In the United States, 45% of children are stressed out by school (The Young Turks, Should America Ban Homework.) The leading cause of stress in school is the amount of homework assigned to those students. Homework causes stress, exhaustion, and anxiety for many students. Students across the country do not have the help at home to be able to successfully complete their homework which leads to homework answers being incorrect and more than likely incomplete. Another reason children should not have homework is because students lack the motivation to complete homework because many do not understand why they are even doing homework in the first place. Schools in the U.S. should remove the requirement of homework for students in kindergarten through high school because it causes large amounts of unnecessary stress, anxiety, less time to do other things, and it prevents students from being just a kid. 

Students stress is mainly due to the homework they are assigned each night. The American Psychological Association did a survey asking 7,770 students how many hours they spent on homework and the average amount of time spent on homework was between 1-2 hours per night (Seeker, Are Teachers giving you too much homework.) Many children do their homework as soon as they get home from school and it might take them the whole night. That leaves no time for a child to play, do an extracurricular activity, or spend time with family and friends. According to Clifton B. Parker, 56% of students consider their primary source of stress to be from homework, while 43% viewed tests as the primary stressor but 33% of students have stress is caused by the pressure to get good grades (Parker, 1) Mary Alvord, a clinical psychologist in Maryland and public education coordinator for the American Psychological Association stated, “A little stress is a good thing…It can motivate students to be organized. But too much stress can backfire (Neighmond,1.)” Kids of all age are suffering from stress caused by school. From homework to getting the best grades that they can, students, especially high schoolers are constantly stressed and anxious due to the large amount of work they are assigned every day. The “what if”: thinking causes a student to become distressed because they think: “What if I get a bad grade, then that means I fail the course, then I’ll never get into college.” Students today are under more stress now more than ever due to pressures from home and school.

Another issue regarding homework is that parents, without realizing it, are making school stress worse by pressuring their kids to excel. If parents want to ease their kids stress they must shift their perspective of what their definition of success is. Many students fear that they will not succeed if they do not get good grades which causes many students to fear failure which in turn causes stress, anxiety, depression, and can cause mental, physical, and emotional issues. Stress caused by homework is a big issue for students ranging from elementary school all the way through college. Stress manifests itself in students in different ways but for many it can break students mentally because of the social pressures to work hard, and get good grades. Stress can cause many problems for children and having large amounts of homework does not help children. Children need less homework so that they can live normally with no stress so that they can be more successful in school and just be a kid. 

Students from kindergarten through high school have other side effects due to being assigned homework every night. Students have stomachaches, anxiety, depression, anger, headaches, and trouble sleeping. This is due to the large amount of homework given to students. According to Stephanie Donaldson-Pressman, clinical director of the New England Center for Pediatric Psychology, “The data shows that homework over this level is not only not beneficial to children’s grades or GPA, but there’s really a plethora of evidence that its detrimental to their attitude about school, their grades, their self-confidence, their social skills, and their quality of life (TheAlternativeDaily,1.)” Homework is not just detrimental to students but it also causes families to be overstressed when children had homework. Families are 200% more likely to fight over homework if children received more than the recommended amount (Wallace, 1.) Instead of families spending time together at night, they are separated by the homework that takes the children’s time from them. On the other hand, children from low-income families are even more stressed and it causes a lot of tension between family members. Homework for children in a low-income family can be tough for them because they do not always have the resources or the help from parents to complete the homework. Children in the United States today are under large amounts of stress because of homework and many lack the motivation to complete it. Many do not understand why they need to do it or what is the point. Many parents believe their child is just lazy but that could be a huge misunderstanding if that parent does not realize how the homework is affecting their child. Another reason for students having a lack of motivation is due to class being boring. According to the High School Survey of Student Engagement (HSSSE) project director, Ethan Yazzie-Mintz, stated that in the results of the 2009 survey, 66% of students indicated being bored in class at least every day and only 2% said they were never bored while in class (All Psychology Careers, 1.) If students are not engaged in class, what makes anyone think that they will be engaged in their school work outside of school? Students lack the motivation due to the high amount of stress, pressure, and anxiety caused by homework. If no one pays attention to the side effects of kids having large amounts of homework they will become overworked and begin to have a negative attitude towards school that they will carry with them in elementary school through college. 

Many believe that homework is bad for students, especially when it is assigned every day but there are those who believe that homework is beneficial to students and that it has more positives than negatives. It can be argued that homework plays a critical, long-term role in the development of children’s achievement motivation. Homework also provides children and experience to develop positive beliefs about achievement, as well as strategies for coping with mistakes or difficulties. According to Penn State.Edu, 77% find the correlation between homework and academic achievement to be positive (Dougherty, 1.) Harris Cooper, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University compiled an analysis on dozens of studies regarding homework to conclude that homework is effective and very beneficial (Duke Today Staff, 1.) Many argue that academic achievement is positively related to homework completion and a negative attitude towards homework is due to the parents’ attitude toward it. According to a poll conducted by the Associated Press in 2006, 57% of parents felt that their child was assigned the right amount of homework, 23% thought it was too little, and 19% thought it was too much (Cooper, 1.)  Another survey conducted by MetLife in 2007, 87% of parents saw that helping their child with homework was an opportunity for them to talk and spend time together and many of them said that it did not interfere with family time (Cooper, 1.)  Children in grades K-2 should not exceed 10-20 minutes of homework, older children in grades 3-6 can handle 30-60 minutes a day, and in middle/high school, the time varies by subject. Students given homework have many benefits as long as the homework is not over-assigned. Setting the right amount of homework allows students to gain a lot of benefits such as time management, personal responsibility, and it helps students learn how to be independent. Teachers across the country collectively believe that homework is important. Educators support and value homework for its daily reinforcement of learning and the development of study skills. Teachers, psychologists, and many supporters of homework condemned those who criticize homework because there was little research proving homework did not help and the inconsistent findings did not prove that homework had no impact.  There is a strong argument for homework because there is a lot of evidence that homework is useful but there are just as many people who are reluctant when it comes to the usefulness of homework. 

Homework can be argued that it is effective and then there are those who argue that it is not effective at all. It can be agreed from both sides that some homework is useful for students. Too much homework is not effective but too little homework is not effective either. Both sides can agree that there are skills that develop from doing homework. Skills like: time management, good attitude about school, responsibility, and organization can be developed over time when homework is developed. Many surveys that have been conducted have had similar results that say that the majority of parents believe that kids have the right amount of homework. That comes from a variety of parents who may or may not believe in the idea of homework. As kids get older there is an increase in how effective homework is for students. In elementary school there is not much of a difference, but once you reach middle and high school there is an increase in how homework can impact a student’s grades and achievement in the classroom. If an appropriate amount of homework is assigned than it more than likely will not interfere with any family time and it can strengthen the partnership between parents and teachers. Students need some type of homework so that they are able to practice what they learned at school that day to be able to fully understand what they are taught so class time is not wasted re-teaching the topic. According to Harris Cooper, the professor of psychology and the director of the education program at Duke University, the research is consistent and proving that the “10-minute rule” for homework does work for children (Duke Today Staff, 1.) The “10-minute rule” is the optimum amount of homework that teachers should assign based on the grade of the student. For example, a first grader would be assigned 10 minutes worth of homework, a 3rd grader would be given 30 minutes worth of homework, and a 7th grader would have around an hour and 10 minutes worth of homework. Overall homework for younger children is not as effective because children can tune out the distractions, and they are less effective at building their study habits unlike older kids. Cooper stated, "The bottom line really is all kids should be doing homework, but the amount and type should vary according to their developmental level and home circumstances (Duke Today Staff ,1.) A solution to help both children and teachers be successful in the classroom is to use the “ten-minute rule.” Children are most successful when given the right amount of homework and they are still able to have free time to destress from the day. Another solution to the homework issue is to assign it every other day so that students have more time to work on their assignments. There are ideas that can be agreed upon in regards to homework. Not everything about homework is bad but not everything about homework is good either. There is a midpoint that can be met between the opposing viewpoints to come up with a solution for homework and the opposing viewpoints can agree upon ideas that are effective.

Homework in the United States is an issue for many children from a young age all the way through college. It causes stress that leads to anxiety and even physical, mental, and emotional problems. Homework has its benefits but more times than not, homework is a burden for students that have other responsibilities outside of school. Even though 57% of parents feel that their student is given the right amount of homework in a poll by AP, 46% of children are stressed out in school and the primary stressor is homework. According to William Crain, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at City College of New York and the author of Reclaiming Childhood, “Kids are developing more school-related stomachaches, headaches, sleep problems, and depression than ever before (Miller, 1.)” Kids today are under a lot of pressure from standardized testing, having a high GPA, extracurricular activities that take up time, and the need to please their parents. Having to do homework and deal with the pressures outside of school can cause many issues for that child. Many students go home and spend on average 7 hours at a desk per day then another 2-4 hours at home each night completing homework which means that the child misses out on playtime or family time which affects a child’s ability to develop socially. According to Education week’s survey, 80% of teachers say homework is important but most of that homework that the teacher assigns is an attempt to remedy the low test scores that students received on standardized tests (Costley, 3.) Many teachers believe that giving more and more homework will fix a lot of the problems that students have but that is not the reality of the situation. Many students, no matter how much homework they are given, do not achieve as much as parents, administrators, and teachers like to believe. According to the American Psychological Association, the benefits of homework are real, unless it is over assigned(Seeker, …too much homework?) but the reality is that most students in later grades in school spend between an hour or two on homework; sometimes that is the amount of time spent on homework per class. If teachers assigned a moderate amount of homework, students systematically would do better in class assessments. Robert H. Tai, Associate Professor of the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia stated, “Homework should be purposeful, and that purpose must be understood by both the teachers and the student…more is not better. (Tai,1.)” Homework should be purposeful so that students know why they are doing it. Teachers assign “busy” work just to keep the class occupied but that causes students to ask themselves or others, “Why am I doing this?” or “What is the point?”  Homework, when assigned correctly is supposed be used to aid students in developing skills that they can use later in life but that is not what happens for the majority of students in the United States. Students need to be given work that guides them and is not overly complicated so that the student has a chance to fully understand what they were assigned. Homework in the United States should be removed from the curriculum of schools across the country so that new ideas can emerge and aid teachers to be able to teach their students in a way that will be successful for everyone no matter that child’s background or home life. 
