The Atlantic

Letters: ‘Who Does Homework Work for?’

Readers consider whether after-school assignments are worthwhile for students.
Source: Brendan McDermid / Reuters

The Cult of Homework

American teenagers now average about twice as much time spent on homework each day as their predecessors did in the 1990s. Whether the practice is beneficial for learning, Joe Pinsker wrote in March, is highly contested. “As many children, not to mention their parents and teachers, are drained by their daily workload, some schools and districts are rethinking how homework should work—and some teachers are doing away with it entirely. They’re reviewing the research on homework,” Pinsker wrote, “and concluding that it’s time to revisit the subject.”


I am 12 years old. In my limited experience, the major issue with my homework is that I get out of school at 2:45 and I have to go to swim team at 4:15. I know that might seem like a huge gap but it is not really. I still have to pack for swim and have my chores to do, not to mention the fact that I get home at 8:15 every night. By the

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Atlantic

The Atlantic4 min read
Hayao Miyazaki’s Anti-war Fantasia
Once, in a windowless conference room, I got into an argument with a minor Japanese-government official about Hayao Miyazaki. This was in 2017, three years after the director had announced his latest retirement from filmmaking. His final project was
The Atlantic7 min readAmerican Government
The Americans Who Need Chaos
This is Work in Progress, a newsletter about work, technology, and how to solve some of America’s biggest problems. Sign up here. Several years ago, the political scientist Michael Bang Petersen, who is based in Denmark, wanted to understand why peop
The Atlantic4 min read
KitchenAid Did It Right 87 Years Ago
My KitchenAid stand mixer is older than I am. My dad bought the white-enameled machine 35 years ago, during a brief first marriage. The bits of batter crusted into its cracks could be from the pasta I made yesterday or from the bread he made then. I

Related Books & Audiobooks