Rethinking Homework

It started off as a random comment from a teacher who was also a parent at our school.  She thought there was too much homework coming home, that even her good student daughter was becoming frustrated each night.  Our principal has addressed this issue seriously and told us some of the research he has read.  Our school staff debated the topic during a staff meeting and was given the option to go homework free for the rest of this year.  This week he shared an article called Rethinking Homework by Alfie Kohn, from a January/February 2007 PRINCIPAL journal.  I retrieved the article from:  http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/rethinkinghomework.htm
According to the article, there is no correlation of benefits for homework in the younger grades and the negatives outway any positives at the upper grades.  The three facts given were:

1.  The negative effects of homework are well known.

2.  The positive effects of homework are largely mythical.  

3.  More homework is being piled on children despite the absence of its value.
In addition to the 3 facts, there are 9 suggestions on what the principals should do.  The article basically tells him, the principal, to do what he is doing.  Question your staff "Why are you giving homework?"  Rethink homework policies and reduce the amount that is sent home.  Experiment with asking children and families what they think.  Although, from the article my favorite paragraph was this:
"6.  Suggest that teachers assign only what they design.  In most cases, students should be asked to do only what teachers are willing to create themselves, as opposed to prefabricated worksheets or generic exercises photocopied from textbooks.  Also, it rarely makes sense to give the same assignment to all students in a class because it’s unlikely to be beneficial for most of them.  Those who already understand the concept will be wasting their time, and those who don’t understand will become increasingly frustrated.  There is no perfect assignment that will stimulate every student because one size simply doesn’t fit all.  On those days when homework really seems necessary, teachers should create several assignments fitted to different interests and capabilities.  But it’s better to give no homework to anyone than the same homework to everyone."