Homework has become an accepted struggle of education with students dedicating a great deal of time to the established convention. The purpose of homework is to ingrain in the students’ minds the lessons from school with extra practice completed outside of school time. This additional work ought to improve the grades and increase the knowledge of the student, but recent research indicates that the presence of homework does not affect these achievements in students. Although schools have long retained the institutional practice of homework, studies conducted on the lack of correlation between homework completion and student achievement with grades prove that homework represents an unnecessary added stress in the young students’ lives. Younger students have not yet developed the attention span and focusing capabilities to handle a day filled with class time, but they also must return home only to concentrate on more work. These demanding pressures can cause harmful effects on the health of the student. In addition, the multitude of hours spent on school work establishes an imbalance with different aspects of the students’ lives. Time spent with friends and family represents another important quality of life besides education in order to produce civil, functioning members in the community. Homework takes away from the time spent on developing communicative skills necessary for thriving in today’s society. Homework assignments are inappropriate for elementary school students as they augment the stresses of school and damage the developing social skills that should be cultivated at that age, while there remains a lack of evidence to prove that it boosts the academic achievements of the students. 

Some researchers cling to the traditional ways of homework as they claim that the extra tasks do retain some positive side effects, such as learning responsibility and job-management skills. The repetition of work that the students learn in class assists in memorization of the topics. The Center for Research on Elementary and Middle School in Baltimore conducted a study on homework practices, achievements, and behaviors of elementary school students. The author, Joyce Epstein, noted that “the content of the homework task may be less important than its design for the specific skill desired” (Epstein). Even if the completion of the homework does not help with the actual education of the student, the practice of these assignments creates other responsibilities to develop the students’ characters. The action of doing homework involves every student in the participation for the class, even if they do not help with the conversation during the school hours. According to Epstein, homework serves several purposes; these functions include practice, participation, personal development, parent-child relations, policy, public relations, and punishment. (Epstein) With the responsibility of homework comes the requirement to organize one’s time efficiently. Parents can also understand the progress of their child’s education when they see the effort their child devotes to their schoolwork at home. The work completed at home may be the only time that parents and students communicate about the education they are receiving. Homework can also be used as a tool to reinforce good behavior, as more assignments are given if the student misbehaves. As seen in the study written by Joyce Epstein, homework assignments retain other purposes besides achievement with grades in school that remain helpful to the disposition of the student. However, these positive effects do not accomplish the true purpose of homework, which is to improve the understanding of the student and therefore the achievement with grades in school. The negative effects of homework outweigh the few benefits that are observed. Consequently, homework should not be assigned to elementary school students. 

The struggle with homework for young students begins with their physical capabilities. The brains of elementary school students display less development than is necessary for the amount of work and understanding expected of them with today’s education system. As the brain matures, it becomes more and more connected, and these connections are crucial for formation of memories and connection of past learning to current lessons. (Semrud-Clikeman) Since the elementary school students’ brains have not developed completely, these connections are harder to form. The school time should be enough to begin assimilating them into the learning society instead of overloading their brains with more work at home. The American Psychological Association asserts that “as neural networks form, the child learns both academically and socially… [and] the learning is mostly rote in nature” (Semrud-Clikeman). Students’ developing minds should be exposed to both academic and social environments in order to form neural connections more efficiently, but homework assignments take away from the other aspects of the development of the student. Furthermore, many variables play into the completion of homework without distraction, but elementary school students do not yet have the capacity to see them through easily. In the Journal of Experimental Education, research on the subject demonstrates that “young children have limited ability to keep their attention focused… [and] they have not yet learned good study skills [as] they do not know how to apportion their time between easy and hard tasks or how to engage in effective self-testing” (Cooper). Young students should not be expected to return home from a day of exhaustive learning to focus on more schoolwork in a distracting environment. The elementary school students are children that are meant to be more active and use the energy built up during the school day, but homework assignments accomplish the opposite. The lack of physical development in elementary school students acts as a barrier for the understanding of learning processes and the usefulness of homework.

Secondly, homework assignments create negative attitudes towards school which becomes detrimental to the education of the students, beginning at a young age. Spencer Davis, a researcher for Master for Teaching Research Projects, claims that “fear and anxiety are immense barriers to learning” (Davis). Overwhelming the young students with extra work creates an atmosphere of stress and anxiety which constructs a negative mindset towards the schooling process. The difficulty of completing homework after a long day of exhausting their knowledge in school also lowers the self-esteem of the young students. They begin to believe that they are not capable of completing the challenging tasks. This negative self-concept of ability also creates a lack of persistence to remain in school. Education should work to inspire the motivation to gain more knowledge, but homework assignments overload the young minds and accomplish the opposite. Since homework is not fulfilling its purpose, it should be taken out of the curriculum. In a study involving a school that did not assign homework, one students testified, “the weird thing is that we don’t have any additional outside work, yet I feel like I actually think more... I really like working entirely in class because there are always people to converse with if you have questions and other people contribute ideas that you might not otherwise think of” (Davis). The positive response of the student to learning in this unconventional way demonstrates the possible success of education in the absence of homework. Students proved to be more receptive to focusing on their development of knowledge during the school day because of the promise of an afternoon free of schoolwork. The manner of learning transformed to ingrain understanding in the students’ minds in a different and more beneficial way. Homework influences the students to have a more negative outlook on the discipline of education, which in turn damages the learning process during the school day as well as outside of the classroom.

Additionally, homework causes damage to other areas of the students’ life. The health costs of homework increase as the student must minimize the time spent on other aspects of life, such as exercise and sleep. A CNN health news report claims that research “found a clear connection between the students’ stress and physical impacts- migraines, ulcers, and other stomach problems, sleep deprivation and exhaustion, and weight loss, [while most] students in the study cited homework as a primary stressor in their lives” (Enayati). These serious illnesses could be lessened with the abolition of homework which prevents the extra time necessary for caring for the students’ health concerns. The students keep homework as their priority even though their well-being should be first and foremost. Having homework in elementary school will establish this unhealthy mentality at too young of an age so that the students are unable to intelligently determine what things are of most importance, including their wellness. An interview by Katie Couric with Vicki Abeles, an author of a book about the pressure on young students, for CBS News also emphasized the unhealthy habits created by the presence of homework. Abeles stated that people are “raising this generation to think that they have to be perfectionists and that they have to be good at everything… and we have to be concerned about the long-term consequences of sleep deprivation” (How Much Homework is too Much?). Because the students are pushed to believe that they must perform well in all academics so that they can be successful in life, their health becomes less important. The students’ views have become warped to believe that grades should be prioritized over things like sleep. After a study completed on this subject, Davis also corroborated that “whenever homework crowds out social experience, outdoor recreation, and creative activities, and whenever it usurps time that should be devoted to sleep, it is not meeting the basic needs of children and adolescents” (Davis). The adjustment to bad health conditions leaves students at more risk for more serious problems such as drug and alcohol abuse. If they are unable to handle the negative health side effects because of a lack of time due to homework, they may turn to more unconventional methods such as drugs and alcohol. The positive habits formed from homework can be learned through other, healthier processes. Homework is not a necessary aspect of the young child’s life, but an active social life and rest remains vital for a healthy life. 

Furthermore, the homework negatively affects the development of important abilities. The imbalance of the facets of the young students’ life leads to the deterioration of social skills, as homework detracts from time developing the mindset to communicate and function properly in society. While Davis conversed with parents about the stresses on the family because of homework, some parents declared, “we as parents find our marital stress is based primarily on the rigors of school and academic marks” (Davis).  Not only does the homework decrease the effective communication of the students, but it also causes altercations with other members of the family. These complications within the household create an unhealthy dynamic with the family that could be avoided without these extra stresses. With the establishment of difficulties in the family life, the students may adjust to these norms with a lack of emotional development and therefore damage their social lives. The younger children cannot understand that the extra stress should not be present since they have become adjusted to its presence. However, this adjustment costs them socially. Stephanie Donaldson-Pressman, the clinical director of the New England Center for Pediatric Psychology, attests that these “children want to be out playing, they want to be interacting and that’s what they should be doing... and there’s really a plethora of evidence that [homework is] detrimental to their attitude about school, their grades, their self-confidence, their social skills and their quality of life” (Wallace). The presence of homework lessens the child’s quality of life, as they must spend more time on schoolwork instead of experiencing other aspects of living. The lack of development in other characteristics of life besides intellect constructs a socially inept child. The students are unable to have a rich life outside of their schoolwork. In addition, because the students have not established correct social skills, they may not comprehend the lack of morality in situations such as cheating. homework broaches “the integrity issues [as students] do what they have to do to get through the quantity” (How Much Homework is too Much?). A lack of morals develops in children as cheating becomes a norm for coping with and reducing the time spent on amounts of homework. As long as the students receive good grades, they will learn to complete homework in the easiest way, even if that includes taking shortcuts. This progression to normalizing dishonesty ends up creating bad habits and lazier students, as they do not wish to spend so much time and effort on the work outside of school. Homework assignments push students to exclude other developments of character, creating children with a lack of knowledge on what should be socially acceptable.

Moreover, researchers conducted multiple studies to test for a correlation between students’ grades and test scores and the allocation of homework and found little to no relationship between the two, especially in younger students, therefore proving the ineffectiveness of the extra assignments. Joyce Epstein’s A Model for Research on Homework Based on U.S. and International Studies included data from twenty-six studies on the effects of homework on students. The research found that “homework costs students if it is boring, frustrating, or repetitive of skills already well mastered…[and also] costs teachers when they use planning time, class time, or personal time to prepare, explain, correct, comment on, return, and review homework” (Epstein). Homework appears to cost others than just the students, as it unnecessarily takes up the time of family and teachers as well. Davis also accounts that “most recent research postulates that homework does not lead to greater students success, but instead leads to increased stress and can create a dark cloud over the family life in student homes” (Davis). People endured the negative effects of homework, such as stress, because they believed it would help with their overall understanding, and therefore grades and test scores, but these studies indicate that these tribulations did not have true benefits in achievement. Fan Huiyong conducted an in-depth study over the course of thirty years, completed in 2015, on the effectiveness of homework for academic achievement on test scores. These researchers observed that “overall, there was a positive, although somewhat weak, relationship between homework and performance in math/science areas,” but mostly in the older students (Fan). The slight positive correlation between homework and higher test scores may be worth the consequences from time dedicated to the practice for older, mature students, but the younger elementary school students do not see enough improvement to justify the effects. During the interview, Vicky Abeles proclaims that “in elementary school there is no benefit with homework, and in fact you see detrimental consequences, reading for pleasure drops off and family dinners drop off” (How Much Homework is too Much?). According to much research, the miniscule amount, if any, of improvement of elementary school students cannot substantiate the repercussions of such assignments. After numerous studies conducted on the correlation between homework and achievement with grades in school, researchers discovered that there remains a lack of proof to show that the relationship is positive in younger students.

The institution of homework should be reconsidered because of lack of physical and mental development in the young students, the creation of negative outlooks on education, health costs, damage to social skills, and a lack of effectiveness for achievement. This accepted impropriety represents an important and current problem since it affects the mindsets of everyone in society. Times change, so policies should as well to account for differences between the circumstances. Students become disheartened with the effort and time spent on a practice that does not help a significant amount with grades in school, especially with elementary school students. Because schools overload students unnecessarily with work, the children begin to develop negative attitudes towards their schooling process and dread going. This stress also creates health complications that can turn serious with no relief from the constant pressure. The neural development of the younger students does not demonstrate that they can handle such workloads. The lack of time spent on other aspects of experiencing life leaves the students with underdeveloped communication skills, as they have less time to socialize. Education is required and necessary, but the downfalls of homework assignments should not be, and therefore the eradication of homework in elementary schools should occur.
