Homework
I may be the only adult in the country who thinks our kids need less homework, not more. I remember when I was a kid back in the 80's, one of the key ideas of education reform was that schools needed to assign more homework so we could keep up with the Europeans and East Asian countries. I hated the idea then, and I'm not too crazy about it now. My kids spend 7 hours a day in school. I would think that that would be plenty to educate them in whatever they need to know. Maybe older kids who are targeting college need more homework, but I don't see how it could help 8-10 year olds. How much patience for study can they be expected to have? What is so important for them to learn that they need to spend more than 7 hours a day learning it, to the detriment of having a life? I also don't believe in giving impossible assignments. My 5th-grade son came home last week with an assignment on the Bill of Rights: rephrase them in your own words and draw pictures of them. Th...