homework rules canada

Should homework be banned? Toronto students, parents weigh in

The debate over how much homework students should receive has been ongoing for years and one the President of Ireland has recently weighed in on, sparking plenty of public opinion.

Michael D. Higgins, who once served as Ireland's Arts Minister, suggested in a recent interview that homework should be banned.

“I think myself, really, that the time at home, and the time in the school, is an educational experience, and it should get finished at the school, and people should be able to use their time for other creative things,” Higgins said in an interview with RTE's public affairs show for children, news2day.

The comments have triggered plenty of public opinion not only in Ireland, but also on this side of the Atlantic.

"With extracurriculars, it’s a lot - It can pile up, so maybe there should be a limit," said high school student Mya.

"Sometimes it can be overwhelming, especially around exams, but I believe it's necessary in certain subjects like Math where you need to understand it,” said high school student Nina.

But many parents who spoke with CTV News Toronto believe it's critical in helping understand how their children are progressing.

"It's good for the students to practice how to learn reading and write," said Emma Vachon, a mother of two.

"It's very little that we get. It helps everybody figure out how we're progressing and if we need help," another parent said.

The Toronto District School Board (TDSB) told CTV News Toronto the matter is not on the table.

Many school boards in Ontario have different policies on homework.

For the TDSB, that includes no homework for the youngest students in Kindergarten. For Grades 1 to 6, the policy states homework should reflect the unique needs of the child, and include reading and interactive activities at home. For students in Grades 7 and 8, homework should be completed within an hour, while high school students should complete their homework in two hours.

Math tutor Vanessa Vakharia says it's a conversation she often has with parents, and argues homework is critical and shouldn't be abolished.

"It gives students a chance to practice on their own and gives me, as a tutor, the chance to see what needs to be worked on further," Vakharia said. "I think it's important to remember if we give kids homework – that it's productive."

Ireland's presidential role is largely a ceremonial one, and at this point, there's no indication whether the country’s government would introduce legislation banning homework. 

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No more homework: Growing movement, especially early on, to ban after-school assignments

'I was probably making about 5% of my kids excited about mathematics," he said. Homework seemed to 'buoy the strong and discourage the weak'

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David Martin’s math classes used to look like any other: On a typical day, students might go over six or seven problems of increasing difficulty, followed by a word problem. Then they’d be assigned similar questions for homework.

The class’s drop-out rate got to around 40% before the Red Deer, Alta., high school teacher knew something had to change.

“I was probably making about 5% of my kids excited about mathematics,” he said. Homework in his class had always seemed to “buoy the strong and discourage the weak,” he said — the students who could do the 30 problems at home probably didn’t need to do them, he said, while the less math-savvy struggled with even one.

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So Mr. Martin pored through the research on this time-honoured academic practice, little of which he found convincing.

Homework, he decided, would have to go.

Now, three years later, his class looks totally different: Students work on one or two harder, critical-thinking problems per class and are encouraged to take their time and be creative. No work goes home. The drop-out/failure rate is now 4% to 5% and the class average remains the same.

“This kid I met after school in summer time [told me] ‘If I had to do homework or daily stuff, I would have failed,'” Mr. Martin said. Another former student told him he aced his university math course thanks, in part, to the no-homework approach.

He may be the only teacher in his high school who has nixed take-home work completely, but Mr. Martin is part of a growing cohort of parents, educators and even administrators who are “anti-homework” — viewing it as a stress-inducing, mostly useless practice that saps students’ desire to learn rather than nurture it. It’s a movement that has risen alongside the return of free play, the concern about raising innovative young people primed for the knowledge economy and families’ increasingly busy lives packed with extra-curricular activities. This week, Collège de Saint-Ambroise in Saguenay, Que., launched a year-long pilot project banning homework for students in Grades 1-6. Like in Mr. Martin’s class, the way students spend time time at school will be restructured to make sure children do not fall behind, school board spokesperson Marie-Ève Desrosiers told The Canadian Press.

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The news reinvigorated a debate about the value of homework — a conversation that has bubbled up and receded over the past five to seven years, gaining converts along the way. Even still, the issue remains divisive, with some parents campaigning hard for a homework-free experience that would give them their life back — and others worried about their children falling behind or failing to learn the discipline and time management required in high school and beyond. As one Collège de Saint-Ambroise parent said, “I’ll see how the year goes, but I’m very afraid. Homework is a way for us parents to evaluate whether things are going well, and to guide us in helping and supporting them.”

The research is also split or viewed with skepticism, muddying the waters for parents and educators.

“If you look at all of the different types of homework of all students, it has a moderate effect. It’s not big, but you can say ‘This does enhance student achievement,'” said Robert Marzano, CEO of Marzano Research Laboratory in Boulder, Co., which does research and development for K-12 education. “Do you actually have to have homework? No. You could have a system that didn’t have any homework and it could still be a good system. I can’t recommend getting rid of it, though, except at the primary level. But make sure you use it purposefully.”

A 2009 systematic review by the Canadian Council on Learning found that homework is linked to higher student achievement — but only if it is “judiciously assigned” and engaging to the student.

It’s up to school boards or even schools to enact homework policies. The Toronto District School Board, for example, says kindergarten students shouldn’t be assigned homework, and reading, games, having discussions and interactive activities should be the only thing students Grade 1 to 6 do outside of class time. But despite the Ontario government’s new Growing Success initiative, which says teachers should assess what’s done in the classroom and not what’s sent home, homework continues in most schools.

When Mark Barnes, an education consultant who lives outside Cleveland, Ohio, asks his teacher-audiences why they still assign homework, the answer is typically this: “That’s the way we’ve always done it.”

The former middle-school teacher was a “very traditional, in-the-box sort of teacher” for the first 14 years of his career, piling on the homework on weekends and holidays. But half of his students were failing. Then he read The Homework Myth, the influential 2006 book by Alfie Kohn that debunks common claims about homework — that it reinforces classroom lessons, that it teaches responsibility and discipline. He also got interested in what actually motivates people, and students especially. They need to be “intrinsically” motivated, he found, where as schools cast homework as “extrinsic” — you have to do it or you fail.

“I stopped assigning homework all together,” he said. “Kids will do things academically when they see value in it.”

Peterborough, Ont., elementary school teacher Lisa Noble also stopped assigning homework in her core French classes when she saw her students weren’t progressing, but getting wrapped up in the “busy work” of memorizing verb tenses rather than developing an ability to converse in a second language.

Parents were confused — where was the homework that made clear what the students were learning in class? Some parents even asked that their children be enrolled in a class led by a more traditional teacher who assigned homework.

“As parents we still expect our kids’ school experience to look like ours and I’m not sure it should. That’s part of it,” she said. “Parents go ‘Why don’t you have homework?’ and it does put a bigger onus on the teacher to communicate it.’

The whole point of nixing homework, she said, was to create a more equitable learning experience — and you would see the difference in submitted homework, some with “parents’ fingerprints all over them,” as Jessica Lahey at The New York Times ‘s Parent-Teacher Conference blog puts it, and some in which it was clear there was no help at all.

There is concern, however, that students will be ill-prepared for older grades in which homework is demanded and expected, as students approach the self-directed university years. Anelia Coppes, a parent of four in Parry Sound, Ont., said a friend of hers has a child entering Grade 7 — the first year in which homework will be assigned.

“This kid is nervous, he’s making himself sick,” she said. “It shouldn’t be that way. Why do we have kids stressing over the fact that they have to do homework?”

It is indeed a challenge that high schools, which are still far more likely to assign homework, are not on the no-homework bandwagon or at very least mindful of its mission, Ms. Noble said. “They have four periods a day in a semester system, they’re 70 minutes long, and if you’re not doing that maintenance homework, you’re sunk.”

Still, there is a growing sensitivity to parent preference for work getting done at school.

At his son’s Grade 2 parent orientation this week, Calgary parent and radio broadcaster Buzz Bishop said teachers were almost regretful in telling parents a small amount of homework would be assigned — the bulk of it 15 minutes of reading a night.

“It was seriously almost apologetic — ‘This isn’t going to be every day, this is what we can expect, we know families are busy, we don’t want to burden you,'” he said.

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What Canada's school boards say about kids and homework

This article was published more than 14 years ago. Some information may no longer be current.

Fernando Morales/The Globe and Mail

Toronto District School Board

The TDSB's policy states that homework should not be assigned to kindergarten students, nor should it be assigned on holidays. For students in Grades 1 to 6, homework should be "differentiated to reflect the unique needs of the child." In early grades, any homework should take the form of reading, playing games and interactive activities, such as building and cooking with the family. For students in Grades 7 and 8, completion time for homework should be an hour or less. In Grades 9 to 12, homework should have an estimated completion time of two hours. Moreover, the policy states "effective homework assignments" need to be based on the curriculum, should be given feedback, should require no additional teaching outside the classroom, and do not require resources or technology to which students may not have access.

English Montreal School Board The EMSB does not specify how much homework should be assigned, so the amount can vary wildly. But general guidelines say homework tasks should be given regularly, and it "shall be appropriate to the students' level of achievement and shall reflect the specific needs of individual students or groups of students." It also notes the capacity for students to handle homework increases as they advance. Michael Cohen, the board's communications and marketing specialist, said the onus is on parents to research the school whose academic expectations best suit their children.

Calgary Board of Education The CBE recommends that students in Grades 1 to 3 not be given formal assignments, but recommends five to 10 minutes of systematic study a night, mostly involving reading. For students in Grades 4 to 6, teachers may use their discretion, but assignments should focus on reading and should not exceed 20 minutes. Students in Grades 7 to 9 are expected to study 30 minutes to an hour a night. Grade 10 students are expected to do 11/2 hours a night; those in Grades 11 and 12 are expected to do two hours a night. "While the Board is anxious to promote the supportive role of the home in the child's education, it is anxious at the same time not to interfere with the child's pursuit of other wholesome non-school interests of educational, cultural, or recreational value," the policy states.

Vancouver School Board

The VSB's policy was last updated in 1994, and is currently under review. It states that no formal homework should be assigned to children from kindergarten to Grade 3, and students in Grades 4 to 7 should devote no more than 30 minutes a day to homework. Students in Grades 8 to 10 should do no more than one hour; Grades 10 to 12 should devote no more than two hours. As of press time, school board officials were not able to say whether the new policy would change the amount of recommended homework time.

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Is Homework Good for Kids?

Children and parents are often frustrated. Some education experts are calling for a rethink

W hen my son started school in the fall of 2015, I knew there would be a few challenges to overcome. Because he was attending a francophone program, the catchment zone was quite large, and he would have to start each day with a forty-five-minute bus ride across downtown Toronto. My husband and I both worked full time, so my son would have to be in after-school care until one of us could get him, which would usually be around 6 p.m. Taking transit home took around forty-five minutes, which meant that we didn’t arrive at our apartment until close to 7 p.m. Add dinner and a bath into the mix, and that made for a long day. Still, I wasn’t too worried. I thought it would all be fine—and, honestly, it was fine right up until the homework started.

The worksheets began trickling home during grade one, and by the next year, my son was getting thick weekly packets of them. The board policy was that children in his grade were supposed to receive around twenty minutes’ worth of work per night, but in our house, the agony was never that brief. One week in grade two, my son came home with seventeen pages of homework, printed front and back—thirty-four worksheets filled with math problems and language exercises. He worked on them every night, but by Sunday, he was only about three quarters of the way through. He cried as he struggled to finish the homework. I cried as I emailed his teacher to tell her he hadn’t been able to finish it. We both felt like we’d failed.

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We were told that the work wasn’t mandatory, but that put me in a difficult position. I felt like, as a parent, I should be supporting what his teachers wanted from him, not acting against it. Besides, I believed that homework was necessary to set my son up for success. But it turns out that homework might not be as useful as we think.

“Homework is seen to benefit time management, self-discipline, [and] organizational skills, but there have been no studies that really have shown that homework actually either develops those skills or reinforces them,” says Etta Kralovec, professor emerita at the University of Arizona and author of The End of Homework and Schools That Do Too Much . She’s not the only homework researcher who is questioning how and why homework is done. Linda Cameron and Lee Bartel from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education have critiqued homework practices in Canada, noting, in 2010, that homework “may well be the ‘tipping point’ for the next educational reform movement” because the issue is “now uppermost in many parents’ and teachers’ minds.” Denise Pope, a senior lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, has found that, for many students, homework is the greatest source of stress in their lives. Homework stress can lead to burnout and negative impacts on academic achievement.

Kralovec tells me that there is no benefit to homework for elementary school students at all. A meta-analysis published in 2006 by Harris M. Cooper, distinguished professor emeritus at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, looked at all of the homework research that had been done in the United States between 1987 and 2003 and found that homework had “no association with achievement gain” in students from kindergarten through grade five. And while there is a link between homework and academic success in middle and high school students, Kralovec says that might be more correlation than causation. One example she gives is that students taking advanced placement classes in high school typically do more homework than their peers in other classes: Are they having more academic success because they do more homework, or are they doing more homework because those advanced classes tend to assign more of it?

Kralovec says that not only are the benefits of homework questionable but the practice also has clear detriments. It takes time away from more meaningful things that families can do together, like reading or playing. It can create tension between parent and child by placing them in the role of teacher and student—especially if the child already finds that a nerve-wracking role to play at school. It might also limit the extracurricular activities the child can participate in, especially if they’re expected to do homework every night.

Part of the issue is that children, like adults, perform better when they have adequate outlets for stress—like exercise or leisure. In a groundbreaking educational program in Vanves, France, that started in 1950, students showed improved academic achievement when classroom time was shortened and physical education was extended. Follow-up studies, including some done in Canadian cities like Victoria, BC, and Trois-Rivières, Quebec, have produced similar results. Another facet to consider is that academic competency is not the only capability children need to develop: a study by Mollie Galloway, Jerusha Conner, and Denise Pope found that students overloaded with homework were “not meeting their developmental needs or cultivating other critical life skills.”

And not all students have a quiet, well-lit space in their homes where they can work. Many parents aren’t home in the afternoons and evenings—due to shift work or because they attend evening classes—and students in those households are often expected to care for younger siblings and cook dinner after school. Students may not have access to computers at home, meaning that they can’t complete work assigned online. Since work assigned to be done at home may make up a portion of a student’s overall grade, those whose home lives aren’t conducive to homework may struggle to maintain a high grade point average. Kralovec says this creates “a system of homework which further advances kids who are privileged.”

But Kralovec thinks change is on the horizon. COVID-19 disrupted how school work was done, an experience that caused many of us to re-evaluate our attitudes toward education. In 2021, the National Education Association published an article, “ Will the Pandemic Change Homework Forever? ,” that explored how COVID-19 lockdowns, which collapsed the boundaries between school and home, caused educators to re-examine what works and what doesn’t. Last year, Jessica McCrory Calarco, Ilana S. Horn, and Grace A. Chen published a paper, “‘ You Need to Be More Responsible’: The Myth of Meritocracy and Teachers’ Accounts of Homework Inequalities ,” that showed that teachers often interpret struggles with homework as lack of responsibility or motivation on students’ part and then react punitively instead of supporting students’ needs—which only serves to exacerbate social inequalities in the classroom. More recently, the president of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, suggested that homework should be banned, saying that schoolwork should stay at school and students “should be able to use their time for other creative things” (though the president’s role is largely ceremonial and does not involve making policy).

Homework used to send my son into a nightly spiral. To him, the work seemed endless, and he felt like he was constantly coming up short—something that made him dread going to school. But when we relocated to Kingston, Ontario, he was delighted to learn that the teachers at his new school prefer not to assign homework. He’s expected to finish any incomplete classwork at home and sometimes has projects he has to do outside of school, but most of his nights are free. We’ve been enjoying the time together: reading, watching TV, and, in his words, “just vibing.”

I used to think that he couldn’t succeed without filling out some set amount of worksheets. Now I feel like I’ve completely changed my opinion on homework. Without the extra work, I’ve been able to see how much more enthusiastic my son actually is when it comes to learning.

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Homeworkers

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Homeworkers are employees who do paid work out of their own homes for an employer (for example, online research, preparing food for resale, sewing, telephone soliciting, manufacturing, word processing).

Independent contractors are not homeworkers under the Employment Standards Act ( ESA ).

The difference between homeworkers and domestic workers

Homeworkers are not the same as domestic workers.

Homeworkers do paid work out of their own homes for an employer.

Domestic workers work in a private home directly for the person who owns or rents the home. They do things such as housekeeping and cooking, or provide care, supervision or personal assistance to children or people who are elderly, ill or disabled.

For example, employees who prepare food at home for resale by their employer are homeworkers, but employees who prepare food in a private residence for the people living there to eat are domestic workers.

Rights under the ESA

Homeworkers are eligible for:

• minimum wage
• regular payment of wages (wages are paid on a recurring pay period on a recurring pay day, and written wage statements are provided for each pay)
• wages are paid on a recurring pay period on a recurring pay day, and
• written wage statements are provided for each pay
• written job details
• hours of work protections (for example, maximum hours of work, and daily and weekly/bi-weekly rest periods)
• overtime pay
• vacation with pay
• public holidays
• pregnancy and parental leave
• family responsibility leave
• bereavement leave
• family caregiver leave
• family medical leave
• critical illness leave
• organ donor leave
• reservist leave
• crime-related child disappearance leave
• child death leave
• domestic or sexual violence leave
• notice of termination
• notice of termination of assignment (applies to assignment employees of a temporary help agency)
• severance pay
• equal pay for equal work

Employers are required to provide their employees with a copy of the ministry's Employment Standards Poster within 30 days of the date anyone becomes an employee.

If an employee requests a copy of the poster in a language other than English and the ministry has published a version in that language, the employer must provide the translated version in addition to the English copy.

Learn more about special rules or exemptions for homeworkers .

Minimum wage rate

Minimum wage is the lowest hourly wage an employer can pay employees. The general minimum wage rate is $16.55 per hour (as of October 1, 2023).

There is a special minimum wage rate for homeworkers that is higher than the general minimum wage rate. A homeworker is entitled to a minimum wage rate of $18.20 per hour (as of October 1, 2023).

Full-time and part-time homeworkers are entitled to this rate. Students of any age who are employed as homeworkers must also be paid the homeworker's minimum wage.

Calculating minimum wage for homeworkers who are being paid piece-work rate

The amount that a homeworker is paid must be at least equal to minimum wage. Homeworkers who are paid on a piece-work rate (a way of calculating pay that is based on the amount of work an employee completes, and not on the hours worked) can calculate whether they are being paid at least the minimum wage in the following way:

• Take the total amount earned over the pay period and divide it by the number of hours worked in the same period. This is their average hourly rate.
• Compare that average hourly rate to the homeworkers’ minimum wage rate in effect over that same pay period. (If overtime hours were worked, the calculation is more complicated.)

A homeworker received $350 as piece-work pay for the pay period October 4 to October 10, 2023 as payment for 25 hours of work in that pay period. The homeworker received the equivalent of $14 an hour in that pay period, but the homeworkers' minimum wage rate in effect from October 1, 2023 was $18.20.

Based on the homeworkers' minimum wage, the employee should have earned $455.

Result: The employer must therefore pay an additional $105 to the employee ($455 minus $350).

Written job details an employer must give a homeworker

Employers must advise homeworkers in writing of:

• the type of work they are being employed to do
• the amount to be paid for an hour of work in a regular work week if the homeworker is being paid by the number of hours worked
• the amount to be paid for each article or thing manufactured in a regular work week
• the number of articles or things to be completed by a certain date or time if the employer requires a certain number to be completed by a certain date or time
• an explanation of how pay will be determined when the homeworker is being paid on some other basis

Employers must keep detailed records of hours worked, wages and deductions. They must give all employees a written wage statement with each pay that shows the full details of the pay period.

The written wage statement must set out the:

• pay period for which the wages are being paid
• wage rate, if there is one
• gross amount of wages and unless the employee is given the information in some other manner, such as in an employment contract how the gross wages were calculated
• amount and purpose of each deduction from the wages
• net amount of wages

Information and records employers must keep

Employers who employ homeworkers are required to keep a register containing the name, address and wage rate(s) of the homeworker. This must be kept for three years after the homeworker has stopped working for the employer.

In addition, all employers in Ontario, including anyone who employs homeworkers, must keep written records about each person they hire.

Exception for hours of work records

If an employee receives a fixed salary for each pay period, and the salary does not change unless the employee works overtime, the employer is only required to record the:

• employee's hours in excess of those hours in the employee's regular work week, and
• number of hours in excess of eight per day—or in excess of the hours in the employee's regular work day, if that's more than eight hours.

Too much homework: Should we apply the ’10-minute rule’ strictly?

It can seem unthinkable to ascribe just 10 minutes of homework per day to students.

In countries like Singapore where the pursuit of top grades is intense, 15-year-old students are assigned 9.4 hours of homework weekly, according to data from the OECD. Teens in Shanghai spend the most hours per week on homework (14 hours) globally.

On the other extreme end of the spectrum, high school students in Finland get less than three hours of homework per week.

But in the US, the standard for decades has been the “10-minute rule,” a guideline supported by both the National Parent Teacher Association (PTA) and the National Education Association.

This rule recommends that students are assigned a daily maximum of 10 minutes of homework per grade level. This mean that a third-grader, for example, should do 30 minutes of homework each night. When they reach high school, this goes up to about two hours each night.

Proposed by Harris Cooper of Duke University, the leading researcher on homework, middle-school students are recommended to do take on 90 minutes per day of homework – this is the optimal figure to enhance their academic achievement. For high school students, they should aim for 90 minutes to two and a half hours per day.

OECD data show 15-year-olds are assigned 6.1 hours of homework per week. This largely corresponds with a 2003 research from the Brookings Institution and the Rand Corporation.

The research had found that despite popular assumption, the majority of students in US schools only spend less than an hour a day on homework. This figure applies regardless of grade level and has been so for most of the past five decades, according to research from the Brookings Institution.

“Homework is beneficial, but only to a degree.” Here’s what the research shows for different grade levels. https://t.co/s3MLK1Uj8n — edutopia (@edutopia) September 28, 2019

In the updated 2014 version , research again shows “little evidence that the homework load has increased for the average student” despite news reports depicting students are now burdened by so much homework that their health and well-being are under attack. Those assigned more than two hours of homework per night are a minority, the research found.

“In national polls, parents are more likely to say their children have too little homework than too much.  And a solid majority says the amount of their children’s homework is about right,” the report said.

For the minority who are struggling with too much homework daily, studies show this would cause them more harm than good.

When middle school students were assigned more than 90-100 minutes of homework daily, they ended up performing worse on maths and science, one 2015 study found. It could also be counter-productive once fatigue, stress, and a loss of interest in academics set in.

But all this focus on numbers should not distract us from the quality of homework set. Different students have different capabilities. Struggling students – or  economically disadvantaged ones  – may end up taking twice as much time to complete an assignment compared to a more able peer.

Writing in Education Next , Janine Bempechat, a clinical professor of human development at the Boston University defined high-quality homework as: “Assignments that are developmentally appropriate and meaningful and that promote self-efficacy and self-regulation. Meaningful homework is authentic, allowing students to engage in solving problems with real-world relevance. More specifically, homework tasks should make efficient use of student time and have a clear purpose connected to what they are learning.”

More quality in homework also makes students believe in their competence when they accomplish something, especially for struggling students.

“Students whose teachers have trained them to adopt strategies such as goal setting, self-monitoring, and planning develop a number of personal assets—improved time management, increased self-efficacy, greater effort and interest, a desire for mastery, and a decrease in helplessness,” Bempechat wrote.

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Homework – Top 3 Pros and Cons

Pro/Con Arguments | Discussion Questions | Take Action | Sources | More Debates

From dioramas to book reports, from algebraic word problems to research projects, whether students should be given homework, as well as the type and amount of homework, has been debated for over a century. [ 1 ]

While we are unsure who invented homework, we do know that the word “homework” dates back to ancient Rome. Pliny the Younger asked his followers to practice their speeches at home. Memorization exercises as homework continued through the Middle Ages and Enlightenment by monks and other scholars. [ 45 ]

In the 19th century, German students of the Volksschulen or “People’s Schools” were given assignments to complete outside of the school day. This concept of homework quickly spread across Europe and was brought to the United States by Horace Mann , who encountered the idea in Prussia. [ 45 ]

In the early 1900s, progressive education theorists, championed by the magazine Ladies’ Home Journal , decried homework’s negative impact on children’s physical and mental health, leading California to ban homework for students under 15 from 1901 until 1917. In the 1930s, homework was portrayed as child labor, which was newly illegal, but the prevailing argument was that kids needed time to do household chores. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 45 ] [ 46 ]

Public opinion swayed again in favor of homework in the 1950s due to concerns about keeping up with the Soviet Union’s technological advances during the Cold War . And, in 1986, the US government included homework as an educational quality boosting tool. [ 3 ] [ 45 ]

A 2014 study found kindergarteners to fifth graders averaged 2.9 hours of homework per week, sixth to eighth graders 3.2 hours per teacher, and ninth to twelfth graders 3.5 hours per teacher. A 2014-2019 study found that teens spent about an hour a day on homework. [ 4 ] [ 44 ]

Beginning in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic complicated the very idea of homework as students were schooling remotely and many were doing all school work from home. Washington Post journalist Valerie Strauss asked, “Does homework work when kids are learning all day at home?” While students were mostly back in school buildings in fall 2021, the question remains of how effective homework is as an educational tool. [ 47 ]

Is Homework Beneficial?

Pro 1 Homework improves student achievement. Studies have shown that homework improved student achievement in terms of improved grades, test results, and the likelihood to attend college. Research published in the High School Journal indicated that students who spent between 31 and 90 minutes each day on homework “scored about 40 points higher on the SAT-Mathematics subtest than their peers, who reported spending no time on homework each day, on average.” [ 6 ] Students in classes that were assigned homework outperformed 69% of students who didn’t have homework on both standardized tests and grades. A majority of studies on homework’s impact – 64% in one meta-study and 72% in another – showed that take-home assignments were effective at improving academic achievement. [ 7 ] [ 8 ] Research by the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) concluded that increased homework led to better GPAs and higher probability of college attendance for high school boys. In fact, boys who attended college did more than three hours of additional homework per week in high school. [ 10 ] Read More

Pro 2 Homework helps to reinforce classroom learning, while developing good study habits and life skills. Students typically retain only 50% of the information teachers provide in class, and they need to apply that information in order to truly learn it. Abby Freireich and Brian Platzer, co-founders of Teachers Who Tutor NYC, explained, “at-home assignments help students learn the material taught in class. Students require independent practice to internalize new concepts… [And] these assignments can provide valuable data for teachers about how well students understand the curriculum.” [ 11 ] [ 49 ] Elementary school students who were taught “strategies to organize and complete homework,” such as prioritizing homework activities, collecting study materials, note-taking, and following directions, showed increased grades and more positive comments on report cards. [ 17 ] Research by the City University of New York noted that “students who engage in self-regulatory processes while completing homework,” such as goal-setting, time management, and remaining focused, “are generally more motivated and are higher achievers than those who do not use these processes.” [ 18 ] Homework also helps students develop key skills that they’ll use throughout their lives: accountability, autonomy, discipline, time management, self-direction, critical thinking, and independent problem-solving. Freireich and Platzer noted that “homework helps students acquire the skills needed to plan, organize, and complete their work.” [ 12 ] [ 13 ] [ 14 ] [ 15 ] [ 49 ] Read More

Pro 3 Homework allows parents to be involved with children’s learning. Thanks to take-home assignments, parents are able to track what their children are learning at school as well as their academic strengths and weaknesses. [ 12 ] Data from a nationwide sample of elementary school students show that parental involvement in homework can improve class performance, especially among economically disadvantaged African-American and Hispanic students. [ 20 ] Research from Johns Hopkins University found that an interactive homework process known as TIPS (Teachers Involve Parents in Schoolwork) improves student achievement: “Students in the TIPS group earned significantly higher report card grades after 18 weeks (1 TIPS assignment per week) than did non-TIPS students.” [ 21 ] Homework can also help clue parents in to the existence of any learning disabilities their children may have, allowing them to get help and adjust learning strategies as needed. Duke University Professor Harris Cooper noted, “Two parents once told me they refused to believe their child had a learning disability until homework revealed it to them.” [ 12 ] Read More

Con 1 Too much homework can be harmful. A poll of California high school students found that 59% thought they had too much homework. 82% of respondents said that they were “often or always stressed by schoolwork.” High-achieving high school students said too much homework leads to sleep deprivation and other health problems such as headaches, exhaustion, weight loss, and stomach problems. [ 24 ] [ 28 ] [ 29 ] Alfie Kohn, an education and parenting expert, said, “Kids should have a chance to just be kids… it’s absurd to insist that children must be engaged in constructive activities right up until their heads hit the pillow.” [ 27 ] Emmy Kang, a mental health counselor, explained, “More than half of students say that homework is their primary source of stress, and we know what stress can do on our bodies.” [ 48 ] Excessive homework can also lead to cheating: 90% of middle school students and 67% of high school students admit to copying someone else’s homework, and 43% of college students engaged in “unauthorized collaboration” on out-of-class assignments. Even parents take shortcuts on homework: 43% of those surveyed admitted to having completed a child’s assignment for them. [ 30 ] [ 31 ] [ 32 ] Read More

Con 2 Homework exacerbates the digital divide or homework gap. Kiara Taylor, financial expert, defined the digital divide as “the gap between demographics and regions that have access to modern information and communications technology and those that don’t. Though the term now encompasses the technical and financial ability to utilize available technology—along with access (or a lack of access) to the Internet—the gap it refers to is constantly shifting with the development of technology.” For students, this is often called the homework gap. [ 50 ] [ 51 ] 30% (about 15 to 16 million) public school students either did not have an adequate internet connection or an appropriate device, or both, for distance learning. Completing homework for these students is more complicated (having to find a safe place with an internet connection, or borrowing a laptop, for example) or impossible. [ 51 ] A Hispanic Heritage Foundation study found that 96.5% of students across the country needed to use the internet for homework, and nearly half reported they were sometimes unable to complete their homework due to lack of access to the internet or a computer, which often resulted in lower grades. [ 37 ] [ 38 ] One study concluded that homework increases social inequality because it “potentially serves as a mechanism to further advantage those students who already experience some privilege in the school system while further disadvantaging those who may already be in a marginalized position.” [ 39 ] Read More

Con 3 Homework does not help younger students, and may not help high school students. We’ve known for a while that homework does not help elementary students. A 2006 study found that “homework had no association with achievement gains” when measured by standardized tests results or grades. [ 7 ] Fourth grade students who did no homework got roughly the same score on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) math exam as those who did 30 minutes of homework a night. Students who did 45 minutes or more of homework a night actually did worse. [ 41 ] Temple University professor Kathryn Hirsh-Pasek said that homework is not the most effective tool for young learners to apply new information: “They’re learning way more important skills when they’re not doing their homework.” [ 42 ] In fact, homework may not be helpful at the high school level either. Alfie Kohn, author of The Homework Myth, stated, “I interviewed high school teachers who completely stopped giving homework and there was no downside, it was all upside.” He explains, “just because the same kids who get more homework do a little better on tests, doesn’t mean the homework made that happen.” [ 52 ] Read More

Discussion Questions

1. Is homework beneficial? Consider the study data, your personal experience, and other types of information. Explain your answer(s).

2. If homework were banned, what other educational strategies would help students learn classroom material? Explain your answer(s).

3. How has homework been helpful to you personally? How has homework been unhelpful to you personally? Make carefully considered lists for both sides.

Take Action

1. Examine an argument in favor of quality homework assignments from Janine Bempechat.

2. Explore Oxford Learning’s infographic on the effects of homework on students.

3. Consider Joseph Lathan’s argument that homework promotes inequality .

4. Consider how you felt about the issue before reading this article. After reading the pros and cons on this topic, has your thinking changed? If so, how? List two to three ways. If your thoughts have not changed, list two to three ways your better understanding of the “other side of the issue” now helps you better argue your position.

5. Push for the position and policies you support by writing US national senators and representatives .

More School Debate Topics

Should K-12 Students Dissect Animals in Science Classrooms? – Proponents say dissecting real animals is a better learning experience. Opponents say the practice is bad for the environment.

Should Students Have to Wear School Uniforms? – Proponents say uniforms may increase student safety. Opponents say uniforms restrict expression.

Should Corporal Punishment Be Used in K-12 Schools? – Proponents say corporal punishment is an appropriate discipline. Opponents say it inflicts long-lasting physical and mental harm on students.

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Natalie Leppard Managing Editor [email protected]

© 2023 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved

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30 Year Mortgages for First-Time Buyers of New Builds

From: Department of Finance Canada

Backgrounder

In Budget 2024, the federal government announced it would amend mortgage rules to allow up to 30 year mortgages for first-time homebuyers purchasing new builds.

Starting August 1, 2024, the strengthened Canadian Mortgage Charter will help more Canadians unlock the door to their first home by allowing first-time buyers of newly built homes to have an additional five years to pay off their mortgage, resulting in lower monthly payments. This is about restoring generational fairness to the housing market for younger Canadians.

To make it easier for younger Canadians to reach the dream of homeownership and to encourage new supply, while avoiding inducing housing demand, the government has carefully designed this measure to only apply to first-time buyers purchasing newly built homes.

Borrowers that satisfy the following requirements will be eligible for up to 30 year mortgage amortizations:

• The borrower has never purchased a home before;
• In the last 4 years, the borrower has not occupied a home as a principal place of residence that either they themselves or their current spouse or common-law partner owned; or,
• The borrower recently experienced the breakdown of a marriage or common-law partnership. On this point, the regulations will follow the approach that the Canada Revenue Agency has taken with respect to the Home Buyers’ Plan .
• Newly Constructed Home: The property that the borrower is purchasing must be a newly constructed home. To be considered a newly constructed home, the new home must not have been previously occupied for residential purposes. This requirement is not intended to exclude newly constructed condominiums where there has been an interim occupancy period.
• Effective Date: This measure will be available for mortgage insurance applications that lenders submit to mortgage insurers on or after August 1, 2024. The government expects lenders will begin offering 30 year mortgages to eligible first time buyers as soon as August 1.
• This measure will only apply to high-ratio mortgages (mortgages where the loan amount exceeds 80 per cent of the home price) on owner-occupied properties.
• All other eligibility criteria for government-guaranteed mortgage insurance will remain in place. 

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Canadian Judge Rules Ukrainian Airline Was Negligent for Letting Doomed Flight Take Off From Tehran

The judgment means compensation for families of victims can exceed the $180,000 per passenger set out by Montreal Convention rules.

June 10, 2024 at 05:48 PM

2 minute read

Gail J. Cohen

Canada Correspondent

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A Canadian court ruled Monday that Ukrainian International Airlines must pay compensation to the families of those killed in the downing of its airline over Iran in January 2020.

“This verdict sends a strong message to international airlines that they must put the safety of their passengers first,” said Paul Miller, a partner at Toronto-based Howie Sacks & Henry, one of the firms representing the families.

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Federal government flouted rules when awarding McKinsey contracts: AG report

Auditor general karen hogan's audit couldn't determine if contracts delivered value for money.

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The auditor general of Canada says the federal government flouted proper contracting policies and was unable to show it got value for money when it awarded $209 million in contracts to consulting firm McKinsey & Company.

"We found that organizations awarding the contracts showed a frequent disregard for federal contracting and procurement policies and guidance," Auditor General Karen Hogan said Tuesday as she delivered her report on current and former federal governments' use of the U.S. based consulting firm.

"We also found that each organization's own practices often did not demonstrate value for money."

Last year, a Radio-Canada investigation found that the amount of money McKinsey & Company earns from federal contracts exploded after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau came to power. 

Hogan's office looked at all of the contracts awarded to the company by federal departments, agencies and Crown corporations between Jan. 1, 2011 and Feb. 7, 2023.

AG slams federal government over McKinsey contract

Of the $209 million in contracts that were awarded, the auditor general says that $200 million was spent. Hogan later told a parliamentary committee that only about $8.6 million of the $200 million went to McKinsey & Company under the former Conservative government.

Hogan told reporters that her audit found both the current government and the previous Conservative government didn't always comply with procurement rules and failed to demonstrate value for money.

"We saw non compliance, either with procurement rules or difficulty demonstrating value for money, throughout the whole 12-year period of time and it was in almost all organizations," Hogan said.

Hogan's office found that from 2011-12 to 2014-15, the company was awarded less than $3 million a year for professional services. That started rising in 2015-16, when it hit $10 million, before steadily increasing to more than $55 million a year by 2021-22.

When the audit strips out the contracts awarded by Crown corporations to focus solely on government departments and federal agencies, the value of contracts given to the U.S. consulting firm in 2021-22 is just more than $32 million a year.

McKinsey accounted for fraction of government spending

While that number is still dramatically larger than what the company received before the Liberal government came to power, it represents a tiny fraction of total government spending on the types of services McKinsey provides.

In 2015-16, when the Liberals came to office, federal agencies and departments awarded about $4.5 billion in professional service contracts, but by 2021-22 that sum had risen to more than $8.4 billion. This spending only includes services in the areas of government contracting where McKinsey provides comparative services.

The audit said that nine out of 10 departments and agencies and eight out of 10 Crown corporations failed to follow proper procurement policies for at least one of the contracts they awarded.

The audit also found that only 28 of the 97 contracts — worth about $91 million — were awarded through a competitive process.

Hogan's report said that in six of the 28 competitive contracts, the bid was "structured to make it easier for McKinsey & Company." 

Her audit also found that in 10 of 28 competitive contracts  — which were worth $13.7 million — there was insufficient documentation to properly support awarding them to McKinsey & Company. 

Hogan calls out 'overreliance' on McKinsey

 The 69 contracts awarded to McKinsey & Company on a non-competitive basis were worth $117.7 million.

The audit says Public Service and Procurement Canada set up a standing offer in 2021 that allowed departments and agencies to award contracts through a non-competitive basis — 20 of the non-competative contracts were awarded using this vehicle. 

• The value of one consulting firm's federal contracts has skyrocketed under the Trudeau government
• Watchdog finds 'strong perception of favoritism' toward McKinsey in some government contracts

Hogan's report evaluated that standing offer and determined it was "weak and did not demonstrate that McKinsey & Company would provide a unique service. 

The audit found that in some cases, McKinsey & Company won contracts through a competitive bidding process but then were granted additional non-competitive contracts for "continuous or related work." The total value of these add-on contracts were wroth $58 million the audit said. 

MPs question former head of McKinsey & Company about nature of relationship with Trudeau

"Continuing to award non‑competitive contracts to the initial supplier may be perceived as an overreliance on that supplier, and opportunities to maximize value for money through competitive bids may be lost," the audit found. 

In her press conference Tuesday, CBC asked Hogan if she thought there was a perceived conflict interest between the Liberal government and McKinsey related to the firm's former managing director, Dominic Barton.

Barton also served as Canada's ambassador to China and the chair of the Liberal government's economic advisory committee.

"I think there's a theme through some of these reports around managing well conflict of interest," Hogan said. "Sometimes it's real and sometimes it's apparent or perceived and all should be treated with equal importance." 

Hogan said she "didn't see any ministerial involvement" that directed contracts to McKinsey. 

• Government will review McKinsey contracts, Trudeau says
• Dominic Barton insists he's had no involvement in McKinsey's government contracts

Hogan's office also looked at a sample of 33 contracts in an effort to determine whether the government got value for money. The audit found that in 19 of those contracts, there were issues preventing Hogan's office from working out whether the federal government got what it paid for. 

"Federal contracting and procurement policies exist to ensure fairness, transparency and value for Canadians — but they only work if they are followed," Hogan said in a statement.

The audit said issues preventing Hogan's office from determining whether the federal government got value for money include: a failure to show why a contract was necessary; no clear statement of what the contract would deliver; and a lack of confirmation the government received all expected deliverables.

• Former China ambassador Barton grilled by MPs about McKinsey-brokered meeting
• Analysis There are questions to ask about government contracting — but MPs don't seem interested in asking them

Minister of Public Services and Procurement Minister Jean-Yves Duclos acknowledged the problems cited by the audit and told reporters Tuesday his department is working to improve how federal contracts are managed.

He said his department has made it a requirement that all documents and information related to contracts are kept on file, and has improved the criteria for standing offers.

"We are committed to protecting the integrity of procurement and expect public servants in all departments to operate at the highest standard and prioritize value for money for all Canadians," he said.

A spokesperson for McKinsey said that Hogan's report does not say the company acted inappropriately in pursuing government contracts.

"We stand by our work and are confident that we both satisfied the needs of our government clients and delivered value for money," the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Senior writer

Peter Zimonjic is a senior writer for CBC News. He has worked as a reporter and columnist in London, England, for the Daily Mail, Sunday Times and Daily Telegraph and in Canada for Sun Media and the Ottawa Citizen. He is the author of Into The Darkness: An Account of 7/7, published by Random House.

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