Open Letter To School Boards And Administration

Dear all school boards and administration,

I would like to address a topic that I believe needs to be spoken more broadly of. I have found that there is extensive evidence that supports the idea that homework should be banned!

On average, students spend up to nine hours a day at school, with many more hours spent on homework after that. Teachers have said homework can be a good working tool to apply to certain topics to have a better understanding of things, but it is unknown whether homework actually benefits students or not. Homework should be banned due to the research found showing it doesn’t actually improve students learning, and the time taken away from doing activities that not only children enjoy doing, but would have greater beneficial impacts on their wellbeings.

Although it is true that having homework both has academic and non-academic advantages, it has become unclear whether homework truly does increase student knowledge and success based on research. According to research in areas for education, parenting, and human behavior, the majority of studies conducted revealed inconclusive evidence regarding the fact that homework does not increase student achievement. Studies have shown that homework has had a range of effects on students, being positive for certain students, none for others, and even some negative effects. Negative effects included greater stress and reductions in health. One common and known negative effect of homework is the fact that it takes away the time from students to do activities that they actually enjoy. Not having enough time to do enjoyable activities can result in depression and loss in sense. It is important to have a balance between the amount of time spent on homework and leisures. When students are spending too much time on homework, they could be risking not meeting their full developmental needs and or cultivating other critical life skills. Students are then more likely to drop out of activities, not see friends or family, and not pursue in the hobbies they enjoy. It is very unhealthy to young, developing brains and can put a lot of strain on the relationships in their lives. Homework can become a huge burden for students to deal with when we aren’t even sure if it’s helpful or not.

Homework should be banned because it may not even be helping students, and students could be able to spend more time doing activities they actually enjoy. Having homework could either impact students wellbeings positively or negatively, which is very important to know about as they are growing up. If data hasn’t shown homework actually improves learning, why make students have to do it?

Sincerely,

A middle schooler