There’s too much homework, and the standardized tests indicate that it doesn’t do any good.
When was the last time you heard of homeschooled children having this problem?
If they did more chores before & after school; and swept chimneys on the weekends, it would build up those poor, little frail bodies.
Milking the cow, splitting fire wood, shoveling coal, stacking hay, mucking stalls, churning butter, cranking ice cream...WAIT! How did that last one get in there?!?
There’s too much homework, and the standardized tests indicate that it doesn’t do any good.
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Where I live, the kiddies don’t get enough. I remember sometime back reading that one of our local school districts was increasing homework to 1-1/2 hours per day. Good grief. I did homework from 3:00 to 4:00 (when we had dinner), then after dinner I worked on homework from around 6:00 till 9:00. By that time, it was time for bed.
Brother and I did prety well in school. And we didn’t have time to go out and get into trouble either.
I see kids now and it looks like they aren’t bringing home (or back to school) much of anything.
School directly occupies at least 8 hours of the average child's day (from 7-3). Add three or four hours of homework, an hour of TV, and there is no time left for family life. Home becomes a place to hang one's hat. School is where the "important stuff happens." At least that's the lesson I learned.
And to take this in another direction, consider the implications for a child's spiritual life. A child spends at least eight hours each day in a mandated God-free zone. His homework doesn't contain references to God, but probably contains negative descriptions of Christians. What conclusion can a child reach about religion except that, at best, society judges it to be unimportant, especially when compared to the important stuff in school. That's another lesson I learned.
Finally, how does forced schooling conform with the First Amendment to the US Constitution, specifically, the right of freedom of exercise of religion? Are parents and children free to exercise their religion when the government forces children into a godless world for 8-12 hours per day?