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> As for homework, that's a giant can of worms. There is plenty of research on homework. It shows that homework is net neutral on actual learning, but a strong

> As for homework, that's a giant can of worms. There is plenty of research on homework. It shows that homework is net neutral on actual learning, but a strong negative on creating stress. Digging in, it turns out that it can help or hurt, but whether it helps or hurts depends on whether there is someone at home who makes sure that the child does correct practice rather than incorrect practice. Therefore assigning homework's main impact (after home stress) is to widen the educational gap between children of different socioeconomic statuses. That sounds very interesting, and really matches what I've seen so far. Do you have a link to some of this research? I'd like to share this with some friends but would like to share more than a link to a single hn comment!

btilly 10y ago
That comment sums up what I learned from http://www.alfiekohn.org/homework-myth/ http://www.alfiekohn.org/homework-myth/. Every so often I run across more recent research on the same topic. It always comes to the same conclusion. But parents generally feel better about their kids having poor results if they see evidence that their kids are at least putting out lots of effort. Homework serves as evidence, so it is hard to get rid of it. In the meantime I'm lucky that 3/4 of my children get to go to https://www.vandammeacademy.com/ https://www.vandammeacademy.com/ which believes in doing what is proven to work. Therefore they have a no homework policy, adopt proven methods like Singapore math, and so on. Which is why 3/4 of my children are getting a truly superior education with far, far less work. Just to give a relevant anecdote about how strongly parents can feel about it, I know a fellow parent there who turned down a $400k/year job at Google because it would have meant that he had to move to Silicon Valley. He is convinced that he has found the best K-8 school in the country and won't take that away from his children. He's far from the only parent at the school who feels that way.

btilly 10y ago

That comment sums up what I learned from http://www.alfiekohn.org/homework-myth/ http://www.alfiekohn.org/homework-myth/. Every so often I run across more recent research on the same topic. It always comes to the same conclusion. But parents generally feel better about their kids having poor results if they see evidence that their kids are at least putting out lots of effort. Homework serves as evidence, so it is hard to get rid of it. In the meantime I'm lucky that 3/4 of my children get to go to https://www.vandammeacademy.com/ https://www.vandammeacademy.com/ which believes in doing what is proven to work. Therefore they have a no homework policy, adopt proven methods like Singapore math, and so on. Which is why 3/4 of my children are getting a truly superior education with far, far less work. Just to give a relevant anecdote about how strongly parents can feel about it, I know a fellow parent there who turned down a $400k/year job at Google because it would have meant that he had to move to Silicon Valley. He is convinced that he has found the best K-8 school in the country and won't take that away from his children. He's far from the only parent at the school who feels that way.