Opinion

OVERWORKED SCHOOLKIDS?

KIDS in New York City soon may not have to trot out “The dog ate my home work” excuse anymore. They may be able to say, “The City Council ate my homework.”

Councilman Peter Vallone thinks our kids are working too hard. He’s proposed a resolution calling on schools to limit homework to 10 minutes per grade each night for students up to eighth grade – with one night off each week, too.

Working too hard? That might come as a surprise to Richard Compton. A successful entrepreneur and venture capitalist, he was so impressed by what his foreign workers told him about their pre-college education that he made “Two Million Minutes,” a film comparing how high school students in the US, India and China spend their time.

As reported in Education Week, the film contends that the typical American spends some 5,000 hours in high school doing school work – counting time in class and out. In India, it’s 7,000 hours; in China, more than 9,500.

The problem with Vallone’s idea isn’t just that it’d put us out of step with other countries. It could also deprive children of educational opportunities they need.

Vallone is right in one way: Homework can be a waste of time. Extensive drilling on lessons already mastered makes no one smarter, while impossibly difficult assignments that haven’t been targeted to a student’s prior learning generate frustration, not growth.

But homework that’s part of a rich and exciting curriculum, and appropriate for a student’s capacity, can engage and educate. Something as simple as reading books at home is invaluable.

One study shows that the top tenth of fifth graders read about 2.3 million words a year; those in bottom tenth read less than 3 percent of that. And for the successful readers, a lot of that reading comes outside the classroom.

I’m not arguing that the test of good homework is whether it’s fun – but whether it furthers important learning. Time with a deck of flashcards can be a good way to learn your Spanish verb conjugations, even if it is a bit dull.

So the goal should be to give kids reasonable amounts of challenging and useful out-of-school assignments. But that complex objective can’t be boiled down to a mathematical formula.

The US education system seems to have fallen behind our self-image as a world leader; how do we improve? Some key questions: How should basic skills be balanced with independent thinking? Can we learn something from China’s education system? And how do we find time for schoolwork and other important activities, like time with family and play?

None of those questions can be answered in a City Council resolution. We need families and educators to come together – along with civic leaders – to find solutions to improving our schools. After all, parents know their kids the best, while the educators in the schools care almost as much about the children and were hired to teach them.

Successful schools are the ones that foster this kind of collaboration. The charter schools I work with were founded by educators and families seeking new and better ways to educate their children, and they return to this challenge every day. The best “mainline” city public schools bring their communities together in the same way, too.

Vallone says his resolution is an effort to redress parent complaints that too much homework leaves little time for “exercise, play and quality family time.” All these things matter, and parents should have a say in this.

But Parents also should be able to look to skilled teachers and school leaders for professional guidance on these matters. That’s why increased accountability for educators to produce results for our kids is critical, too.

What we don’t need is a clarion call from the council telling our young people they’re working too hard. Some may be, but many clearly are not. Just look at the statistics on time spent watching TV: The average American child watches 25 hours a week.

Now there’s some time that could be used for sports, games and family time. Can we see a resolution about that?

John DiPaolo is executive director of the Beginning with Children Foundation (bwcf.org), which operates two charter schools in Brooklyn.