How much homework is enough?

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DEAR DR. FOURNIER: Now that you have told us about not doing homework and being respectful toward the teacher, please tell teachers that more than 60 minutes of homework a night is more than any child should have to do. This is what I would call respect for my family, who is involved in many other activities. Your article didn't say how much homework the child not completing his homework was doing every night, but what if it was hours and not just 60 minutes several nights a week? I think, I hope your response would have been different.ASSESSMENT: In a recent column I did answer a question regarding children using school as a casino. They choose and pick what they will do. Of course, the easiest chip to gamble with is homework. You can say to your parents that you did it and then tell your teacher you lost or left it at home or in your locker or give other stories I have heard from kids. Many students think a zero for homework can be made up with a good test grade.There is a terrible problem attached to this casino game. Students can actually come out winners even if it is with a D -- but they will find as adults that the majority of their work life will be made of tasks that will be like homework. Yet once the person is hired, playing at the casino game is a way of saying to whoever writes your check that you have the belief -- developed during your education years -- that you can be unreliable, disrespectful and cheat and still expect to be employed and paid.WHAT TO DO: For any child to be given more than one hour of homework when it is not worth an hour of his life is to totally disrespect the reality that parents' jobs today have been expanded because schools refuse to teach children the skills they will need to be successful in 2020 and beyond. Instead, they keep teaching more of the old industrial-era information, calling it "better" education simply because it's "more" education. Making our children learn more of what our generation knows is obsolete, with the exception of the basic skills of reading, writing, arithmetic, speaking and listening, is pointless and a waste of yours and your child's precious time.Teachers, however, are not the culprits! We must all take blame. Once we can do that, we possibly can get on with realizing that reforming our schools will no longer work. Once we can collectively face politicians and policymakers and demand a new school system, we may be able to stop excessive homework and our children can actually start learning in school. Only in a new school system can we correct the fact that more than 50 percent of high-school graduates have to learn their basic skills in high school and college because they didn't get them in elementary and junior high.The treasurer of a county school corporation sent in this letter. As treasurer, you know that money is always tight and expense has an exponential growth gene of its own.I ask your patience. I plan to use your letter again to directly attack the subject of just how much homework is enough. In the meantime, how much would society and your school system save if teachers were paid for how much children actually learned in school instead of how much homework and outside projects they are assigned that too many times end up destroying the fabric of family life? Could we line-item that as "Priceless!"?(Write Dr. Yvonne Fournier, Fournier Learning Strategies Inc., 5900 Poplar, Memphis, Tenn. 38119. E-mail her at drfournier(at)hfhw.net)