MIAMI, Oct. 1 (UPI) -- You have to hand it to the nation's kids. For years, they have hoodwinked their parents and educators into thinking they were poor, overworked souls, harassed into doing hours and hours of pointless homework every night.
Kids didn't have time to be kids, their supporters said in publications like Time, Newsweek, People Magazine, The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Books were written. One, published in 2000, was entitled, "The End of Homework: How Homework Disrupts Families, Overburdens Children, and Limits Learning."
Authors John Buell and Etta Kralovec wrote that if homework were a prescription drug, the Food and Drug Administration would have recalled it long ago.
All that turns out to be hogwash.
At least that's the finding of two of the nation's most respected think tanks, The Brookings Institution and the RAND Corp.
Tom Loveless, who wrote the report as director of Brookings' Brown Center on Education Policy, said all those stories and reports are misleading.
"They do not reflect the experiences of a majority -- or even a significant minority -- of American school children," Loveless said.
"Excessive homework is not a common problem," he said. "The critics of homework need to produce some very powerful evidence before policymakers start mandating reductions in homework or even banning it altogether. To date, the evidence put forth by homework critics has been weak."
American parents -- the ones who are honest with themselves -- truly must have known all that deep down all along. This country is grounded on the belief that the harder you work, the better off you will be. We may not actually do that, but that's what most of us believe.
The report concluded that most students in all grades spend less than an hour studying on a typical day. It said that number has not changed significantly in at least 20 years.
That less work is better for anybody is not a popular concept anywhere and it was only a matter of time before someone would challenge it. And finally Brookings and RAND did, and they did it with a wide-ranging sampling of data.
It included information from surveys conducted by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, University of Michigan's Populations Studies Center and the higher Education Research Institute at UCLA.
The researchers found that even at the high school level, only about a third of 17-year-olds spend an hour or more a day on homework. They pointed out students at that age level might be expected to preparing for the demands of college or the workplace.
Some of the other findings related in the report were:
--A poll conducted in 2000 by the Public Agenda Foundation showed most parents feel the homework load is about right. Of those who would like to change it, most would rather see more than less.
--A University of Michigan study reported a small increase in homework among 6-8-year-olds but Brookings said that was the group that benefited the least from homework.
--The Third International Math and Science Study found U.S. high school students are tied for next-to-last among homework loads around the world. Students in France, Italy, Russia and South Africa reported twice as much.
--The National Assessment of Educational Progress has questioned students about homework for 20 years and found that the percentage of students with less than an hour of daily homework has risen from 59 percent to 65 percent among high school students.
Homework is a "barometer of the success -- or the limits -- of movements to raise academic standards," wrote Brian Gill of RAND and Steven Schlossman of Carnegie Mellon University in the fall 2003 issue of "Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis."
The study won't be released until Nov. 12, but Gill said the publisher agreed to allow some of the material to be made public when the opportunity for a joint release with Brookings became available.
Loveless said he was surprised by the results of the studies, and Gill agreed.
"Most of our previous work looked at attitudes among educators, the public and popular press and how it has changed over 100 years," Gill said. "It was very clear that there has been a pretty strong consensus favoring homework for 20 years, but the evidence is really overwhelming that it hasn't happened."
He said Schlossman was particularly surprised because he has two children in high school who do plenty of homework.
"We were forced to conclude his sons' experience, and the experience of a lot of kids who are in high-performing suburban schools -- and have ambition for furtherer education -- are not typical," he said.
"We should not deny that there are families who are struggling with a lot of homework. There are some, but there aren't that many," he said.
"One of reasons some parents perceive increased homework load is that both parents and kids are busier than they used to be," Gill said.
"Kids have lots of competing options for time -- extracurricular activities, sports, music, part-time jobs, not to mention the usual entertainment options," he said.
