re-examime the materials and the approach and try to find the root cause. We need to apply that to our public school system.

Finnish students have no more than 30 minutes of homework a night (through high school) and they are some of the top performing students in the world. Why?

[ThomasPaine1776]

03:43 AM on 07/24/2011

Homework measures the home.

[GlennWatson]

10:52 PM on 07/23/2011

And these are the people that want to decide which teachers are doing well well enough to keep their job.

[stopnlisten]

12:56 PM on 07/23/2011

Homework is practice. You practice a musical instrument away from home to get better. You read a novel at home becasue there is no time in class and you get better at reading. The proof of your work is when you infuse your practice into the classroom and then add more information. Parents and students many times look at homework as an inconvenience, a punishment, or busy work. Some parents expect the kids to go to work and help the family. To heck with homework! We need to educate the families too.

[CaliTLC]

12:24 AM on 07/23/2011

Guess the parents who were doing their kids' homework didn't like the policy and want it changed.

[stopnlisten]

12:57 PM on 07/23/2011

I had one that did the work and the only handwriting on the paper that belonged to the student was her signature at the top.

[FTracy3]

10:40 AM on 07/22/2011

The policy is unenforceable. Under California law teachers have the final say on a students' grades.

[dustyarain]

12:29 AM on 07/22/2011

Speaking as a student that passed every test with an A, and held a C average because I simply refused to do homework, it's a bad idea to try and tell teachers how best to run their class. Some cases the subject matter can't be handled specifically in class, and with the school years getting smaller and smaller due to education cut backs, to put all the material that needs to be learned into the shortened year, you have no choice but extend in deeper homework points.

It's the student's choice to do their homework, or not. And most teachers allow plenty of time for the homework to get done in class before it even comes time for dismissal. To say otherwise is wrong.

Stop trying to find an excuse for the laziness of the child, and simply accept the fact the child is lazy and make them pay the consquences. I know I was lazy in school. I still passed because the thought of failing, or dropping out was repugnant.

[rchristene]

07:56 PM on 07/23/2011

I was the same way as a kid. I hated homework and rarely did it. My Aunt did my cousins homework for them, my mom refused to do mine though. I refused to do my childrens homework as well. Their friends would turn in a science project that the kid didn't know anything about because a parent would take over it to "do it right".

[ThomasPaine1776]

03:51 AM on 07/24/2011

I refused too. It was unethical, I thought, to allow teachers to cut into my time at home. There was no limit to it, and, I thought, if a teacher is bad or lazy, he can simply assign everything as homework.

Also, i came from a sometimes-chaotic family setting, and came to the conclusion that homework simply measures the home.

I'm a teacher now. I never assign homework. My students, by the way, were "off the charts" higher than my competition, who used homework. Not bragging, I'm just saying: It's possible to get the job done without assigning any homework. By the way, my classes were 10th Grade World History, in case you were wondering. I don't think it makes any difference. Homework measures the home. Period. If you can't get the job done with 5 hours a week, you need to make some changes, cause if I can do it, anyone can do it.

I think teachers assign homework for the same reason some fathers beat their kids: it is child abuse being passed down. "IF I had to do it...then, by God, YOU"RE gonna do it! " type mentality, ya know?

[kinger50]

04:26 PM on 07/21/2011

Also, teachers should provide rubrics to students. If those rubrics are standard across the district then students will know how to get a good grade. It should be handled more like a college sylabus versus the whim of the teacher, parent, politician, or what the student feels like doing. This would me more students might fail, but better now than later in life.

[ThomasPaine1776]

03:58 AM on 07/24/2011

God I hate that word "rubric".

And by the way, who's standard? I have huge disagreements with my next door neighbor who teaches the same subject I do. He is senior to me by one year. My knowledge of history is clearly superior to his. I correct him every time he brings up history. He leaves out huge events and his version of history is like 1955 Ohio, where he is from. My version of history is more like 1970s California or Boston. I'm not going to teach like him. I'm not going to use his -- or anyone else's "RUBRIC" to grade my kids. Ain't gonna happen.

Grading is up to ME.

Students know how to get a good grade.

You sound like an administrator, or perhaps a wanna-be admin. type.

Rubric.

Vomit.

[kinger50]

04:23 PM on 07/21/2011

I think this should be standarized but only after curriculum is standarized. One class might have different levels of student ability than others so you can't make such a broad brush stroke unless every class is teaching the same material. Also, if student behavior disrupts learning, more work might need to happen at home. Homework is good for children and helps them master their lessons if done with clear objectives.

[gutenmorgen]

04:02 PM on 07/21/2011

My three sons went to elementary school in Houston in the 60's. The took only a few sheets home every day and a few sheets to school the next day. They rarely brought textbooks home. Now I see students toting heavy backpacks and even small suitcases on wheels. Eventually their parents will have to bring them to and pick them up from school in trucks. This is madness.

[Candide33]

01:43 AM on 07/22/2011

I was ordered to assign home work in every class yet there were not enough textbooks for every student to have one and they had to share a book in class. I was not allotted enough copies on the copy machine to even give each student one test a week in each subject and had to go to Kinko's and pay for copies.

There is no way to assign homework in cases like that.

Later, when I taught in private school, the only assigned homework was spelling each day and complete any assignments not finished in class. The students had an incentive to take their classwork seriously then.

[James Haun]

03:08 PM on 07/21/2011

They are finally coming to their senses - homework not only teaches students about the given subject, but also teaches responsibility and time managment skills. Additionally, this policy would leave the children terribly unprepared for the challenges that college may offer...including homework.

[onionboy]

05:16 PM on 07/21/2011

Amen. We woefully prepare kids for college. I almost flunked out my first year until I "got it". Then I graduated with honors. Talk to anyone in Japan or Korea...total opposite. High school is very challenging and when they get to university, there's no shock.