By American public school standards, a small rural school district in Louisiana took an almost radical action in January of this year. LaSalle Parish superintendent Jonathan Garrett declared that all 2,500 students in the district—from kindergarteners still learning how to hold a pencil to seniors in high school—would no longer be expected to finish homework. In that exact manner. Parents in nearby towns flooded the district’s Facebook post announcing the decision with comments asking, “How do we get our schools to do this?” It became the district’s most liked and shared message of the year.
Such a response conveys something. Not only about homework, but also about how worn out people are with the entire system.
Observing this debate recur every few years makes it difficult to ignore how little the arguments on both sides have evolved. Too much tension. insufficient experience. equity issues. rigorous academic standards. Since doctors in the Progressive Era warned that mechanical homework was causing nervous conditions in children, these talking points have been recurring in school board meetings and parenting forums for well over a century. The argument is not brand-new. The urgency of it and the increasing number of educators who are acting without waiting for consensus are what feel new.
Garrett claimed that listening played a role in his decision. He discovered that one of the most frequent causes of conflict between families and schools was homework. “When there was a negative feeling about school,” he said, “it usually stemmed from what kids are bringing home.” That is not an observation about abstract policy. That’s the sound of a superintendent who has heard enough irate parent talks to spot a trend.
It’s still debatable if doing away with homework completely is the best course of action, particularly given the current state of math scores across the country. Mathematical procedures actually require practice, and sending practice home frees up classroom time for instruction, according to researchers like Tom Loveless. That makes a lot of sense. According to a 2021 longitudinal study that tracked students in Germany, Uruguay, and the Netherlands, students who performed worse on their math homework actually saw an improvement in their scores over time. That is not insignificant. Ignoring it completely would be a form of selective reading in and of itself.
The tension in these discussions, however, is that the research is actually quite messy. Increased homework in elementary school had virtually no effect on standardized test scores, according to a 1998 Duke University study. Professor Harris Cooper, who has examined decades of research on the topic, discovered that there was little to no relationship between elementary school students’ academic success and the amount of time they spent on homework. Nothing. That is a startling figure for a practice that millions of families fight over for hours each week.
Superintendent Garrett also brought up a more recent aspect of the argument that scientists are just now starting to consider: artificial intelligence. Nowadays, over half of teenagers say they use chatbots to assist with their academic work. Ten percent of respondents claim to have used AI to finish most or all of their assignments. According to a survey conducted by the EdWeek Research Center, 40% of teachers reported that homework assignments had dropped over the previous two years. Almost one-third of these teachers directly blamed AI for making traditional homework seem meaningless. It’s possible that the homework model, which was created in an era when students were forced to solve problems on their own at the kitchen table, isn’t working as intended.
Additionally, the equity argument is a recurring issue that merits more than a brief discussion. Not every family has the time and resources to oversee an hour of math worksheets after a demanding workday, a quiet place, or a parent who can assist. In this sense, homework does more than just assess a child’s knowledge. It gauges the resources available to a child at home. For years, Joyce Epstein, co-director of the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships at Johns Hopkins, has maintained that whether or not homework is well-designed is more crucial than the amount of homework students complete. She contends that students would benefit much more from brief, meaningful assignments that focus on actual gaps than from long drills that vary greatly in duration depending on the child.
The superintendent of Colorado’s Harrison School District 2, Wendy Birhanzel, has attempted to implement this stance. Instead of doing away with homework, her district reduced it and made it more intentional, consisting of a reading assignment, a few math problems, and a brief writing sample. Less of the traditional “drill and kill” worksheet mentality and more of a focused strategy that avoids making every night a struggle. Even though a complete ban would make for a more attention-grabbing headline, it’s a middle ground that seems to be closer to what most families actually want.
Back in Louisiana, Garrett has authorized math teachers to take their time teaching, allowing students to practice concepts for longer periods of time rather than hurrying through a curriculum. It remains to be seen if it succeeds. “We’ll see,” he said, sounding genuinely unsure. “This might be something that helps us in the long run.”
In a debate that has a tendency to quickly become polarized, that kind of measured honesty is refreshing. After all, there is more to the homework controversy than just homework. It’s about how much of a child’s evening should still be spent in school after the last bell rings, what we believe school is for, and how we envision childhood. There are no clear answers to those questions. However, it seems like the best course of action to ask them directly rather than relying on custom or panicking.
