The amount of homework teachers are assigning in many districts has declined over the past few years. And a deeper dive shows that educators in high-poverty school systems are less likely to give out those assignments to students than are their peers from more affluent districts.
A nationally representative, online survey, conducted by the EdWeek Research Center in December and January, asked 279 teachers whether the amount of homework they’ve assigned over the past two years has risen, fallen, or stayed the same.
Across all the teachers surveyed, regardless of the poverty level of their school systems, 40% of educators said homework had decreased during that time. Thirty-three percent said it’s remained the same, and just 3% said the amount of homework assignments has increased. Twenty-four percent, meanwhile, said they don’t assign homework at all.
The survey shows that a higher portion of teachers from relatively impoverished school systems, 44%, said the amount of homework they’ve assigned has decreased over time, compared to 39% from more affluent districts.
In addition, educators from high-poverty districts are more likely to say they assign no homework at all. Twenty-eight percent of teachers from high-poverty K-12 systems say they don’t give those out-of-school assignments, compared to 17% who are from low-poverty areas who say they don’t assign them.
All of those differences are statistically significant.
The survey groups respondents into two categories of district poverty level: Those from districts with 51% or more students eligible for free or reduced-price lunches, and those from school systems with poverty levels below that threshold.
Why highly impoverished schools may be assigning less homework
While many educators and researchers see value in homework, others have argued that assigning it worsens inequities. School district and teacher practices in assigning those lessons don’t end up measuring ability, but rather reinforcing socioeconomic divisions, they contend.
“Homework tends to be a better proxy for privilege than for how much students actually know or how motivated they are to learn,” said Jessica Calarco, professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Students who have more access to at-home resources have an advantage in being able to complete homework, Calarco said. Where one student arrives home to a parent waiting for them with a snack, and with the time and ability to assist with an assignment, another student’s reality may be different.
“Maybe they have to heat up soup for dinner and take care of their younger siblings until a parent gets home later that night,” said Calarco.
Forty-four percent of K-12 teachers believe incorporating homework into students’ grades can help engagement, according to a report published last year by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative education policy think tank that advocates for high expectations and academic rigor.
But research also shows that assigning homework can have negative consequences for students, if schools aren’t thoughtful about their approach—for example, if one student is given extra credit opportunities for completing homework and another student is denied from being allowed to go to recess for not finishing it.
Subtle strategies can help reduce homework inequities
Researchers say there are steps that school districts and individual educators can take that will create more equitable conditions for assigning homework, particularly in helping students who don’t have stable learning environments away from school.
Some options can include trying to craft assignments that don’t require parents to help. Or, in other instances, teachers can assign homework that is ungraded and engages families, like oral history projects.
Janine Bempechat, a clinical professor emerita at Boston University’s Wheelock College of Education and Human Development, said there are simple strategies families can use to create the conditions for helping their children with out-of-school lessons.
One option is for parents to arrange for other, older, school-age family members to come over to their home at the end of the day to do homework together with younger children, said Bempechat.
Teachers can help by providing in-school or after-school assistance to students, Bempechat said. One teacher told Education Week that she conducted a survey asking her 1st graders questions about technology access and resources at home.
Based on the results, she reached out to parents and started developing stronger teacher-parent relationships to see how the school could assist.
“There’s a lot of support—it doesn’t have to come in the form of expensive tutors or tutoring centers,” Bempechat said.
