To the Editor:
In an article, Education Week points out that there is a homework gap impacting students in low-income households, students of color, and students in rural areas and that tech equity is a reason why (“The ‘Homework Gap’ Persists. Tech Equity Is One Big Reason Why,” June 7, 2022).
If tech equity were suddenly a reality, and all students had easy access to first-class computers at home to do their homework, we might simply be making it easier to do the wrong thing.
Education author and speaker Alfie Kohn argues that no evidence of academic benefit from assigning homework in elementary or middle school exists and that the correlation at the high school level is weak and disappears when more sophisticated statistical measures are used. He also argues that “no study has ever substantiated the belief that homework builds character or teaches good study habits.”
I think that we should take these results seriously before investing in homework tech.
Stephen Krashen
Professor Emeritus
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, Calif.
