Rethinking the Concept of Homework

In 2016, Howard Pitler wrote this essay on the Spanish parents’ homework strike and the mixed research on homework. The section below, added in 2026, answers the question many parents and teachers still ask, is homework helpful, using reviews and studies published since.

This month in Spain, parents are launching a month-long weekend homework strike.

Parents of students in Spanish state schools have given their children notes to bring into class explaining why they have not done the tasks assigned as homework this month. According to a study published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 15-year-old Spanish students spend an average of 6.5 hours a week on assigned homework.

One Spanish parent of four said, “I feel the current amount of homework leaves little or no time for children to relax, pursue other interests, play or be with family. My son gets very tired and bored doing this work and isn’t efficient at all. I’m not sure by the end of it he has learned anything; he just goes through the motions to get it done and misses out on playing outside. It affects the whole family because we cannot leave the house until it’s done, and often this means that we miss trips to the park or afternoon walks, etc.” By comparison, 15-year-olds in the USA spend an average of 6.1 hours a week on homework, while students in the highly-rated schools of Finland only have 2.8 hours of assigned weekly homework on average.

What the Research Says About Homework

Homework is one of those polarizing topics that tends to divide educators. Those in favor of homework argue that homework teaches students discipline, responsibility, and time management. Those who see homework as excessive feel that homework takes away from family time while providing little academic impact. There has been significant research done on the impact of homework on student learning, and the results have been mixed at best. In Chapter Seven of my book Classroom Instruction that Works, 2^nd edition, there is an overview of the research on homework. Some researchers found a positive relationship between homework and student learning, especially with high school-aged students. Other research has found no positive correlation and even a slight negative one between homework and student achievement, especially with elementary-aged students.

What Spanish parents are focused on however is what I think is the more critical issue: homework has been shown to have a negative effect on families. Students forego outdoor activities and time with family because of homework. Entire families reorganize their weekend schedules so that students can spend their afternoons in the library or at their desks. Homework becomes a driving force, and not in a good way.

Protecting Instructional Time

When presented with this data I often hear teachers cite a need to cover the required content as their reason for assigning homework. The argument is that there just aren’t enough hours in the school day to cover the content so homework is unavoidable. I suggest before pointing outward, schools look inward. Are schools using their time well?

I spend a great deal of my time engaged in classroom observations and I frequently have to schedule around myriad programs and required tests the school is required to administer. In addition, I find entire half days or more spent on pep assemblies, concerts, fund-raising kick-off events, and other school-wide gatherings. When I question the wisdom of moving the entire student body into the gym for an assembly I am usually told some old platitude like, “These are the kind of things that make school fun and motivate the kids.” That sounds a lot like the argument that parents in Spain are making about the effect of homework on their families.

I suggest placing a higher value on protecting instructional time and reducing the amount of homework, thus protecting family time. Students should work hard in school and be allowed to be kids outside of school. If homework must be assigned, it should support academic learning and teachers should provide clear feedback on every assignment.

Parents, Rigor and the Purpose of Homework

Parents are a driving force regarding homework in some schools. They falsely equate homework with rigor. Schools should educate parents on why homework is or is not assigned and what the specific purpose of homework is. If there is not a specific purpose for homework that supports student learning, there shouldn’t be homework assigned.

In A Handbook for Classroom Instruction that Works, 2^nd edition, I quote a high school student who said, “When seven classes worth of homework is piled on us nightly, we’re up until midnight studying for things that, at that hour, don’t even make sense. In the morning, we stumble into class, sometimes unshowered, and then the teacher complains. Let’s think about this: We do homework but get nothing out of it. Then we get into trouble, plus we stink. To me, there’s no benefit here.” Students need to have a rich life outside of school. They should not be required to spend seven hours a day in school and another two -three hours at home engaged in schoolwork. They need to have time to explore and experience their world, putting their academic knowledge to use in a real-world setting.

Is homework helpful? What research says about homework and family time

Is homework helpful? Howard Pitler’s 2016 essay above calls the research on homework “mixed at best” and argues that the cost to family time is the more serious issue. Summaries of the research published since point the same direction: whether homework helps depends on the age of the student, the amount of time it takes, and the quality of the assignment. This section collects what two such summaries and two research reviews report, so that a school leader or parent can see the pattern in one place.

Homework research by grade level

An undated Cornell University Evidence-Based Living summary describes two reviews by researchers at Duke University, a 1989 meta-analysis of about 100 studies and a later analysis of 50 studies. Both conclude that homework improves achievement mainly in middle school and high school. In elementary school, the summary says, homework builds study habits but does not improve grades or standardized test scores. This matches Pitler’s account of research that found a positive relationship for older students and none, or a slightly negative one, for younger students.

A 2017 meta-analysis by Bas, Sentürk and Cigerci, listed in the ERIC database and linked from Edutopia’s visual summary of studies (published September 26, 2025), found a small overall effect of homework on achievement (d = 0.229). An effect size is a standard way to compare studies; a value near 0.2 is conventionally treated as small. The ERIC abstract adds that grade level was one of the factors tested, and that only course type made a significant difference.

The most recent systematic review is in Campbell Systematic Reviews. Guo and colleagues, published on September 18, 2024, included only experimental studies: 11 studies of K-12 students, two randomized and nine quasi-experimental, nearly all conducted between 1939 and 1995. Students who did homework outperformed those who did not (g = 0.45), with the benefit largest for arithmetic computation and no significant effect for arithmetic concepts. Only two studies compared different amounts of homework, so the review could not identify an ideal duration. The authors judged all the primary studies to be of low quality, called for more high-quality experiments, particularly on secondary school students, and advised caution in reading the findings. A school should treat this as evidence that the experimental record is thin and old.

How much homework is too much

The same Edutopia summary reports a 2014 analysis of international PISA math scores. Students who did an hour or more of math homework a day outscored students who did none, the gain was small by around three hours, and scores declined beyond that. A study of more than 26,000 middle school students found that a “one-hour assignment” took students between 30 and 85 minutes, so the time a teacher intends and the time a student spends can differ widely. A practical step for a school is to ask a sample of students to time their own work for a week and compare it with what teachers intended.

Quality matters as much as quantity

Two studies in the Edutopia summary look at the kind of task. A study of 440 second graders found that literacy homework improved grammar and spelling, with gains that lasted four months, while extra math drills added little beyond classwork. A study of nearly 1,000 fifth and sixth graders found that homework that extended classroom thinking improved engagement more than rote repetition did. The Cornell summary says homework is more likely to be completed and learned from when it has a clear purpose, such as review, independence or exploring interests, and when students can do it on their own but still find it challenging. It also reports strong evidence that homework helps students with learning disabilities, likely because they benefit from extra practice time.

This supports the test Pitler proposes: if there is no specific purpose that supports learning, the assignment should not be given. Pitler’s point that seven classes assigning homework at once can leave a student up past midnight also shows why teachers in the same grade benefit from coordinating.

Stress, sleep and access

Pitler’s concern about family time is echoed in newer surveys. Edutopia reports that a 2025 Challenge Success survey of more than 28,000 students ranked homework and workload among their top stressors, and that 56 percent said some classes assign meaningless busywork. A 2025 study cited there found that adolescents often give up sleep to meet homework demands, which is linked to anxiety and depression.

Access to technology adds a further problem. A 2022 Pew survey, as summarized by Edutopia, found that over a third of low-income students depend on cell phones for homework, about double the rate of wealthier peers, and that 24 percent of teens from financially strained families lacked adequate computer or internet access, compared with 8 percent of high-income teens.

What a school can decide

1. Match homework to age. For elementary grades, keep it short and focused on habits, reading and practice that has a clear purpose.
2. State the purpose of each assignment, and explain to parents why homework is or is not assigned, as Pitler suggests.
3. Check real time against intended time, and coordinate across subjects.
4. Provide an alternative for students who lack a computer or reliable internet at home.
5. Protect instructional time during the school day, so that homework is not used to cover content that school hours could hold.

The studies summarized here differ in design, and the Cornell and Edutopia pages are summaries rather than the original papers, so they show a pattern and do not settle any single school’s policy. A school that wants a firm answer for its own students can compare achievement and student-reported workload before and after a change in homework practice.

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