I think it's ridiculous to compare the "Apps for Autism" piece on 60 minutes with technology use for neuro-typical kids. Kids with autism need all kinds of tools to help them communicate, and technology (like ipads... but there are others) are simply that - a tool.

Public Schools here in the city and suburbs seem to have (mistakenly) arrived at using how many hours of homework their students have as some kind of trophy. That is, schools like NEST, Mark Twain, Stuy & the Specialized all seem to spend some effort COMMUNICATING how important a ton of homework is for our student's learning; implying not so subtly how this amount of homework implies a great school! This goes for all grades in the schools, from aproximately 3rd grade (8 year olds, folks!) where presumably, if after a full day of studying a student has at least an hour of reading and writing and solving problems, they will do better on the tests the Educrats are chasing! Upsurd, really, for so so many good and researched reasons. And the privates that have been rethinking this homework-as-learning dilemna are on the right track, but they didnt invent the revised concept! Educators for decades of high repute have spoken to the Whole Child Development as a way of better teaching our children. Besides play, social and athletic activities, young people need to LOVE learning to become great scholars and thinkers. The homework hole is just largely assignments that teachers are TOLD to give to students, or work that they are giving students so that prepared curriculum from the NYC/DOE and Education Dept's binders for each grade are covered. In other words, the RACE is on, to get the work shoveled in. This is a relatively newer phenomenon, since even 30somethings in our city will tell you that they are shocked by how many assignments their younger students get. Homework should be a reinforcing and positive experience. Timing Reading (ala the highly costly TC methods) is another example of how that concept has been lost. Given that so many students have parents struggling with literacy in the urban communities, or who are away at work till later in the evening, who thinks our 8 - 12 year olds are actually reading and learning to LOVE TO READ for the leveled programming - just another sort of 'race'? What about reading to find the magic of a story?? What has happened to homework in our public schools is similar to what happened to our schools: Educrats running schools like businesses, city hall trying to formulate how to 'maximize' time and efficiency by defining learning and education with time spent. Thinking back, was my education even a tiny bit compromised by NOT having 1 - 3 hours of work AFTER school each day? I say not. Was yours? Walcott? Mayor Bloomberg: how much did you do back in the days?? I would wager none of us have ever had to deal with the homework situation like we are forced to by helping/encouraging/dragging our lovely kids through the process this time around...

how about more homework? my kids come home from jhs and they barely get homework...i got more homework when i went to is 10, man 38 years ago then my kids do now.

Eliminate kindergarten homework. Or at least, eliminate kindergarten homework on weekends and holidays.

When my oldest was in our local public school the homework she received was a complete waste of time. They spent all day practicing for state exams and when her teacher gave the homework assignment (knowing she had not taught any type of lesson that day) she told the class "Just see if you can figure it out on you own. The first few times she did this, I spent hours teaching the work to my child and helping her through her homework. After a few nights of this I wrote a letter to the teacher and received no response.

My kids are in a parochial school now. After the first week my oldest told me she loved doing homework. Every assignment had been taught and reviewed that day and she was able to easily understand her assignments. Now there's a concept for you... TEACHING LESSONS at school and doing homework as a REVIEW of that days lesson.

I think that is where the biggest problem with homework is. Schools have lost the true purpose of homework. It isn't supposed to be this time consuming pain in the butt every night. The purpose of homework is to review the lessons taught that day so that the teacher knows that the child has grasped the lesson and is on task for the next portion. The homework policy at our parochial school requires our teachers to assign homework 4 nights a week. Time is allotted by grade: Pre-K-K is 15 to 25 minutes; First and second grade is 35 to 45 minutes; third and fourth grade is 50-60 minutes; fifth and sixth is 75-90 minutes; and seventh/eighth is 90-120 minutes.

I have yet to hear a parent at our school complain about the amount of homework that is given out. Will a child struggle on occasion? Sure. Seek help and do what it takes. However, getting rid of homework or dumbing down the work helps no one.

i say eliminate most hw- kids have busy lives many dont get home until 5-6 pm - yo should have dinner as a family now its almost 7pm- kids need down time to relax -call friends -watch tv ect-others have chores, jobs, family responsibilities that make hw almost impossible to do-
as far as teachers marking and checking hw most dont really look at it s=carefully- many kids do it wrong especially when they are doing math examples- if a kid practices math or anything else wrong it takes a long time to correct- that is if the teacher checked it carefull- teachers may have 150 students are they really checking hw- they give for the sake of giving or to prove theyre tough teachers etc- eliminate hw or really limit it

an interesting article from the marshall memo

Rethinking Homework
(Originally titled “Making Homework Central to Learning”)
In this Educational Leadership article, University of Missouri/St. Louis professor Cathy Vatterott gives three reasons why teachers grade homework – and a counter-argument to each one:
• If I don’t grade it, they won’t do it. What’s happened here, says Vatterott, is that “teachers have oversold grades to students as the indicator of a task’s worth.” It’s simply not true that only graded tasks are worthy of serious effort – students take notes, do group work, and participate in discussions without needing grades for motivation. “These are expectations, just as, in many other countries, completing homework is an expectation,” says Vatterott. “The belief that the carrot of a grade entices students to complete work is an illusion, one with roots in behaviorism and a negative view of learners. At its core, it negates students’ intrinsic drive for mastery and implies that homework is inherently distasteful.”
• Hard work should be rewarded. Again, this is a behaviorist approach, and it has the effect of inflating students’ overall grades by adding in activities that don’t truly reflect learning.
• Homework grades help students who test poorly. Struggling students can rack up points for doing homework (whatever the quality) even if they can’t demonstrate mastery on summative tests. This argument reveals three problems with many schools’ overall grading systems. First, averaging grades makes it more difficult for teachers and students to zero in on learning problems that need to be fixed. Second, including homework grades conflates practice and mastery [see previous article]. And third, depending on homework grades usually means that teachers aren’t using other forms of assessment that would more accurately measure students’ understanding and proficiency.
What is the alternative? Vatterott believes schools need to shift to seeing homework as a means to learning as the end. “It’s not about homework’s value for the grade,” she says, “but homework’s value for learning. It’s not about the student’s responsibility for a task, but the student’s responsibility for his or her learning.”
What does this look like? In schools that don’t grade homework, students are still accountable for doing it – it’s marked for correctness, students get specific feedback, and there are consequences for not doing a good job (parent calls, after-school detention to catch up). Many of these schools have separate grades for academic achievement and “responsibility for learning” – the latter includes note-taking, group projects, and homework.
Here are Vatterott’s suggestions for rethinking the role of homework in the overall assessment picture:
• Evaluate each homework assignment to determine whether to grade it. Some homework assignments should be graded – for example, research papers or portfolios of work.
• Tie homework to assessments. One approach is to allow students to use homework assignments and notes during tests. Another is to write at the top of test papers the grade on the test and the number of uncompleted homework assignments.
• Focus on demonstration of learning, not task completion. “When homework is graded, teachers spend an inordinate amount of time and effort chasing makeup work,” says Vatterott. “When the focus switches from working to learning, students understand that they can improve their final grade by demonstrating mastery, not through the ‘Hail Mary pass’ of an extra-credit assignment two weeks before the end of the semester.”

“Making Homework Central to Learning” by Cathy Vatterott in Educational Leadership, November 2011 (Vol. 69, #3, p. 60-64), http://www.ascd.org; Vatterott can be reached at Vatterott@umsl.edu.