OECD and Homework

On our local math listserv there was a post recently pointing to reports on the positive benefits of having kids do homework. Here is one link to the report, although I came across this report from multiiple sources.

The idea is that research shows that students perform better if they do homework, and that countries whose students do more homework also do better on OECD testing. One such test would is the PISA math test.

I have little doubt that there is a correlation between homework and doing well on PISA and literacy testing, but I think the bigger picture is not being looked at when these studies are being reported out. An often missed part of these types of reports is a discussion or analysis on what we (society) want to get out of math education. What are our goals and how will we best achieve them? So if our goal is to do well on PISA testing, then maybe homework is fantastic thing. Some people question whether PISA is as important as many think it is. Audrey Watters wrote on her Hacked Education blog

There’s always a fair amount of handwringing about PISA scores, as though the performance of a country’s 15 year-olds on this assessment is indicative of – or hell, the final word on – the strength or weakness of its school system. The interpretation of PISA scores tends to suffer from confirmation bias, simply affirming pre-existing beliefs about education policies and practices. And of course, PISA scores also provide the media with an opportunity to craft scary headlines about an impending doom of dumb.

I think PISA can be important but I don’t think PISA itself is the goal.  It’s a reflection of how our goals line up with other countries.

In terms of goals, this should be set through our curriculum documents and standards. Our curriculum documents in BC generally set learning objectives but are pretty bad at setting standards.

For example, suppose  we think that quick calculations with addition and multiplication are important at some grade level.  We should then frame this with a standard with examples and exemplars. Then if students aren’t meeting our expectations of the standard, and we judge that enough time has been spent on the topic in the classroom, then it’s reasonable that homework be assigned for that learning objective. Or if students are expected to complete some performance task in trigonometry then we should create these tasks with exemplars. Students that have problems performing these tasks may need to do some homework.

The BC Ministry of Education website already has some standards on it (which often look a lot exactly like the questions on our FSA tests). I think the vast majority of teachers are unaware of these standards, and none exist for students above grade 8.

Setting standards allows us to target specific areas that students need extra practice on, and we shouldn’t feel bad about expecting students to do extra work to achieve suitable levels of performance. We should also be clear that homework is not a surrogate for proper teaching and feedback during class. This follows my mantra that “if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing in class.” Or as one of my admin said to me today when wondering about his daughter’s school and her homework, “what are they doing all day?”

I would expect that an end result of checking our students against standards, and holding them accountable to the standards, is that things like PISA scores would also improve. But to adopt general homework policies in order to increase overall scores in standardized tests is a misguided venture. I liken using standards vs general homework policies to military airstrikes. We can use a targeted missile to attack a weakness or we can carpet bomb everything and rest assured that our target will get hit. Using standards requires more attention and planning but there’s a hell of a lot less collateral damage.

Finally, there is the argument that homework helps teach kids hard work. While this may be true, it’s completely unnecessary. Hard work is taught at home by parents, and it’s taught at school by having students carefully and diligently complete their assigned work in class, on time and with deliberate carefullness. If you want your kids to learn about working hard, have them do more chores, more sports, get a job, volunteer, or do any number of useful activities.