Homework overload is the exception, not the rule, studies find

WASHINGTON — It’s a troubling story: Public school students get so loaded with homework that they stress out and lose out on chances to be playful kids.

But that story is largely wrong, two new studies contend.

Most students actually have less than an hour of homework a night, said Tom Loveless, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C., think tank. Compelling anecdotes of overwhelmed kids and exasperated parents don’t reflect what most families face, according to a Brookings analysis of a broad range of homework research.

"People are unduly alarmed over the amount of homework," Loveless said. "They should realize kids are not overworked, and indeed, there is room for even more work."

The Brookings report was based on widely cited data from the Education Department, international surveys and research by the University of Michigan and UCLA, among other sources.

For example, when asked how much homework they were assigned the day before, most students ages 9, 13 and 17 all reported less than an hour, according to a federal long-term survey in 1999. The share of students assigned more than an hour of homework has dropped for all three age groups since 1984.

Only about one in 10 high school students does a substantial amount of homework — more than two hours a night — according to a separate study co-authored by Brian Gill of the Rand Corp., another nonprofit research group. The figure has held fairly stable for the last 50 years.

"It’s important to acknowledge that this is not true for everybody," Gill said. "All those stories about overloaded kids — we’re not suggesting that kids and parents are lying. It’s just that it’s pretty clear that those stories are the exception rather than the norm."

American high school students have an extraordinarily light homework load when compared with their international peers, according to the Brookings study, citing a 1995-96 math and science survey. Among students in their final year of public schooling, those in France, Italy, Russia and South Africa reported spending at least twice as much time on homework as American students.