Archived: The Educational System in the United States: Case Study Findings

Homework
The assignment of homework was another way that some teachers dealt with indi-
vidual differences. Many teachers said that homework was essential to allow stu-
dents to practice what had been taught in class, to allow the slower learners a
chance to practice materials at their own pace, and to permit slower learners to
complete work which others were able to finish in class. Teachers in elementary
schools also said that they believed homework provided them with a good mecha-
nism for giving students fairly immediate and frequent feedback. In that way, stu-
dents who were having more difficulty could receive individual attention or be
recommended for ‘‘homework club’’ or tutoring available through the school. At
Midtown Elementary School, one teacher said that she adjusted homework assign-
ments somewhat to accommodate students of different abilities. She allowed chil-
dren who worked fast and wanted to do more to earn extra credit for additional
work. These students could choose from a variety of ‘‘extra credit things’’ she
made available. In addition, she noted that she regularly modified spelling lists for
two children in her class and modified almost everything for a boy who had
moved to the school from the inner city. At Rockefeller Elementary, a teacher said
this about her homework policy:
I don’t want my kids going home and being frustrated . . . . I find when
there is more flexibility, they are much more willing to try things and to stick
to things. And I’m very respectful when my children come in and say I could
only do this much then it got too hard and I had to go play, because I want
to talk to the children about it if it’s too hard, so that they can feel like they
can have some sense of control over it.
In the middle years of schooling, the different levels at which subjects were
taught functioned to differentiate the homework materials, but teachers also ad-
justed the way in which homework was used to accommodate different behav-
ioral characteristics of children in the different course levels. A teacher at King
Junior High, like many of the other junior high and middle school teachers indi-

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cated that homework was required of students and the amount increased in the
higher-grade levels. However, this math teacher also said that she allowed her stu-
dents in prealgebra to do their homework in class, while she required her
prealgebra 2 and scholars math students to do their homework outside of class.
She said that the purpose of homework was to allow students to practice, but
that her kids in prealgebra needed the extra over-sight to get theirs done because
they ‘‘couldn’t keep track of their stuff.’’
Some teachers argued that assigning homework increased inequalities among stu-
dents, because some parents could help their children with homework and other
parents could not. One elementary school teacher said that she believed that
homework should not be assigned because it increases the effect of family back-
ground on individual differences in ability and achievement. These teachers pre-
ferred to give students time during class to do their homework. At Parks Elemen-
tary School, located in one of the poorest communities in Metro City, a policy
of the local school board is for teachers to assign minimal homework. A teacher
at Parks described the school policy and her differences with it.
But the thing is—this is a school that doesn’t believe in giving a lot of home-
work, and I’m a firm believer that in math, you have to do homework and
you have to practice it.
At South Central Vocational High School, teachers said that many of their students
did not have a quiet place to work on homework and that many students left their
books in their lockers, because they didn’t want to be seen on the street with
a book under their arm. As a result, very few teachers at South Central assigned
homework to be done outside of class.
The lack of homework assignments in some schools generated criticism from par-
ents who felt that their children were not being challenged enough. One parent
was greatly troubled by the lack of homework for her son, a student in the accel-
erated math class at King Junior High School:
Since when is homework done in school? If these kids can spend so much
time in school doing homework, I’m wondering when is the schoolwork being
done.
Some teachers also found the lack of homework to be a concern when the
school’s policy was minimal homework, as was the case at Parks Elementary
School. One teacher at Parks had this to say about the policy:
The local school board, the lady from the local school board, she pretty much
sets the policy for the school. And her work goes like this—she told a fourth—
grade teacher here that she gives too much homework. The lady said because
the kids can’t get help from their parents. And that’s her philosophy: Kids

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can’t get help from their parents, and so they shouldn’t have a lot of home-
work. But that’s wrong because homework is reinforcement of what you learn.
And if you have a problem, the next day come in and get help on it.
It was evident that some schools and some teachers were better at communicating
their expectations regarding homework to students and parents. Although most
schools had written homework policies, a few said that their homework policy
was informal and that most teachers assigned homework as an instructional tool.
Classroom teachers often had their own reasoning for how and why they used
homework.