How We Can Solve the Homework Problem

By Peg Dawson

This week I worked with another teenager who is failing in school because he doesn't do his homework. He sat across the desk from me in my office and told me he spends seven hours a day in school and feels he's "put in his time." Homework is an unfair burden to impose on top of his long day in school, he says. Or maybe he told me he has the best of intentions each day when he gets home from school but he just can't bring himself to open his books. Or, since this is a composite picture and it's not just boys I work with, perhaps it was a girl who told me that she's too busy doing things with friends and doesn't see the importance of homework. Or maybe she has a job after school, which gives her both satisfaction and spending money but leaves her little time to spend on schoolwork. Or perhaps the youngster lives in a family where education is not valued, or where it's denigrated, or where the student is needed to help out with child care or housekeeping and, again, has no time for homework.

Failure to do homework leads students to fail classes, flunk grades, and ultimately to drop out of school. I would like to propose a simple solution to the homework problem.

Here's how it would work. We know most high schools in the United States track students: They offer vocational tracks, college-preparatory tracks, general education tracks, and honors tracks. Some schools even track within tracks (by offering high and low college-prep classes, for example). I propose we add one more...