February 20, 2009 1:25 PM
The Case Against Homework
Steve Hartman is a correspondent for CBS News based in New York. His weekly Assignment America segment airs Fridays.
If you've got kids in elementary school, you won't want them to miss tonight's Assignment America. On second thought – maybe you will want them to miss it. All I know for sure is that, after they see this story, they're going to be even less excited about doing homework.
But for good reason.
This week I interviewed a 5th grader from Long Island, N.Y., who is trying to ban homework. It all started when Ben Berrafato had to write an essay about something he felt passionately about. Since he hates doing homework, he wrote about that. It was such a well-crafted essay, the New York Daily News ran it on their editorial page.
Read Ben's essay here.
He'll be reading some of the essay for us tonight on the Evening News with Katie Couric. I also looked into some of his claims that homework has been proven to be a waste of time. And low and behold, the kid is right! At least in part. Some of the latest research on homework out of Duke University shows that homework is vastly over-rated by teachers and principals. In some cases, it may not help kids at all. And too much … can actually hurt.
Needless to say, Ben is fired-up and looking very forward to making his case on tonight's Evening News. I invite you to join us. But I'll leave it to your discretion as to whether to invite your kids.
(CBS)
But for good reason.
This week I interviewed a 5th grader from Long Island, N.Y., who is trying to ban homework. It all started when Ben Berrafato had to write an essay about something he felt passionately about. Since he hates doing homework, he wrote about that. It was such a well-crafted essay, the New York Daily News ran it on their editorial page.
Read Ben's essay here.
He'll be reading some of the essay for us tonight on the Evening News with Katie Couric. I also looked into some of his claims that homework has been proven to be a waste of time. And low and behold, the kid is right! At least in part. Some of the latest research on homework out of Duke University shows that homework is vastly over-rated by teachers and principals. In some cases, it may not help kids at all. And too much … can actually hurt.
Needless to say, Ben is fired-up and looking very forward to making his case on tonight's Evening News. I invite you to join us. But I'll leave it to your discretion as to whether to invite your kids.
