i hate summer assignments

Why Schools Should Ditch Summer Assignments

It’s summer vacation where I live right now (shout out to my Southern Hemisphere peeps in the middle of winter), but if you peek over the shoulder of tens of thousands of students theoretically on vacation right now, you’d never know it.

All over, instead of being outside climbing trees or curled up in a comfy chair with the latest book in their fave series or even just doing nothing, kids are hunched over summer assignments that range from math packets to required reading.

I did a quick search for summer math and reading assignments, and they were everywhere.

I found that a district very near me had an elaborate summer reading assignment. Here’s how they explained it:

Stop. Just stop.

Summer assignments should be stopped. Immediately. Here’s why:

1. summer is…wait for it…a vacation..

It is a needed rest from required learning. Summer assignments interrupt that rest and make a mockery of the word “vacation.”

Do I mean that students shouldn’t learn anything during the summer? Absolutely not! What I mean is that what they learn should be far more interest-driven than is possible with assigned tasks.

In addition to students needing a break from assigned work, families need a break, too.

Parents need a break from having to constantly be on their kids to get work done. Sometimes as teachers we forget what a struggle this is. Let’s remember.

When schools assign summer work, they disrupt the home and increase tension unnecessarily. No benefit is worth that.

The needs of the family always trump the needs of the school because families are forever. Nothing at school should ever be designed to knowingly and inevitably create contention in the home. This is doubly true when it’s completely unnecessary and even counterproductive.

2. It’s unfair to students whose families move during the summer.

So, I move into a new school for 9 th grade only to find that I was supposed to read A Tale of Two Cities during the summer.

Now, not only do I feel behind before I even begin, I may even feel that I don’t belong in the advanced class. Guess I’ll just take regular English instead of pre-AP (or whatever it’s called in your area). #impostorsyndrome

This is a particular issue for children from less advantaged backgrounds because they are more likely to move.

Here’s what the district near me says is expected with regard to summer reading and when it’s due:

image of summer reading assignment and due dates

Interestingly, over 30% of this district is in bilingual or English Language Learner programs and over 70% are economically disadvantaged.

It seems reasonable to consider that if a parent has several children, each of whom need two books, and that parent’s own English skills are emerging, this could be a severe burden.

For my own kids, theoretically, there was supposed to be a Tale of Two Cities test right when school started in 9th grade (see reason #3 below). Because so few students had read and understood it, the teacher had to delay it and delay it or risk having half of the class fail. This happened year after year.

Because of this dynamic, teachers end up having summer work flow into the school year, making the beginning of the year more stressful and burdensome to both students and teachers than it needs to be.

Or, teachers give up on the test altogether, creating mistrust on the part of the students who wasted spent their summer vacation on a useless assignment.

It is not a stretch to call this an equity issue.

3. The assignments are usually not even quality work.

As mentioned in #2 above, when my sons were entering high school, all of the 8 th graders were expected to read A Tale of Two Cities on their own. They were supposed to highlight passages with one of four prescribed highlighter colors. Oh, please.

They’re not going to get anything out of it like that, and they’re probably just going to do read the Spark Notes anyway. What a waste.

If you look up, “How to Get Kids to Hate a Book in Three Easy Steps,” this is what it says to do:

Make a student read a book before they are even your student and you have zero clout with them, nor do you have even the beginning of a relationship.
Make the book a challenging read for him/her.
Make the reader take notes and highlight with four (exactly four, no more, no fewer) colors.
Give a test on the book the first time you see the whites of their eyes.

Math packets? Same.

I found a summer math packet, and the word art doesn’t make it any more cool, sorry.

$image of cover of summer math packet$

Here are the instructions for completing the packet:

$image of math packet instructions$

Did this catch your eye? “You are not to use a calculator .” I bolded it, but they bolded AND underlined it. They mean it. Kind of.

Newsflash: kids given summer math assignments will use a calculator. Not only will they not really get the practice the teachers were hoping they would, but they are also creating a pattern of cheating (or at least ignoring teacher guidance).

Genius move.

Very few teachers create engaging work for students to do during the summer, and the same teachers who complain about professional development they are required to complete during the summer gleefully give out hours and hours of work to their students. That’s called hypocrisy.

Here’s the summer reading assignment choices for incoming 9th graders:

I love to read. Love to read. And yet, when I read through the summer reading assignment, I felt tired. That’s not what we’re aiming for.

4. DIY learning is often shallow.

One of quotes that guided and informed my own teaching practice is this statement from poet William Wordsworth: “What we have loved, others will love, and we will teach them how; instruct them how the mind of man becomes a thousand times more beautiful than the earth on which he dwells…”

Teachers don’t just instruct; they help students grow to love the learning.

As an English teacher, if my students don’t feel it in their gut when they think of The Great Gatsby years later, I failed, even if they can tell you the themes and analyze the characters.

With summer assignments, the teacher isn’t there to instill the love essential to growing life-long learners, not just completers.

In the summer reading assignment I shared above, the assignments that students are supposed to complete cite teacher and author Kelly Gallagher (meaning that they used his questions and ideas to create their assignment).

I found this incredibly ironic because Gallagher himself has gone on record as being opposed to this kind of assigned summer reading:

“Paradoxically, say Gallagher, there is a flip side to over-teaching a book—under-teaching it. For that reason, Gallagher didn’t assign his students The Grapes of Wrath as summer reading; young readers need help in understanding many of the books in the canon.”

Here’s what the incoming 9th graders were supposed to read:

Animal Farm. Animal Farm. On their own. At thirteen or fourteen. What a waste of Orwell, and what a horrible thing to do to a child. Take a novel that could inform his or her view of government forever and make it nothing more than a shallow, unappealing task.

Remind me again why we do this?

Oh, yeah! It’s so kids will be ready for the work in the fall. They’ll be nice and sick of it before it even begins. That’s great!

The alternative:

Create summer learning lures .

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Why Do We Give Students Summer Assignments? Seriously, WHY?

Most of my neighbors have hated me from time to time. Specifically in the summer. My most recent neighbor to mock me is a great guy who plays in a punk band and who loves saying things like:

“Must be nice not doing anything today.” As we we pass each other in the front yard.

Now, for those of you who are teachers you know how busy our unpaid summers are. Whether it’s running edcampHOME, #CAedchat, going to a Google conference, or helping your wife by building furniture and setting up her kindergarten class, we are busy.

But people don’t think we are busy, because we aren’t going to the place where you go to learn.

Teachers aren’t the only ones who get shade thrown their way during the summer. Students do too. By who? By teachers, administrators, and school districts. This is a dangerous mindset. For whatever reason far too many schools assign summer assignments to their students. In this post I’m going to:

point out why summer reading assignments don’t make sense
provide a few alternatives that will achieve the same objective without punishing students or teachers
allow you the chance to prove me wrong

Summer Assignments:WHY?

TONS of school mandate summer assignments, and not just in English. Schools, parents, and teachers justify them for the following reasons.

They keep kids busy in the summer
They keep kids’ learning from disappearing, or slipping in the summer
They provide kids an enrichment opportunity
They give kids a head-start on difficult curriculum
They discourage the “wrong kind of kid” from taking an honors/AP class or serve as a measurement of their dedication to the class

I gave a summer reading test on the third day of school this year. Later in the day one of my honors students walked up to me as I left my room. She was in tears. She was speechless. It took well over a minute for me to get her to talk. When she finally did- she told me in a quiet whisper, “I’m so sorry I failed that test, I don’t want you to think I’m a disappointment.”

Let that sink in a bit.

We gave her a long book to read. She has no interactions with her teachers. We gave her no feedback or checks for understanding and then we dropped a big grade on her head at the beginning of school when everyone is nervous. Is that really what we want to happen in our school during the first week?

Are we really expecting students to tackle difficult material without their teachers? Do we really want them learning without us learning with them?

WHY EVEN HAVE SCHOOLS OR TEACHERS? (Yes I just yelled)

We have students, ALL the time, drop out of honors at the end of summer or in the first week of school because they didn’t do their summer work. Who wants to start a class with a big F or D in the gradebook?

“ Well David, if they aren’t willing to work hard they shouldn’t be in honors or AP classes? ”

But they DID work hard. They couldn’t get in the class to begin with without good grades and good test scores!

“ But David, the summer reading shows their dedication and serves as a prerequisite to the course? ”

Do they do this in college? The prerequisite, the dedication was shown LAST YEAR when they took a certain course-load and earned the right grades!

“ But David, I read X number of books every summer, they shouldn’t complain about reading a book or two. ”

Not all of your classmates did that, and summers are a little more scheduled than they used to be. Trust me.

Now this isn’t even my biggest pet peeve with summer assignments.

The worst hypocrisy of summer assignments is this. If summer assignments are good for honors and AP students than why aren’t ALL students doing them?

“ But David, honors and ESPECIALLY AP students need to work in the summer because they need to learn such challenging material . (apparently without their teachers to help them with this work.)

Well, isn’t reading challenging for students in the “reading program?” Why aren’t they doing summer work? Isn’t speaking, reading, writing, challenging for ELD/LEP students? Why aren’t THEY doing summer work? Heck doesn’t a CP course challenge the students in that course otherwise they would be in an honors course? Why aren’t THEY doing summer work?

I’m not a big fan of the school where I went to high school but at least THEY are consistent in killing summer for ALL their students. They give summer assignments to everyone in Social Studies and English . Love the seven page-long explanation of the Honors Biology assignment.

Everyone needs a break in the summer. Our minds hurt. Nothing hurts your mind like learning or teaching new material. Your mind needs some down time. Why are we taking away the students down time. You might say, “Well David they’ll only do the work the last two weeks of summer.”

That’s even worse . So now it’s going to hang over their heads all summer and then they will rush to do what they have to do at the very end?

PS- ever seen a teacher look at a stack of 185 summer assigned essays or dialectical journals that they have to start grading on the first week of school. It’s not pretty.

Students ARE already busy learning in the summer. They play sports. They play video games. They travel. They read. They draw and paint. They attend camps. They play music. They socialize. They discover new local places. They date. They dream. They exercise. They sleep. They visit with family. They work at jobs. Whew.

Some Alternative to the typical Summer Assignments

What if teachers on the campus created a Google Slide. One for each teacher. On the Google Slide was a list of ideas for students to learn about their world during the summer. Here’s an example:

Even if every teacher just had four ideas on a slide, students and their parents would have a ton of ideas and these ideas would help students and parents get to know the teachers better. Heck you could ask every staff member at your school to contribute including the district office. Can you imagine the conversations that would take place in the hallways the following school year?

Just have students keep a learning scrapbook. This learning scrapbook could have pictures, drawings, tweets, FB posts, logs of experiences, ANYTHING. Then the following school year have teachers in each subject ask students to take something from their learning log and apply it to something they are learning in class. Here is an example of what you could do.

A question log. Just have students keep track of questions all summer. They could post them on social media with a hashtag, put them under pictures in Instagram, or use them in class when they return. Students could prioritize their questions and do something with those essential questions. Students could ask the questions online via a Google form and then see if a staff member could answer the question(s). If students are asking questions during the summer. They are exercising their minds.

Trust parents that they know what’s best for their children and family and give THEM the choice of what to do with their precious summer vacation. There aren’t that many in one’s lifetime. Savor them. Give them back to the kids, as a wonderful gift from your staff.

I’m not the only one to question summer assignments. Even the New York Times weighed in on “ The Crush of Summer Homework .”

One of my former FVHS students just wrote this brilliant blog post describing what her sister went through in preparing for her 9th grade summer reading . Yes she graduated last year… yes she is still writing on her blog. It’s a gold mine.

So am I way off base? Let me know by writing a comment below, write your own blog post response, or Tweet to me. Like This:

Should Schools Assign Summer Homework? Educators Weigh In

School’s almost out for summer. Should students clear out their lockers and leave empty-handed—or laden down with stacks of math problems and required reading lists? Will teachers warn of repercussions for failing to turn in summer work assignments upon returning to school in the fall, or simply advise students to have fun and stay safe?

It depends on whom you ask.

It turns out that not all educators share the same perspective on whether to assign summer homework, who needs it most, what it should consist of, and how to make sure it gets done. Education Week put the question to state teachers of the year and representatives of statewide principals associations. Here’s what they had to say.

Play and pleasure reading prioritized by many educators

Play and pleasure reading topped the list of responses to the question: What summer homework should students be assigned? Teachers (of both young and older students) were more likely than the principals who responded to suggest that kids need a break in the summer.

“For young children, specifically pre-K to grade 3, I feel that over the summer children need to have their summer break and be provided with the opportunity to explore, get plenty of physical activity, and play. Children learn from play. Play teaches children about problem-solving and social interactions,” said Tara Hughes, a pre-K inclusion teacher at the Nye Early Childhood Center in Santa Fe who was voted 2023 New Mexico State Teacher of the Year.

“Students should have no formal ‘homework'—worksheets or practice books,” said Lori Danz, who is Wisconsin’s 2023 State Teacher of the Year. She teaches high school biology and serves as a school forest coordinator, overseeing outdoor learning. in the Superior school district in the northern part of the state. “I think it’s good for students and families to get away from that, and learn in authentic ways: hiking, cooking, fixing things. So much learning happens that way. We forget that it’s learning.”

Danz acknowledged that not every family has the same amount of free time or resources available to them during the summer. But she added that many districts, including her own, offer free enrichment activities at local schools during the summer that provide activities such as sports, crafts, and physical fitness.

While “play” was a popular response to the question of what type of work kids should be assigned in the summer, some educators suggested that students of all ages read during break to stay sharp.

“Reading for pleasure authentically enhances many academic skills such as cultivating a love for reading, improves reading and writing skills, develops concentration, encourages creativity and imagination, and allows children to be more open to differences and perspectives,” said Krystal Colbert, a 2nd grade teacher at Mitchellville Elementary in Iowa’s Southeast Polk school district, and another Teacher of the Year.

One teacher took the reading directive a step further. Brian Skinner, a high school special education teacher with the Newton Unified school district 373 in Kansas and the state’s 2023 Teacher of the Year, said he thinks students should spend time regularly writing and reading for pleasure. “Not only that, but I believe it is important to read from actual books versus phones or other technology,” Skinner said. It’s a belief shared by some literacy experts , too.

Which students most need summer work?

Educators offered a range of opinions when asked which students most need summer work. Principals interviewed for this article were more likely than teachers to feel students should be doing summer work.

“How good is a golfer that takes a three-month break with no practice? Even if you do not play nine or 18 holes regularly, you can go the range, you can chip, you can practice putting,” said Jerald A. Barris, a high school principal at the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School in Midland, Pa., and a regional representative for the Pennsylvania Principals Association.

Ed Roth, the principal of Penncrest High School in Media, Pa., believes in math homework over the summer for high school students. “In mathematics, it is important for students to have some review and skills practice so that they do not need to spend the first marking period reviewing prior learning, therefore taking away their ability to cover all necessary content for their current course,” he said. Roth’s perspective, which suggests the loss of skills during summer break, has been well-documented in recent research .

But other educators favor a more tailored approach to summer work.

Danz, the Wisconsin high school biology teacher, said that she believes all students need a break from homework but added this caveat: “You can always find exceptions…students who may need remedial practice.”

Fabiana Parker, the 2023 Virginia Teacher of the Year, agreed. A teacher of English learners at Thornburg Middle School in Spotsylvania County, Va., Parker said “it is essential to take into account the unique needs of each student” when it comes to summer work. She elaborated with an account of her own children, recalling how she established a routine of daily math practice during the summer but only for her daughter who struggled with math and, in Parker’s assessment, needed the additional support.

Other educators said they are more likely to assign summer work to students on an accelerated track. Such is the case for Michael Ida, Hawaii’s 2023 Teacher of the Year. He teaches at Kalani High School in Honolulu. Ida said that, for most high school students, he recommends no summer work other than reading for pleasure. But he makes an exception for students who choose to enroll in more rigorous courses.

“I teach AP Calculus, and those students do have some required review work to complete over the summer,” Ida said. He gives them math problems that he has created—both routine review problems and more substantial problem solving exercises that emphasize logical thinking and communication.

A creative approach to summer work

Summer should be synonymous with creative learning, some educators emphasized. “Summer is a time to continue learning in the way that every child in every classroom should be taught, with a focus on each child’s passions and strengths and in the way that is most effective for them,” said Catherine Matthews, a pre-K special education teacher at Hyalite Elementary School in Bozeman, Mont., and the state’s 2023 Teacher of the Year.

“If a child is struggling with fractions but loves to cook, allow them to practice their math skills while doing something that they love. If they need to practice their reading fluency, allow them to choose books of personal interest,” Matthews added.

Second grade teacher Colbert expressed a desire for kids to experience the type of old-fashioned summer that, for countless students, no longer exists. “My wish is that all kids are outside exploring the beautiful world around them, interacting with their friends and family, growing their inquisitive minds, fostering their creativity, and limiting the use of technology,” she said.

Who’s responsible for making sure summer work gets done?

Assigning summer work is one thing; monitoring its completion is another.

Pennsylvania high school principal Barris said parents are ultimately responsible for making sure their kids do the work. “I believe it should fall on the parents for the most part with opportunities, suggestions, and strategies provided by the school in concert with the community where the child resides,” he said, while acknowledging this challenge. “That said,” he added, “getting my 11-year-old to read and practice his skills in the summer is easier said than done.”

A version of this article appeared in the June 14, 2023 edition of Education Week as Should Schools Assign Summer Homework? Educators Weigh In

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Should kids get summer homework?

by: Leslie Crawford | Updated: June 12, 2023

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Jill Notte’s daughter Sara is a straight-A student, and she’s taking five advanced-placement courses this fall. It’ll be her senior year.

This ambitious undertaking may prove Sara’s undoing — at least if the 17 year old wants to enjoy her summer vacation. Somewhere in between spending a week at a Girls State program, a month at the New Jersey Governor’s School of Engineering and Technology at Rutger’s University, and visiting a few potential colleges, Sara must complete the following workload before school starts:

• Read five novels for AP English • Read one book for AP History • Complete a packet of assignments and problems for AP Calculus • Complete a packet of assignments and problems for AP Chemistry • Write several summaries of scientific principles for Honors Physics

Oh, and her English teacher recommends that she attend Shakespeare performances at the local college to supplement the many plays she’s required to read as part of AP English. “I try to put a positive spin on it,” says Sara’s mother, Jill. “I told her, ‘Summertime’s a great time to read Shakespeare!'” But, admits Jill, it’s not so easy to put the same kind of “fun” spin on the stack of mind-numbing calculus and chemistry books hefty enough to take down a Yellowstone grizzly.

Forget languidly balmy weeks unwinding from the stress of an intensive school year. Goodbye, as well, to working her usual summer job as a lifeguard, which Sara unhappily has to forgo — along with the money she hoped to save for college. As her mother puts it, “Summer homework is a full-time job.”

A working vacation

Sara’s not alone. The oxymoronically named “vacation work” is on the rise. Sara’s older sister had only a few books to read over the summer when she was in high school — and that was just eight years ago. Jill, who like her daughters was a high achiever in the top five percent of her class, remembers completely homework-free summers.

Many parents remember their own childhood summers as true respites from school, devoid the rigor and rigidity of academic life. Summer was a sprawling mass of unstructured time that ranged from idyllic laziness to stupefying boredom to invigorating camps and family vacations, not scores of math worksheets, science packets, and lists of “good-for-you” classics that hardly qualify as light beach reads.

Harris Cooper, chairman of the department of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University and America’s leading homework scholar who co-authored the landmark meta-study on homework , says that while there exists no formal studies on the rise in summertime homework, he’s witnessed a particularly sharp increase over the past two years — probably a response “to high-stakes testing and accountability issues for schools.”

Just say no?

Some parents argue summer homework is nothing more than bland busywork that saps the joy and spontaneity from summer. So says Sara Bennett, founder of StopHomework.com . “Even if there is a summer slide, I don’t think homework is the solution,” Bennett says. “Kids don’t have enough downtime during the school year. I think they need that freshness during summer.”

Here’s a revolutionary approach for vacation purists who say kids deserve a good, old-fashioned summer free from intense brain-strain: Just say no. That’s what Bennett suggests a parent do in the fall if a child is averse to doing the packet. “I’d send it back and say, ‘I’m sorry, my child didn’t have a chance to do it.’ ” (A parental dispensation only possible for kids who haven’t entered the high-school pressure cooker where — as with Sara Notte — summer homework is graded and can directly affect a student’s chances to enter a top-tier university.)

Protecting young minds from melting

On the other side of the summer homework debate are the moms and dads who, when the school doors slam shut, ramp up the supplemental brain work, even if the teachers didn’t provide it themselves. Most parents, though, fall somewhere in the for-better-or-worse-summer-homework-is-here-to-stay camp.

So if the kids have to do it, can we at least be reassured that it’s a magic bullet to protect young minds from melting? “We can’t say that with any objective data,” Cooper says. “But we would make the assumption if students are continuing to flex their mental muscles over the summer, this would have a positive effect on how much material they retain when they return.”

No buy-in from the kids

“There definitely is a lag — I’m not denying that,” says Denise Pope, senior lecturer at the Stanford University School of Education and co-founder of Challenge Success , a research and student-intervention project. “I absolutely agree that three months is a long time to not do anything. That said, I’m not sure this idea of giving workbooks and pages and pages of handouts works.”

The reason it doesn’t work? “There’s not a buy-in from the [kids],” Pope argues. “In order for any learning to be retained, there has to be engagement on the part of the students.” Pope explains that students need the “ABCs of engagement,” which means they’re engaged affectively, behaviorally, and cognitively. “If they’re intrinsically motivated, then they’ll want to do it.”

“I know kids who get these huge 40-page math packets,” Pope says. “It’s because [teachers] want [kids], over time, to have systematic practice. The problem is that this requires an adult to monitor this kind of disciplined work. It’s not like a kid can do that on his own. So it puts a burden more on the parents.”

Year-round homework blues

So, alas, those nightly angst-ridden homework dramas that run from September through June now get year-round billing. The other problem, Pope says, is that summer homework packets (frequently put off until the last unhappy week before school begins), often seem to fall into an academic black hole once they’re turned in — with no feedback from teachers and no effect on kids’ grades.

As for the work that Pope’s three kids — ages 10, 12, and 15 — get handed at school’s end, she tells them, “‘I won’t bug you about this at all. I won’t be the police.’ We look at the assignments they get for the summer and I say, ‘How long do you think this will take? Do you want me to remind you to do it?’ ” But if they leave it until the tail end of the summer, Pope says, well, that’s their choice. It’s their vacation, after all.

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EXPLORE Random Article

How to Deal With Excessive Summer Homework

Last Updated: October 25, 2021 Approved

This article was co-authored by Emily Listmann, MA . Emily Listmann is a private tutor in San Carlos, California. She has worked as a Social Studies Teacher, Curriculum Coordinator, and an SAT Prep Teacher. She received her MA in Education from the Stanford Graduate School of Education in 2014. wikiHow marks an article as reader-approved once it receives enough positive feedback. In this case, 98% of readers who voted found the article helpful, earning it our reader-approved status. This article has been viewed 36,261 times.

Summer homework has become a common theme for students. It might seem like summer homework will rob you of your well-earned vacation. However, if you make a schedule and pace out your workload, you’ll find that your summer homework doesn’t have to hamper your time to have fun with friends and enjoy the warm weather.

Making a Plan

Gather all your assignments together and make a list of all you need to get done. Seeing the assignments clearly laid out will give you an idea of how to pace your work.

Let your friends and family know which times you are studying so they won’t bother you.

If your assignment is to read a book, total up the number of pages in the book and divide it into the number of days in your summer vacation. For example, if the assigned book is 360 pages long and your summer vacation is 90 days long, divide 360 by 90, which equals 4. That means you have to read 4 pages per day to finish the book over the summer. Not too bad!
If your assignment is to complete four chapters of a math textbook, look at the practice problems for the four chapters and add up the total number. Then divide that number by the number of days in your summer vacation. For example, if there are 225 questions per chapter, that means you need to complete 900 problems over the summer. Divide 900 by 90, which equals 10. That means you need to complete 10 math problems a day to complete all four chapters by the end of the summer.

For example, if you’re flying somewhere for a family vacation, that’s a perfect time to get a chapter read or a few math problems completed.

Step 6 Include days off on your schedule.

For example, if your family is planning on taking a four-day vacation over the Fourth of July, mark these days off on your calendar since you probably won’t get any work done.

Staying Motivated Through the Summer

A week off at the beginning of the summer will give you a welcome break between the end of the school year and the start of your summer workload.
Try to do something fun to unwind during this week off.

Step 2 Ask for help from fellow students first.

Most teachers won’t respond to emails during the summer, so ask your parents or another adult to see if they can help out.
If you’re stuck and no one else is able to help, email your teacher as a last resort to see if they can aid you.

For example, you might write “Read chapters four and five” on your index card. When Friday comes and you’ve met your goal, you might reward yourself with a movie.
Don’t skip this step. Even little rewards will help to keep you motivated throughout the summer.

Community Q&A

Put away your mobile devices or ask family members to hold onto them while you study so you aren’t distracted. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
Put together study sessions with friends to make learning more enjoyable and to help one another focus. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
Don't stress out just try to complete it slowly. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

↑ http://time.com/3964857/ap-summer-homework-tips/

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4 Reasons I’ve Learned to Dislike Assigned Summer Reading

School is almost out for summer here in East Penn! And if you’ve got kids in middle- or high-school, this is the time of year they’re coming home with reading assignments for the summer.

There’s lots to love about summer reading lists for school. Or so I thought. I used to count myself as a leading cheerleader for having required reading over the summer. But I’ve changed my tune over the last few years, and I want to share the reasons why with you.

1. Required reading lists take away from the relaxation of summer.

Summer is a time of family vacations, rest and relaxation, seasonal jobs, and other important things in students lives that are difficult to accomplish during the school year. And summer breaks are shorter today (9-10 weeks) than they were when many of us parents were in school. Assigned summer reading interferes with this time by keeping the shadow of homework over students throughout the summer. And any parent who’s had to nag and cajole their kids to finish their summer reading certainly knows a little something about how these assignments take away from summer enjoyment.

2. They crowd out the magic of discovering new books on one’s own.

Most of us like to choose our own meals when we go out to restaurants. We don’t want our spouse or even the chef to simply tell us what we’re going to eat that night. And the same principle applies to books. Part of the joy of reading is the thrill of finding a book for the first time in the library, or at the bookstore, or on a shelf at home, or laying out at a friend’s house. The fund of such a discovery is lost when the list of books you need to read is handed down to you from above. Plus, kids are less likely to be looking out for new books in the first place if, in the back of their minds, they know they have a mandatory list of things to read already.

3. They replace the love of reading with the responsibility of reading

There’s no greater buzzkill to the love of reading than telling a child they must read a particular book or list of books. I think we should be teaching our kids how to choose books they love to read. And my experience in East Penn is that we have fantastic librarians that do a great job of just that. But assigned summer reading substitutes what kids want to read with what books are ‘good for them.’ This is frankly fine during the school year; I learned to appreciate different books from teachers who required me to tackle things I wouldn’t have chosen on my own. But summer vacation is not the time to do this. It leaves students with the sense that reading is a responsibility rather than a source of enjoyment and relaxation– not a formula, in my view, for nurturing lifelong readers.

4. They teach kids that many school assignments are just busy work.

I’ll be honest, this is actually the first observation that led me to question my prior support for summer school reading. And I suspect I’ll be stepping on some toes in saying this publicly. Class descriptions and formal school board presentations make summer reading assignments out to be well-crafted and important parts of the school curriculum. As a parent of two students in the district, I’m sad to say this has not been my experience. Both my kids have had assigned summer reading that was hardly mentioned at all once they returned to school, or integrated only through a short quiz, or discussed in class for only a few minutes, or discussed weeks and even months after school has started and memories of the book have faded. This experience has held true across different schools, different classes, and different teachers in East Penn (with only a single notable exception). Many of my previous concerns with summer reading assignments would be lessened if these books were central, well-integrated elements of classes in the fall, addressed in depth and over an extended period. But by and large they’re not. And in making assignments for summer reading that– in the end– don’t really matter, we’re teaching all the wrong lessons to our kids about what school assignments are for in the first place.

I love to read and think reading is an important skill for being a citizen of the modern world. I want to instill both this love and sense of responsibility for reading in my children. But I’m no longer convinced school-assigned summer reading is the best way to accomplish either of these things. What do you think?

1 thought on “4 Reasons I’ve Learned to Dislike Assigned Summer Reading”

I agree with you, Ziad. As a reading specialist, I’ve done a lot of reading and thinking about summer reading. Research shows that kids who read self-selected books over the summer do better in terms of academic performance across the board and in terms of developing reading motivation than those who are assigned specific books (this is particularly true for lower-performing students). Developing a love of reading is what is going to keep kids reading for pleasure as well as learning through reading–and people don’t usually love what someone else chooses for them.

The New York Times

Room for debate | the crush of summer homework.

The Crush of Summer Homework

Updated, Aug. 31, 11:45 a.m. | Harris Cooper offers more details about research on the link between homework and student achievement. Scroll down to read his added explanation .

For many young Americans, going back to school might seem like rest and relaxation. In the last week before Labor Day, how many students across the country were racing to finish their summer homework, from “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” to math refresher exercises?

The pile of books and other vacation assignments appears to grow every year. Is all this homework beneficial or should children be given a break? An article in The Times on Sunday described a debate over assigned reading throughout the year. Some educators argue that students should be given wide latitude in deciding what they want to read, while others defended the “Moby-Dick” model. How should this issue be treated in summer, when some schools insist that everyone finish “The Old Man and the Sea,” while other schools say that “Gossip Girl” helps satisfy the requirement?

We asked some experts for their perspective, now that the summer homework is due.

Harris Cooper, psychologist, Duke University
Nancy Kalish, co-author, “The Case Against Homework”
Mark Bauerlein, author, “The Dumbest Generation”
Denise Pope, Stanford University School of Education
Richard Allington, education professor, University of Tennessee
Elizabeth Birr Moje, education professor, University of Michigan
Tyrone Howard, education professor, U.C.L.A.

Forgotten on Vacation

Harris Cooper is chairman of the department of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University. There is growing concern about the summer vacation’s possible negative impact on learning. Many educators argue that children learn best when instruction is continuous. The long summer vacation disrupts the rhythm of instruction, leads to forgetting, and requires time be spent reviewing old material when students return to school in fall.

Research evidence bears out these concerns. A group of colleagues and I conducted a review of 39 studies, and it confirmed that, on average, achievement test scores declined between spring and fall, and the loss was more pronounced for math than reading. The reason for this subject matter difference is simple: kid’s out-of-school environments provide more opportunities to practice reading skills than math.

Students, regardless of economic status, lost roughly equal amounts of math skills over summer.

Also, the research indicated that the impact can differ based on a child’s economic background. All students, regardless of economic status, lost roughly equal amounts of math skills over summer. However, substantial differences were found for reading. On some measures, middle-class children showed gains in reading achievement, particular word recognition scores, over summer. Low-wealth children showed losses.

In addition, while research evidence is scarce, educators argue that the long summer break can have a greater negative effect on the learning of children with special educational needs. The long break also can add an extra burden for children who do not speak English at home. Not only might they have to relearn academic material, they also must reacquaint themselves with the language of instruction.

What Homework Can’t Do

Nancy Kalish is the co-author of “The Case Against Homework: How Homework Is Hurting Our Children and What We Can Do About It.”

Summer homework sounds like a good idea…until you see how miserable a child looks as he slogs through that pile of book reports, math packets, journal entries, and other typical assignments. The summer load has grown significantly since we were kids. But a little hard work never hurt anyone, right?

Well in this case, it might. Schools should rethink summer homework, and not just because it stresses out kids (and parents). The truth is, homework doesn’t accomplish what we assume it does. According to a Duke University review of more than 175 studies , there is little or no correlation between homework and standardized test scores or long-term achievement in elementary school, and only a moderate correlation in middle school.

Do we want our children to start the year refreshed and ready to learn? Or burned out and resentful?

Some studies claim that students lose skills they don’t practice over the summer. However, if a child can’t regain his grasp of fractions with a brief review, maybe those skills weren’t taught well enough in the first place. Doing a mountain of math sheets without a teacher’s help — and perhaps incorrectly — is not the answer.

But there are a few things summer homework does accomplish effectively: It steals time away from other important aspects of learning such as play, which helps kids master social skills and teamwork. In addition, writing book reports means kids spend fewer hours being physically active, which is essential for good health and weight control, not to mention proper brain development.

Perhaps worst of all, summer homework affects how kids feel about learning and school. Do we want our children to start the year refreshed and ready to learn? Or burned out and resentful? It’s something every teacher should carefully consider.

Reversing the Summer Brain Drain

Mark Bauerlein is a professor of English at Emory University and the author of “The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future.”

To the general question of whether or not schools should assign summer homework, the answer is, “Yes, most assuredly.” What the assignment consists of will vary with the student population, but some extension of learning into vacation time is sorely needed.

The reason stems not only from the brain drain of summer and the fog of texting that enwraps youths during leisure hours. It relates also to an attitude young people take toward education. In a word, they regard learning as a classroom thing, that’s all. They tie knowledge to the syllabus, not to themselves. They read and study to write the paper and ace the test, not to furnish their minds. Learning is to earn a high score and good grade, not to form responsible citizens and discerning consumers.

Students regard learning as a classroom thing, and spend their leisure hours text-messaging. Here’s how we can deal with that.

A good measure of the attitude is how often they talk to teachers outside of class. According to the 2008 National Survey of Student Engagement, the rate of college seniors who “Never” or “Sometimes” (two or three times a semester?) discuss readings and ideas with teachers reaches 72 percent.

At the secondary level, according to the 2007 American Freshman Survey, the rate of high school seniors who went on to college (the high performers) who talked to teachers less than one hour per week came in at 53.4 percent. That’s a 10 point rise over 1987’s tally.

The free-ranging, back-and-forth conversation with teachers that signifies a student’s interest in the subject didn’t strike the majority as important. And why should it, when the system encourages them to respect only how learning shows up on a transcript or a test result?

The outcome is unsurprising. Once the assignment is finished and class ends — poof! The knowledge goes away. It’s done its work. Why retain it? This explains why on assessments of general knowledge learned in high school, college freshman often score higher than seniors. Time hasn’t yet taken so high a toll on their learning.

To halt the decay, teachers need to change the attitude. This means inserting more out-of-class engagement with teachers and materials, including summer homework, but not linking them so closely to a grade. The goal is not to pile on more tasks and instill more “achievement-thinking.” It is, instead, to make knowledge firmer, and to attach a message which says:

“Life is short, and the years of school pass in a rush. This is your only chance to encounter deep ideas and complex histories with a mentor to help you through. The works of beauty and truth are not chores to slog through. They are the raw materials of mind and character, and they should shape not only your resume, but you, too.”

Procrastination and Busywork

Denise Pope is senior lecturer at the Stanford University School of Education and co-founder of Challenge Success , a research and student intervention project.

The problem with summer homework is a lack of buy-in from one of the main constituencies: the students. During the school year, the students don’t necessarily enjoy doing homework, but they understand it is part of their daily routine. In the summer, students expect, and often need, a break from this routine and the daily pressures that usually accompany it.

Why should we care if the students are bought in? We know from research that motivation plays a central role in engagement with learning and, subsequently, student achievement. If students are given choice and voice in the learning process, for example, they are more likely to want to learn the material and more likely to retain it.

Summer should be seen as a gift, an important time to explore new hobbies, work a summer job, gain independence.

When students are not motivated, the teacher –- or in the case of summer, the parent — often needs to become part of the homework equation, monitoring, reminding, cajoling to make sure the work gets done. In my community, many parents complain that they don’t want to serve as “homework police” in the summer, and many admit that they are as frustrated as their kids when it comes to summer assignments.

One parent complained that her third grade son had to read five books and write five book reports over the summer. The problem was that he hated the books and kept procrastinating, and the stress on the child and on the entire family over the nine weeks became “unbearable.” Other parents admit that their kids wait until the very last minute to sit down and do the work, usually a day or two before school starts up again, and then they are cramming to get it all done.

I have seen the research that shows that students lose valuable skills when they are not in school during the summer months. And I worry especially about the kids who will spend most of the summer inside, in front of TVs or video games, and will be wasting the value of this free time. However, summer homework fails to serve its purpose if it causes undue stress on kids and families, if it is done all at once in a last minute rush, or if it is viewed as meaningless busywork.

Summer rest and exploration is especially important these days, given the increased pressure on students from high-stakes testing, the increase in homework during the school year, and the busy-ness of the extracurricular lives of many of our kids. Ideally, summer should be seen as a gift, an important time to explore new hobbies, enjoy the outdoors, read for fun, work a summer job, take on an exciting challenge, gain independence, and foster deeper connections with family and friends. The learning that happens during these experiences is as important as the skills and content learned during the school year.

If we want students to use this time wisely and appropriately, we ought to educate them about the benefits of summer time and encourage them — perhaps even give an “assignment” — to use the break to pursue interests of their choosing. Then, when they get back to school in September, they can write about, discuss, or present their “summer learning” in a way that is meaningful to them.

The Risk of Falling Behind

Richard Allington is a professor of reading education at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

In some schools, it is common for students to be assigned teacher-selected books for the summer vacation months. I know of not a single study supporting this practice, but I do know of studies showing the various methods students use to convince teachers they did the reading even though they didn’t.

A basic problem with this old, and desperate, model of summer reading assignments is that only rarely do teachers (or schools) assign books that a typical kid would ever want to read.

Low-income kids lose about three months in reading proficiency every summer.

At the same time, research has also demonstrated, including with New York City school students, that students from low-income families rarely read during the summer while middle-class kids typically do. This difference accounts for roughly 80 percent of the gap in reading achievement that exists between rich and poor kids. By grade 9 that reading achievement gap is three to four years wide.

Middle-class ninth graders, on average, read at the ninth-grade level. Low-income ninth graders, regardless of ethnicity, read at the fifth- or sixth-grade level. On average, students from low-income families learn as much during the school year as kids from wealthier families — even in New York City. But every summer the lack of reading practice produces losses in reading proficiency, while doing some reading during the summer produces small gains.

The evidence is clear that how kids spend their matters. Low-income kids lose about three months in reading proficiency every summer. That means every three years they fall a year behind middle-class kids, even when their teachers are just as effective as the teachers middle-class kids have.

Several research studies have shown that simply giving low-income children books on the final day of school can stem summer reading loss. But these books must be books they can and want to read. Our studies allowed students to select the books from 500 or so titles we had picked to match student reading levels and interests. We spent about $40 per child per summer (about the same cost as a test preparation workbook). The kids each selected 12 books, which they got to keep.

I know there are readers thinking, “Why not just have these kids go to the public library to get their book?” While public libraries are essential, and good outreach programs from public libraries can increase summer reading for all children, those efforts may not get all kids to check out a dozen books every summer.

Parents (and teachers) are right to worry about whether students read during the summer. But assigning books is about the least effective strategy to achieve that goal. It is past time for schools to provide children with easy summer access to books they want to read.

Choosing Your Assignment

Elizabeth Birr Moje is a professor of education at the University of Michigan.

The question of how to prevent summer learning loss has plagued U.S. schools for years. There is no question that some level of skill is lost or diminished for a large number of children and youth over the summer months. In many cases, these skills are easily renewed as soon as students begin school again. But in some cases, the loss chips away at learning gains; this is particularly true for children and youth who find school learning difficult during the academic months as well.

Whether assigning vacation homework would help to diminish the effects of the summer learning loss is an open question, but an equally important set of questions revolves around what such “homework” would involve, how it would be “regulated” (i.e., would students choose or would they be forced to do homework?), and how it would be supported.

In general, we know that assignments that merely drill students on basic skills is less useful than homework that supports them in meaningful thinking and activity. Summer homework, in particular, needs to provide choice with guidance, be embedded in projects or activities that have a real purpose, connect students to networks that support making sense of the activities, and ensure that youth from all backgrounds and socioeconomic levels have equal opportunity to participate.

For example, if schools want to promote the maintenance of reading skills, then they should consider assigning reading lists that offer choices. Such lists should not only promote the reading of novels, but should include informational texts, short stories, poetry, newspaper and magazine articles and web blogs in both paper and digital forms.

Providing children and youth with guided choice reduces the likelihood that they will resent being forced to do the work over the summer months; encouraging wide reading prepares them for the reading demands of upper grades by building world and word knowledge.

Schools (or parents) should also build opportunities for students to discuss the readings, either through face-to-face or on-line discussions. Offering opportunities for discussion and even application of concepts can push students to read beyond their initial preferences as they offer texts to one another, thus diminishing the need to “force” students to read particular texts.

Without discussion, children and youth may complete assignments just to check them off the list, not really engaging with the ideas or learning new critical skills or knowledge.

Another possibility for summer homework is community service or work projects where students can learn new academic skills, and also practice those they have learned during the school year. Combining the use of these skills in meaningful social and workplace activity can be motivating for even young children. This kind of “homework” is more challenging to monitor, but the benefits to young people and communities are high.

Whatever the form of summer homework, it is only a good idea if efforts are made to make it meaningful, engaging, and accessible to all.

What Low Achievers Need

Tyrone Howard is an associate professor at the U.C.L.A. Graduate School of Education and Information Studies.

The utility of homework has been a sacred cow in many education circles for years. I think homework has become a practice that has continued on because it has been normalized in educational behavior. Homework should help to reinforce content or materials that teachers have taught or covered in class. But in many cases today, homework has been reduced to busy work that posseses minimal value in developing deeper understanding.

That said, assigning summer homework is a good idea in theory. Some researchers have documented that some students lose grasp of key reading and mathematical principles when they have not used them for a two to three month period.

A better approach than homework is to have more intensive, small learning community-type summer school programs that last four to six weeks.

But the issue becomes one of accountability and reinforcement of understanding. If teachers cannot get students to turn in homework during the school year, when they see them every day, what is the likelihood that they will get them to do it, and with accuracy, when they do not see them?

I do think that there is a need to reinforce key academic concepts and skills, especially for lower achievers, who tend to be students of color, and students from poor backgrounds. A better approach than homework over the summer is the more intensive, small learning community-type summer school programs that last four to six weeks. These programs allow students to have access to teachers in a smaller learning environment for three to four hours a day. The benefits, I believe, would be far greater than more mind-numbing homework.

Homework and Achievement

Harris Cooper offers more details about the link between homework and student achievement:

Homework’s effect on achievement is best gauged by experimental studies comparing students who are purposely assigned homework with students purposely assigned no homework but who are similar in other ways. The results of such studies suggest that homework can improve students’ scores on the class tests that come at the end of a topic. In five such studies, students assigned homework in 2nd grade did better on math, 3rd and 4th graders did better on English skills and vocabulary, 5th graders on social studies, 9th through 12th graders on American history, and 12th graders on Shakespeare.

Less authoritative are 12 studies that link naturally-occurring (not manipulated) amounts of homework to achievement. On the positive side, these studies used sophisticated statistical models to control for lots of other things that might influence the homework-achievement connection. The controlled factors have included the student’s ability level and family background and the teachers’ experience. These studies have the added advantage that they are often based on national samples and use measures of achievement such as grade point averages and standardized tests. They find a similar positive link between time on homework and achievement. But most of these studies were done with high school students.

Yet other studies simply correlated homework and achievement with no attempt to control for student differences. In 35 such studies, about 77 percent found the link between homework and achievement was positive. Most interesting though, these results suggested little or no relationship between time on homework and achievement for elementary school students. These inferior studies are at odds with the more trustworthy experimental studies mentioned above. But, if we assume that the experimental studies involved relatively short assignments, they do suggest too much homework for young kids might not be a good thing. (Too much homework might also not be good for adolescents but studies show assignments can be longer before reaching the point of diminishing returns.)

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When I was fourteen years old, I was working almost 60 hours a week. This is because, on top of the 40 hours of work we did at school, our teachers each assigned us one hour of homework per night. Four classes, times five days, equals another 20 hours of work.

I was conscientious enough to do this work; most of my fellow students blew it off, of necessity. If you were going to play a sport, or an instrument, or even have a social life, you had to. I barely had time after school to go for a quick run for fifteen minutes, and to wash the dishes after supper. That’s all I did, besides schoolwork.

This was not good for me or my fellow students. For the people who didn’t do the work, it taught that you could just blow off responsibilities. For me, it taught me that if I obeyed the teachers, I couldn’t play music, or a sport, or goof off at all after school.

I say: structure school so that the necessary work can go on during school hours. And for goodness sake, leave kids alone during the summer!!

In the summer children should be running and playing and swimming and camping and learning important interpersonal skills by creating activities of their own with their friends and sometimes peers who are not so friendly. They should go to the library and read as they please, IF they please. Travel to new places. Structured activities stifle creativity and stunt natural thought processes. Looking at the sky or a bug or a leaf or just day dreaming are not uselss activities. Time to wonder is VERY good for developing minds.

Think of all the inventors in our history who must have had time to wonder, “What if…?” Maybe Edison wanted to read into the night and the light of a candle wasn’t enough. Ben Franklin must have been curious about lightning. DaVinci must have been curious about everything. Children don’t have to have ALL their time regimented in order to become well educated. What is wrong with our society that we want to take the joy out of EVERYTHING?

No. Homework should NOT be assigned during the summer. But when it is assigned during the school year, I feel that discussions of homework should focus on the quality of the work instead of on the quantity or time limits set for it. For example, if homework was not graded and used only rarely and only when it really helped turn the kids onto learning, it could be a useful tool.

Too much homework that my own kids have done in the last ten years has been bland, non-creative, non-inspired, teacher-assigned busywork. Most of it seems to be about how well kids can follow the teacher’s directions, instead of how well kids can think for themselves. Is this really the best way to prepare our kids for the 21st century?

Check out my blog: East Bay Homework Blog – //eastbayhomework.blogspot.com/ and check out the film Race To Nowhere, //www.RacetoNowhere.com

The problem with summer homework is that there is little supervision or help. The children will do the works, but they’ll forget about them soon afterwards. If we really want to get serious about summer memory loss, we should send our kids to summer schools or tutoring.

I think it is more pertinent to ask what the purpose of such assignments is. If you are trying to inculcate a reading habit amongst these youngsters, you are a far way off. Burdening them with reading assignments is never going to work. This is particularly true of specified readings. I think it would be a better approach to let them set their own targets, of course after stipulating a bare minimum. Homework help at aafter.com

My answer to this question in general is NO. I am a rising junior at Bronx Science and I am dreading it. I have homework for three different classes. About 28 essays for AP US History , English assignments plus Research assignments as well. By going to this tough school, the school year is a pain in the glutens! i was hoping i would be able to relax and unwind my mind this summer by focusing on what I plan to do in the future but doing all these things inhibits my brain functions of thinking like a normal teenager. It is so sad teens who go to this school miss out on all the joy of being a teenager. It just sucks big time, I would rather write articles for the NYT criticizing anything in the world, besides doing summer homework!

I remember my days of school in India where the students would go to 4-6 hours of private tuitions everyday to try to finish their whole syllabus for the entire year BEFORE school even started just to get an edge.

So, if the US wants their kids to compete, assignments are hardly even enough ( bare minimum if you ask me)

Or you could just go on as always and hope for the best. The immigration policies have already made it impossible for International students with advanced degrees ( like me) to get jobs. Maybe that will protect American kids in the future too.

Yes, mandate summer homework if you want to train children to be available to their “job” every day, all day, even when they’re not compensated. (The new global economy!)

If I take a vacation, I expect to be on vacation. Children should have the same expectation of their free time. If educational theorists wish to create interesting, multi-sensory experiences (i.e,. camp, travel, nature walks) into the summer for a certain group of children, go to it. But, lay off the required summer reading lists, book reports, etc. It’s absurd. Children need more play opportunities, which will help them grow and mature, and give them a necessary break.

Nancy Kalish makes it seems like if kids have hw, they can’t go outside and have fun. There are 24 hrs in a day. It’s not like you would be spending 8 hrs a day doing summer hw. There is plenty of time for both. If you set aside 2 hrs a day for summer hw, that leaves the child 22 hrs to sleep, play and eat. I don’t see how those 2 hrs of hw would hurt the child.

I have taken summer school since I was in second grade. Every summer from June till 1.5 weeks before the new school year, I was in city summer school. I took two classes, one fun and one academic from 8am – 3pm. I do not know whether I would lose my math or reading skills over the summer since I was utilizing them year around. I am not good at math. If I didn’t take summer school, I am pretty sure that I would forget math pretty quickly. The subjects you don’t enjoy, you forget the fastest and the easiest.

I do not think that a math homework packet and doing 2-3 book reports during the summer for a third grader is unreasonable. The teacher could have a list of 50 books that the child could select from.

Children in American have 2.5 months of free time. 2.5 months to do 2-3 book reports and a math packet isn’t very much. The child procrastinating is the parent’s fault. It is up to the parent to make sure that the child is on track with his or her learning and homework. If you let your child wait until the last minute to do the homework, you are causing your child undue stress.

It is not a strange a idea to have the child set 1/2 – 1 hr a day to read. Maybe instead of video games or playing with the computer, the child could read a book.

Summer hw is done in other countries as well. In Japan, every kid has summer homework.

One size doesn’t fit all. Some kids may well benefit from summer homework, but others won’t. I expect that this would work best when the student has a role to play in selecting the assignment, or at least a choice from several alternatives.

Children can run , play and swim on the weekends. School should be 12 months a year. I think how different my life would have been if it hadn’t been for that 3 months of mostly inactivity with nothing to challenge the mind but countless rounds of gin rummy, and getting into trouble with the neighbor children. There can be JOY in learning. Nowadays, there is too much JOY in drugs, alcohol and trouble from neglect . Save our children, keep them in school.

Commenters ## 1 and 2 get it.

But the dramatic idea of Richard Allington, to give students a few books of their choice — any choice — sounds just right to me. If they take the books, it’s their lookout to read them or not. And since they have them right there, and chose them for themselves, they’re likely to read at least some. Without pressure. That’s what reading should be.

In many countries with higher achievements for children in school. The summer breaks are even longer. The method to fix education in the US today is not to make kids study all the time but to fix the US education system. Children need room to grow, by doing other things. Do we want happy kids or workaholics?

Summer homework and assigning things over breaks in general is a bad idea. My senior high always gave summer assignments which I of course procastinated on, so all summer I was stuck with the guilty feeling that I should be working on school work and parents who were happy to remind me. All this did was make summer less fun and strengthen my ability to ignor the “I should be working” feeling.

Kalish is spouting complete nonsense. She is a direct threat to American competitiveness, a living example of technological regression.

My son completed first grade in both Japanese and American schools. At the end of the first grade, the two curricula were even in mathematics. Then the American first graders had 3 months of nothing. The Japanese first graders had 6 weeks with daily maintenance homework. The American kids will never catch up.

You don’t need a Duke study to identify the source of the lag between the U.S. and Japan.

My son is now finishing the summer break of 4th grade in Japan. Over the last six weeks, he has completed about one hour a day in maintenance homework for mathematics and language. He has also completed two small projects, a one-page ‘newspaper’ and an art project, just enough to keep his hand warm. The projects were selected from a list of 100+ provided by the prefecture. For this list, the prefecture gathered the cooperation of fire departments, police departments, water departments, parks and museums to provide a selection of subjects. Most of the cooperating organizations will exhibit childrens’ projects during September.

And my son still has had plenty of time for TV, Legos, games, play at the childrens’ hall and travel – and to sing the Star Wars theme song, the Indiana Jones theme song, or any other ditty that comes to mind.

The above conversation either assumes or fosters the notion that a summer vacation is a given; a necessary recharging of the batteries; a time for play and socialization. I suggest that we rethink this long-standing and almost uniquely American tradion in light of our demonstrable educational distance behind so many other countries.

Now, I am not arguing that play and socialization are unimportant, but that we consider other ways of structuring our educational system that would allow for both play and continuous learning. I am not a professional educator, although I did a great deal of techincal teaching throughout my career, but my experience tells me that segmenting learning into distinct modules of extended, intense learning followed by extended, intense periods of play is not efficient. Education, like the learning it is intended to impart, should be an integral part of life. It should, among other things, develop a strong sense of its own value because it is a part of life, not just something to be done during rigidly specified times to satisfy rigidly specified requirements. All of life is about learning, whether from books or on the playground, and is a continual process.

Our education system should be year-round, with more, shorter breaks. I would argue that the same should be true of our work environment, but let’s leave that for another time. What I think is important, even crucial, is that learning be a continuous, integrated process – as it is in real life.

If summer vacations were not so long, kids wouldn’t need the additional homework over their breaks. The number of in class days per year keeps shrinking and it’s little wonder why other countries with longer, more continuous school years outshine our educational system.

Rather than having a long, continuous stretch of summer holidays, why not have school all year round, with more smaller breaks?

Joy can still be in learning–but often isn’t, in typical school assignments. My 8th-grade grandson (in a different state) will start school today (8/31) with his summer homework done–but only because a diligent parent worked with him and made the learning sessions –well, not necessarily fun, but reasonably enjoyable.

That said, there are often summer school enrichment opportunities -or chances for fun and learning through park district, YMCA, day camp, library events and well-planned reading programs with corresponding activities (my public library invites kids in on certain days to read to therapy dogs…reluctant readers often enjoy snuggling with a friendly pooch and reading aloud to the dog…

Unfortunately, too many parents are time-stressed and work stressed – if they haven’t lost jobs because of the economy – too many grandparents (like me) are at least 1000 miles away from their grandkids, or I’d help with the summer homework to make it fun and interesting… and well-meaning, well-intentioned parents who’d like to get involved just may not have the money to do the extras like museums, vacations, music lessons or group playing-instruments, or even, if appropriate and desired, vacation Bible school.

These things come with fees–and often, lack of public transportation. If it’s a choice between food on the table, often because a parent has a part-time or second job, and registering a child for a learning activity, I do understand why the homework or enrichment doesn’t happen.

I haven’t any answers – even taking a child to a nearby public park often requires time a working parent doesn’t have. That said, sometimes agencies have programs that parents can seek out and get their kids into–reasonably. For instance, my Chicago suburb’s community college offers Kid Zone enrichment things that are learning, but fun, for what in the suburbs seems a reasonable, modest price. Art activities, field trips, science stuff, music (“bucket band”) etc. Trained college and high school students are the leaders, supervised by adults, of course – but these give kids something more constructive–and, what’s best of all – FUN – during summer vacation.

Jan Bone, Palatine IL

Sometimes I wonder if school is just a way of breaking a person’s spirit in order to prepare them for a lifetime of desk work. I was raised in the 1960s, when kids had actual lives and were not sent to Japanese style cram schools, Kaplan prep, or hothoused in any way. During my free time, I ran, learned to balance on a 1 inch wide fence, collected sea creatures and put them in a bucket, dissected plants, stared deeply at bugs, learned to share my toys, played “war” and cowboys (no Indians, we all had six guns, even the girls), made clothes for Barbie, and learned to knit from a 70+ year old woman who told me about what brooklyn was like at the turn of the 20th century. Try to get that with some professionally trained “child development” type who wants to make sure your flow of social studies, whatever passes for math, or texts with pictures of plants and bugs.

This is simply more proof that a school schedule designed around a farming culture ( that we no longer practice) is ill equipped to support us in our current culture. The amount of knowledge necessary to succeed has gotten multitudes larger while the amount of class time available has increased only marginally. Summer assignments need be an option for children who are doing academically well, but a requirement for those who are not.

Kids aren’t reading enough? I must have missed those 1 mile midnight lines for 800 page Harry Potter books. However in the Dumbest Generations Author’s defense I’m sure the older generations used their summer time much more wisely than these idiotic spoiled children by spending every summer vacation day reading Tolstoy, going to math camps and volunteering at the local hospital.

Speaking of which kids aren’t proficent in math? Well maybe that means that they aren’t smart enough to come up with “fullproof” math equations that explain how the value of worthless securites are actually AAA bonds.

The kids today are alright. They are definitely harder working and more service oriented than my generation. Went back to college recently and thought it would be a breeze but the caliber of students being produced is alot better than it was just 15 years ago.

I wonder if time spent staring at the ceiling, sorting interesting colored pebbles on the beach, reading a few low-brow books and building tree houses provides something fundamental and invaluable to a child’s development? There is no denying that skills developed during the school year become ‘rusty’ and it would seem that the brain (certainly in the case of my children) re-wires and relegates unused skills into a fog. However, the summer break is a time during which a child is truly free of the formalized process in school in order to drift freely in his or her imagination. This stated, the television (and computer) should be left off and the child sent outdoors (it is summer afterall!). Looking at the responses of the ‘professionals’ in this column, it is clear that there is no consensus.

I think homework is way overdone. I think a ton of homework is mindless busy work that de-motivates poor students and is an unnecessary drain on motivated students.

I don’t care about scientific studies. If you look carefully at how most social research is designed, it is virtually always designed to get the results the study designers are looking for. A friend of mine did his PhD dissertation at the U. of MI, back in the early seventies, a quantitative, scientifically rigorous study of research dissertations — and proved that study designs heavily influence, and usually determined, results.

People who want to prove that homework is beneficial design, unconsciously, studies that will prove what they want to prove.

I am increasingly discouraged by the steady decline in education in this country. The challenge of poor performing students cannot be met only in the classroom. The quality of children’s lives outside of school is in steady decline. Americans work many more hours than Western Europeans, meaning parents spend less and less time with kids. The economy continues to drain the middle class, requiring both parents to work longer and longer hours. Kids end up passing their one precious life, their one precious childhood in front of televisions, online, tweeting and texting.

Kids — and parents — need meaningful quality time, with themselves, with their parents.

I’d like to see a study that compared what great academic student stars do in the summer compared to the kids whose math and reading skills atrophy in the summertime. I bet that study would prove that kids with a rich quality personal/family life do lots of educational things in the summer only they think they are just having fun.

I grew up in Chicago. Every week of every summer vacation while I was growing up, my dad took his kids and some of their friends on an outing in the city. My dad was very proud of all the wonderful institutions in a great city like Chicago and he seriously considered it part of his job as a parent to expose his children to everything. The only thing my dad didn’t care to do with us was take us to art museums . . . but my mom is an artist and she covered art. We didn’t just go to the science museum once in our childhood: we went several times a year. Plus the dinosaur museum. We went to the zoos countless times each year. Parks, amusement parks, the beach, the forest preserves that ring the city.

Not that many of the other kids in my neighborhood did stuff like this with their folks but, fortunately, in our Catholic Irish ghetto, most kids joined the boy or girl scouts and went on good outings that way.

What do parents do with their kids these days? It seems to me that parents don’t often spend lots of time just hanging out with their kids.

My kid and I had fun when we weeded the garden together. My kid and I had fun driving to the lumber yard and planning her new shelves, discussing the design, the measurements, getting her to participate. When we first went camping together, just me and my young daughter, as soon as she learned to read, I would have her navigate our way from the entry to the state park to our camp site. . . that was her first lesson in map-reading. Gradually, I encouraged her to plot all our routes, when we took interstate trips in the car, let her navigate the whole thing. The first time I took her to NYC, we flew there but then rented a car and she was very proud to be able to navigate us around that city.

I began to teach her how to count in the grocery store. If she wanted to buy apples, I began by saying “we will buy as many as you can count’. The first time we had a math lesson in produce, we only bought one apple. . . but then she immediately made sure she learned how to count higher so she could buy more apples.

I began to teach her how to reach in the grocery store, too. She was always begging me to buy stuff I didn’t want to buy. but then I thought of this trick: I would show her what the letter ‘C’ looked like, point her towards the breakfast cereals and promise to buy Cheerios if she could find a box where the product began with a ‘C’. This worked well for a long time. I say it worked because I never wanted to buy commercial cereal. Cheerios, which many parents consider one of the better, more healthy ones, is still loaded with sugar and cheap unnutritious carbs. It took her a long time to distinguish all the symbols and images on cereal boxes. But she figured out strawberry jam fast. The s was easy, the red jam was easy, the jars were low and easier for her to read.

I didn’t turn every minute of time with my kid into a lesson but pretty much every minute I spent with my kid was educational. I was always trying to think of ways to get her to pay attention, to get her to think about what she saw.

Actually, I used to be an art docent and the main goal for the tour program at my old art museum was, simply, to get the children to look closely, to try to see what really was on the canvas, to get them to see and think.

I made it a point to take my kid to a museum at least once a month. I also committed to taking her to an arts performance once a month. Cities are chock-a-block full of free arts experiences. Public concerts, theater in the parks. I know the economy is tighter these days, there are less free things. . . but the world is still stuffed with free or almost free great things to do with kids. There are always parks, free to walk in. Hills to climb. Neighborhoods to walk and observe. Bird watching is free.

In the third grade, Charlotte, a little girl in my daughter’s class had a very small birthday party. She was allowed to invite two other girls. The party? The girls went butterfly hunting with Charlotte’s mother and at the end, the girls had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and apple slices. That was the whole party.

Our whole society keeps trying to turn everything into metrics, worshiping the god of data. It is almost meaningless to discuss the value of summer homework if you aren’t going to discuss how children and their parents spend their summers. Our economy, which worships corporations and not humans, does not need all its citizens to be multi-dimensional, well-developed human beings seriously pursuing happiness. Our economy wants mindless wage slaves that pretty much act like cogs in the corporate machinery. Wool-gathering does not benefit the bottom line plus it is time most parents could be putting pins in widgets at the plant. Mindless wage slaves don’t become parents who have fun hanging out with their kids and exploring the world together.

If most kids spent their summers having close, loving, fun interactions with their families, their math and reading skills would not atrophy over the summer.

Let the children have summers free. It is a time when they can learn a lot of things that are not taught in the classroom. Family and friends relationships, exploring the world a bit without having to worry about tomorrow’s book report (in other words, reading a book for its own value, not in order to get a good grade).

Walking in the woods, or in the streets. Playing with the cats and dogs. Helping the folks with household work.

The so-called experts who evaluate “success” based on test grades are out of touch with reality. In my pre-collegiate school days, 1955 to 1967, there were many fellow students who weren’t stellar in their academic achievement levels. Yet more than a few of them have gone on to have interesting, productive, and successful lives. In some cases, very successful lives. Predicting success cannot be based just on GPA and SAT scores. Success is based on much more than the numbers.

What's Next

Love it or hate it, AP Summer work is crucial to students

I know a few individuals who have dropped out of particular AP classes because of the summer work that has to be completed. While the vast amount of due dates and massive amount of material can seem daunting, fact is, summer work is great for preparing students for the college-level challenges that come with AP classes.

I don’t mind having a work load on my shoulders, especially if it’s going to help my earn college credit. What else does a high school student do during the summer besides the occasional part-time job?

Some classes like AP French don’t require summer work, while AP Government involved three hours of participation in a political event, and the window of time to finish said project expanded into the actual school year.

The summer work doesn’t come in a specific format for every class, and it can vary greatly depending on course requirements. When I was in AP World History, for example, I remember having to reading two novels and taking notes on each and every chapter of the book, in addition to drawing a cartoon for each one. After that, the first one or two chapters’ worth of note cards had to be completed from the textbook. As a sophomore taking their first AP class, I felt like the assignments were completely unnecessary. It wasn’t until much later that I actually realized how the summer work had prepared me for class itself by teaching me the proper discipline and time-management skills I would need, not just for AP World, but for all my future AP classes. I have no doubt in my mind that if I’d gone into AP World without accomplishing the summer work, I would have done significantly worse and probably failed the actual AP exam instead of passing.

There are AP classes that have more summer work than others, but if a class does have summer projects, it’s in a student’s best interest to do the work and get it over with. It’s not fun, but it will be significantly less painful come the first day of class.

Even as a junior, I know people who didn’t finish the assignments for certain classes, and had to drop. Even for a class like AP Biology where the work itself isn’t for an actual grade, the amount of effort put into a class’s content over the summer can dictate your future in a subject. In a way, being able to complete the summer work is as crucial as having the class perquisites, in my opinion.

There were various students in AP Chemistry that told me every day that studying the content for a class over the summer is just as important as doing assigned projects. This just proves that what teachers assign for summer assignments isn’t just busy work. The content has a purpose; to prepare students for the class.

All in all, Advanced Placement classes are called said name for reasons. Students prove themselves worthy of the course by working and studying for a class during a time for vacation and relaxation. There are people that love the summer work, including myself, but there are plenty of confused or even overwhelmed students going into college-level courses not knowing what to expect. This is where the summer work comes in.

The only downside to the summer assignments might be that they might be tedious to some. However, advantages include a jump-start on a good grade, practice using the material in a specific format and even learning how to manage your time around upcoming homework.

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Summer Homework And How To Tackle It

College and university students will bear witness that homework is not the best part of academic life. Whether it is a take-away essay or week-long research for a given case study, there is no reason to smile. Nonetheless, homework is a crucial component that you cannot separate from any form of learning.

But did you know that summer homework is easy to complete when you have experts by your side? Keep reading to see how this is possible.

Why Is Summer Reading Important?

What is summer homework for starters?

It is holiday assignments that students take during the summer holidays. Such tests attract a lot of criticism from anti-homework crusaders and students as well. But why is this the case?

They argue that summer is a vacation.
Summer homework may inconvenience some students whose families move during such holidays.
The summer assignments are not quality work.

These and more reasons have compelled many to advocate against summer holiday assignments. But is there a brighter side to summer homework? Should schools give summer homework in the first place? Yes, and there is a whole list of reasons that back up this stand:

It prepares students to achieve higher goals in their academic life. It helps to keep students busy in their academic work Summer homework helps to advance the research skills of students It ensures that students stay on track in their academic careers even when schools resume It helps students become independent Students can identify their weak zones and work on them Tutors can assess the intellectual level of students Students will be able to prioritize essential topics

For all these reasons, it is close to impossible to sideline summer homework from schools. So, should students have summer homework? 100% yes! Summer homework will help students better their grades and develop the art of time management. Even though they may seem tedious at first, their results are something that the student can smile about with a sense of fulfillment.

Summer reading is essential when it comes to academic life but also the social life of the student. Having such tasks on your table will help you avoid some common problems such as peer pressure and laziness due to idleness. Therefore, summer assignments for students should be encouraged all the more!

Is Summer Homework Legal?

A student whose summer plans were spoiled sued to end summer homework in Wisconsin in 2005. It sparked legal debate attracting the attention of top lawyers. The student claimed that the summer homework was creating unnecessary stress and giving them an unfair workload. But are these reasons viable to make summer homework illegal?

Some experts argue that summer holidays subject students to increasing pressure to perform. However, such force only serves to demoralize the students all the more. The anti-summer homework crusaders are for the argument that summer holidays are for relaxing and socializing.

But there is something that all these critics get wrong; summer homework is for helping students brush up on their knowledge. Imagine having your kid at home for two months only to go back to school without knowing what they learned in their previous semester! That would not only be detrimental to the student but to you as a parent too! You would have to cater for extra tuition fees to help the student recover the lost time.

Therefore, summer work for kids will help them slip back into the school routine when the new semester starts. However, there should be a balance where teachers should not burden the students with too much homework. It will enable the students to take part in summer camps, extracurricular activities, and even internships.

Since homework will help sharpen the minds of the students, there is nothing illegal about it. No matter how evil some critics may paint summer homework to be, it will remain a critical part of the students’ success story.

What will make summer homework legal or illegal is the quantity of work assigned and the motive therein. If the task still gives the students time to relax and break away from the classroom environment, it is not illegal.

I Hate Summer School; what Should I Do?

It is for sure that you might hate summer school for one reason or another. Having gone through a whole semester with coursework all through, you may want to hate summer school. Others may think of dropping school altogether because of the pressure. But there is a way out!

It’s all about your attitude: There has been a lot of negative talk concerning summer homework. As such, most students have developed a negative attitude towards it. However, if you create the right attitude, summer homework will be your favorite. This attitude will come by realizing the importance of summer homework. Talk to your teacher about it: Do you feel like the summer homework is overwhelming for you? Remember that tutors are human too, and they understand what students go through when handling such types of assignments. Planning is essential: It may be that you hate summer homework because of poor planning. You may have given more time to leisure activities while sidelining your academic work. However, striking a balance between the two will help you sail through smoothly. You will not have to sideline your academic career at the expense of your summer vacation. Using custom assistance would be helpful: Numerous homework writing services can come in handy. You do not have to fumble with your overwhelming summer homework while there are experts ready to help you. Summer math homework will be your favorite with the right writing help.

You can see that there is nothing that can prevent you from completing summer homework. With the right attitude and professional experts by your side, you can smile your way back to school after the summer holiday.

Should Schools Stop Giving Homework?

It is a question that can spark a heated debate in any academic circle. It is usually in line with the question, are teachers allowed to give homework over the holidays? Well, we have already mentioned some of the reasons why reading is essential at any time whatsoever. Nonetheless, here are more reasons why schools should not stop giving homework:

Homework helps to identify the student’s weakness
Students can handle assignments by themselves and develop a sense of independence
Reading gives teachers a chance to evaluate the performance of their students
It also helps students prepare for their exams
Homework is crucial in teaching strong research skills among students

From the reasons above, you can note that homework helps a great deal, and you cannot overlook its essence. The result for all these is top grades that will help students achieve their dreams in the future. Who can sweep such a valuable asset under the carpet?

However, there are instances when schools should stop giving homework to students. Some of these include:

When students are going through a busy academic calendar: This will help them relax their minds and be productive in class.
When homework becomes the end goal rather than a means to success: Homework should ignite students towards excellent performance in their end semester tests.
When there is no significant change in the students’ grades: Teachers should not just give out homework for its sake but for a specific reason. If the task is not serving its purpose, they should shelve it and seek other intervention means.

Homework should not be a severe black mark that causes students agony. On the contrary, it should motivate students to pursue their academic goals all the more and succeed. Homework should develop the student’s mind towards achieving better grades.

Are you looking for something to do this summer and do not know where to start? Here are summer reading assignment ideas to get you started:

Summer Homework Ideas

Research possible places for your dream summer vacation
Create an estimated budget of how much your trip will cost
What is the best year to visit a particular vacation camp?
What type of weather is convenient for the summer holidays?
Which relative inspires you, and why would you consider visiting them this summer?
Write a diary of your summer holiday, journaling the activities you undertook and observations made.
What positive things would you promote in your community during this summer holiday?
Write an essay about a favorite spot you visited during the summer holidays.
What is the best character/mood for a summer vacation?
Discuss how your lifestyle will affect how you will spend your summer holiday
How will your interests and values affect how you spend your summer holiday?
Write a book review of a favorite book you read during your summer vacation
Discover ways of saving costs during summer holidays
Write a speech of what you learned during your summer vacation
What is the impact of the memories you gathered during your summer holiday?
What is the effect of a summer holiday on a student’s academic performance?
What is the ideal holiday destination for summer vacations?
Illustrate some of the lessons you learned from your summer vacation
Why should schools allow students to go for summer vacations without giving them homework?
Why are weather patterns important when it comes to spending summer vacations?
How much homework should students have for their summer holidays?
Is it right for students to use writing help for their summer homework?
What is the role of parents in ensuring that students make the most of their summer holidays?
How can schools make summer holidays more involving and fun?
The best internship opportunities to pursue during summer vacations
How long should a summer vacation take for college and university students?
Why should teachers care about what students do during the summer holidays?
Effects of technology on how students spend their summer holidays
How coronavirus has changed the way students spend their summer vacations
Discuss the role of mentorship programs during the summer holidays

Don’t Want To Spend Time on Summer Homework?

You can bear witness that summer homework is essential and timely. They will positively impact the student’s academic performance and help them live a better social life. Parents and teachers can rest easy when students are engaged in meaningful and balanced summer homework.

Those who still have difficulties completing summer homework should not despair. Several online writing sites provide the necessary academic assistance for summer homework. All these sites understand the essence of these assignments and help students make the best out of them.

Do you want to succeed in your summer homework today? Try our professional writing help and see the difference!

Get on top of your homework.

Stop Homework

Please help each other.

It’s the start of another school year and, as always, I’m getting a flood of emails asking for help. However, I’m no longer running Stop Homework.

But this website still gets plenty of traffic.

So if you write about whatever’s on your mind in the Comments, I’m sure many of the faithful readers of Stop Homework will happily provide their advice, ideas, and suggestions.

Open Discussion

Please write about whatever’s on your mind in the Comments.

You must be the change you wish to see in the world . – Mahatma Gandhi

After four years and 530 posts, I’ve decided its time to retire the Stop Homework blog and turn the homework advocacy over to you, my readers. You should be able to find whatever sample materials you need in The Case Against Homework and/or the posts, especially those in Moms (and Dads) on a Mission , Students Speak Out, Teachers Speak Out , and Success Stories .

I can’t thank you enough for your support. I’ve enjoyed your emails, comments, stories, and guest blogs and I’ve learned so much from you. I want to particularly thank the small family foundation that provided such generous support and allowed me the freedom both to run this blog and advise untold numbers of parents, teachers, and school administrators on ways to advocate for policy changes.

Stop Homework will remain up on the web as a resource and, more importantly, as a place for you to communicate with each other. Starting tomorrow, there will be a new entry, Open Discussion, where you can do just that.

I hope you have a homework-free summer!

p.s. In case you’re wondering what I’m going to do. I’ve decided to return to one of my other passions, criminal justice .

The Toronto Homework Policy After Two Years: One Parent’s Perspective (part 2)

Be sure to read yesterday’s post before reading today’s, which is Part 2.

The Toronto Homework Policy After Two Years: One Parent’s Perspective Part 2 by northTOmom

Before I attempt to answer the question, “why two years later am I complaining about my children’s homework?” I should note that many parents I’ve spoken to have indeed noticed a decrease in their children’s homework. But my experience—and that of other French immersion parents I’ve consulted—has been that teachers continue to assign homework inconsistent with the new policy.

Grade 4 – French Immersion On curriculum night in September 2008, the Grade 4 teacher warned parents to expect a difficult year. She explained that the nature of “mid-immersion”—its compression compared to immersion programs starting in Kindergarten—made it necessary to work the children particularly hard. (There was scant mention of the new homework policy, no hint that the program might have to be adjusted in order to comply with it.)

She was not kidding. On a nightly basis, students were expected to review

Continue reading “The Toronto Homework Policy After Two Years: One Parent’s Perspective (part 2)”

The Toronto Homework Policy After Two Years: One Parent’s Perspective (part 1)

Today’s guest blogger, northTOmom is a freelance writer and blogger from Toronto, and the mother of ten-year-old twin girls. In today’s piece, part 1 of 2, she discusses the “family friendly” homework policy instituted in Toronto 2 years ago.

The Toronto Homework Policy After Two Years: One Parent’s Perspective Part 1 by northTOmom

On a recent Saturday morning, my 10-year-old daughter emerged from the basement on the verge of tears: “The temple’s collapsed,” she announced. Though it sounded dire, she was speaking not of an actual building, but of the model of an ancient Greek temple she and a classmate had constructed out of cardboard the previous week. They had piled on the white paint, and the structure had simply buckled under the weight. Later that day I glanced out the window to see my two daughters turning cartwheels on the back lawn while my husband diligently sawed wooden cylinders into pillars for the new temple. It was a brilliant spring day, and soon my husband would finish his task and call my reluctant daughter in out of the sunshine to start rebuilding the temple. What is wrong with this picture?

Continue reading “The Toronto Homework Policy After Two Years: One Parent’s Perspective (part 1)”

Abolish Summer Homework

In yesterday’s post, I wrote that guidelines issued by the New York State Board of Education provide that when a school requires summer homework, it must comply with a set of rules. But from what I can tell, schools don’t comply with those rules and continue their summer homework assignments as they have in the past.

If your children have received summer homework assignments, or are about to, why not nip the problem in the bud?

Here’s what you can do:

Continue reading “Abolish Summer Homework”

New York State Guidelines on Summer Homework Put Serious Restrictions On Summer Homework

(Even if you’re not a New Yorker, please read today’s post. I suspect that many other states have similar guidelines.)

Yesterday, I suggested finding out your school, district, or state guidelines on summer homework. A few months ago, I followed the very steps I suggested yesterday for my own state (New York) and I discovered that in May, 2009, the New York State Board of Education sent a memorandum to all District Superintendents, all Principals, and all Chairs of the English Language Arts Departments throughout the state. Titled, “Guidance on Locally Required Summer Reading Assignments,” the memo set forth guidance and suggestions for developing acceptable required summer reading assignments.

Here’s what the guidelines state:

Where a district/school chooses to require a summer reading assignment, it must comply with the following: * If books are to be used as part of a mandatory assignment, a school district must ensure that they are reasonably available to all students at no cost. Although a school district may indicate that books may be purchased, students cannot be required to purchase any books. * Class grades should reflect work done under a teacher’s direction and supervision. There must be sufficient opportunity for students to obtain teacher guidance and instruction before completing a graded assignment.

There are several other requirements including that if students are unable to reach teachers by phone, by email, or in person, then students should be permitted to complete the assignment upon returning to school.

You can read the guidelines here .

What interests me about my discovery is that if schools were to follow the guidelines, it is unlikely that they would assign summer homework. It would just be too difficult, too costly, and teachers would have to be on hand to provide “guidance and instruction.” But as long as no one knows about the guidelines, and no one asks that the school enforce them, schools will continue to assign summer homework. In fact, even though the guidelines were issued over a year ago, every New York State student I heard from got homework last summer.

Tomorrow: How to get schools to follow the guidelines.

Know your School, District, and State Guidelines on Summer Homework

Yesterday, I wrote about just a few of the reasons I am opposed to summer homework. Of course that doesn’t mean I am opposed to reading for pleasure, learning for pleasure, or pursuing one’s passions. I’m just opposed to the school sending home the same kind of work it sends home during the school year – work that is mostly an afterthought, is busywork, and doesn’t engage a student.

Before you resign yourself to summer homework, though, make sure that your school is complying with all policies and guidelines.

Take a few minutes and check your school’s policy. You might be surprised to find that it forbids summer homework. If it does, just give your school principal a friendly call and remind her/him of the policy. But if your school policy doesn’t prohibit summer homework, don’t stop there. Be sure to check the district and state guidelines as well.

This is how you check the state guidelines:

Google your state name and Board of Education. When you get to your state’s website, put “summer homework” into the search box. If you don’t come up with anything, call the contact number and ask whether there are statewide guidelines on summer homework. If the person who answers the phone tells you that s/he doesn’t know, don’t give up. Ask who might be able to help you and ask to be transferred. If need be, go all the way to the Commissioner. All told, you won’t spend more than 5-10 minutes.

TOMORROW: What I discovered when I followed the above advice.

I Hate Summer Homework

In Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine, 12-year-old Douglas Spalding treasures

a whole summer ahead to cross off the calendar, day by day. …[H]e saw his hands jump everywhere, pluck sour apples, peaches, and midnight plums. He would be clothed in trees and bushes and rivers…. He would bake, happily, with ten thousand chickens, in Grandma’s kitchen.

After 4 years of running Stop Homework and talking to thousands of parents and children across the country, I know that summers no longer promise those complete and absolute carefree joys. Instead, most students across the United States will have homework hanging over their heads the entire summer.

It won’t surprise anyone here to know that I am adamantly opposed to summer homework. While I am a big fan of reading, those assigned summer homework books don’t usually appeal to most students, and they end up discouraging reading rather than promoting it.

Here are just a few of the other reasons I hate summer homework:

Check back tomorrow and the rest of the week for some ideas on ways to advocate for an end to summer homework. And in the meantime, post your opinion on summer homework in the Comments.

Diane Ravitch on Being Wrong

There’s an interesting interview with Diane Ravitch in Slate , where this former assistant secretary of Education under George H.W. Bush talks about how she became an outspoken critic of testing and No Child Left Behind and how she changed her mind. I wrote about her book here . I’ve always been a big fan of Howard Gardner’s, Changing Minds: The Art And Science of Changing Our Own And Other People’s Minds (Leadership for the Common Good) , so I figured this is a good time to mention it.

Read the interview in Slate here.

You can also listen to Ravitch’s radio interview with Leonard Lopate here .

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8 Engaging Summer Assignments Your High Schoolers Will Actually Want To Do!

student drawing in sketchbookk with dr seuss book

Have you ever assigned summer artmaking activities to your high schoolers only to come back in the fall to hastily thrown together, subpar work? Unfortunately, we have all been there!

One solution is to get rid of summer homework. While this makes our grading life a lot easier, it is not in the best interest of our students. Another solution is to accept crummy artworks, but compromising our standards is also not in the best interest of our students!

Summer assignments are beneficial for many reasons. They prepare students for the upcoming school year and course. The work keeps students’ creative critical-thinking brains fresh and their habits disciplined. It gives your students time to chew on certain ideas, even if it’s not the primary focus of their thinking all summer.

Let’s explore 8 low-pressure summer assignments your high school students will be pumped to complete!

As you read through the following ideas, think about which ones your students would be most excited about!

1. Visit a museum or gallery.

Nothing beats seeing art in person, especially for a generation of students used to viewing everything on a screen. Students can make a day trip to many large art museums —alone, as a group, or with their family. If you do not have any close by, smaller art galleries are another option. If in-person art viewing is not available, many museums are creating interactive virtual spaces where students can participate.

Provide students with a “cheat sheet” of museum choices, visitor information, and key artworks to investigate so they get the most out of their visit. Assign nothing but visiting the museum and looking at artwork. If you require “proof” from your students for a grade, have them take a selfie in front of their favorite piece.

Check out this podcast for 5 Ideas and 5 Museums for Virtual Tours.

2. Interview an artist.

Students can reach out to an artist through a local gallery, college or university, email, or artist website. Students can also reach out to an artist via social media and direct messages! Let students select the communication channel to keep it stress-free.

Give students a list of tips for reaching out to an artist. As a class, students can brainstorm a list of suggested questions before parting for the summer. Students can present what they learned in various formats—video reflection, interview video, written format, podcast, or a formal presentation.

3. Destroy a canvas.

This is an unusual one, but it creates an opportunity for innovative artmaking in the future! Invite students to destroy a canvas, board, or piece of paper. Then, when students come back in the fall, they have to use the destroyed material and transform it into a new artwork.

Check out this portrait lesson that synthesizes media for ideas on incorporating and manipulating materials in new ways. Just make sure students practice safety when destroying their canvas!

4. Write a movie review.

Who doesn’t love sitting around and binge-watching a good movie or show? Students select an art-related movie or show to watch and write an informal movie review. Check out 24 Movies to Show in Your High School Art Room for title ideas.

Or peruse this list to get you started!

Black Art: In the Absence of Light
This is a Robbery: The World’s Biggest Art Heist
Saving Banksy
Struggle: The Life and Lost Art of Szukalski

5. Participate in the Getty Challenge.

The Getty Challenge was an amusing form of entertainment and way of experiencing famous works of art during quarantine last year. People recreated artworks with household items, pets, and family members from the comfort of their own homes. The results were hilarious !

student artwork getty challenge of frida kahlo and the two fridas

Prepare a list of famous artworks for your students. Alternatively, allow students to select their own artwork based on their body of work. Students recreate the artwork using found items in their homes. This is a great opportunity to discuss appropriation with your students!

6. Attend a conference.

While our students love us, sometimes they enjoy hearing from others, too. Other artists, teachers, and students can share things in new ways. They can also teach content outside our personal expertise. Ask students to attend a conference or workshop over the summer. They could also sign up for a class at a local community college, arts center, or arts council. Preemptively reach out to these institutions and see if they will offer your students a discount. It doesn’t hurt to ask!

Have you thought about hosting a few speakers for your students to learn from this summer? Listen to A Conference to Inspire Your Students to hear how Lena Rodriguez created a conference for her students.

7. Curate a virtual exhibit.

Virtual art shows are all the rage right now! Have students curate a virtual exhibit and then “tour” each others’ spaces when they return in the fall. Students often surprise themselves as they get sucked into designing their gallery spaces. It’s a lot of fun to see what quirky items and props they include.

slide of student virtual exhibit with artworks, bitmoji, animals

The work showcased can fit one of these parameters:

Student’s theme of their body of work
A specific era, time period, or art movement
Common subject matter
A specific culture or group of people
Student’s portfolio of artwork
Similar mediums or use of materials

For more information on platforms to use, take a look at Creating a Virtual Art Show: A Time Capsule of Student Success and 6 Online Platforms to Showcase Student Art .

8. Read 10 children’s books.

Many high school students do not enjoy reading—except when it comes to children’s books! They get excited when a children’s book gets pulled out in the middle of a lesson.

Invite students to find and read ten children’s books on a topic or theme of their choice. The topic or theme can be based on their artistic journey and interests. Students can create a reverse mind map showing how the books stem from the core concept. If that last step seems like a lot of homework, table it for when students come back to class in the fall. Have students snap photos of the books they read so they won’t forget. This activity introduces how to brainstorm with mind mapping. It also starts a conversation about creating a body of work that explores different facets of one focused intent.

As you plan, keep in mind that for summer assignments to be successful and beneficial, they must be fun, low-pressure, accessible to all, and allow choice.

Fun—We want students to be intrinsically motivated to get the most out of learning. The work shouldn’t feel like work but lean more into exploration and investigation.
Low-pressure—When intensive homework is given over the summer, students do not have a chance to have a real break. Just like we want to prevent teacher burnout, we also want to prevent our students from burning out.
Accessible—If assignments have too many requirements, not all students may have access to complete the work. Summer homework can also be optional instead of mandatory. Students should not be penalized for not having transportation, supplies, or the financial means to complete the assignments.
Allow choice—One way to make summer assignments accessible to all is to provide choice. Students can select an assignment based on their resources. Choice also allows students to select what speaks to their interests and passions, tying it back to the fun component!

For even more summer assignment ideas, check out Fantastic Summer Homework Ideas for High Schoolers .

What is a summer assignment your students love doing each year?

How can you use summer assignments to bridge the end of the school year with the start of the next one?

Magazine articles and podcasts are opinions of professional education contributors and do not necessarily represent the position of the Art of Education University (AOEU) or its academic offerings. Contributors use terms in the way they are most often talked about in the scope of their educational experiences.

Lindsey McGinnis

Lindsey McGinnis is AOEU’s Media Content Manager and a former high school art educator. She is passionately equipping art teachers to be successful in their classrooms and firmly believes that art is a safe place for students to explore and process the challenging topics and concepts around them.

Advice for Effective Classroom Management in the Art Room After the Break

6 Secrets You Need to Know About Your Generation Alpha Art Students

6 Truths Generation Z Art Students Wish You Understood Now

Colorful Conversations: 9 Fantastic Resources to Enhance Communication in Your Art Room

Freshman English

Friday, august 11, 2017, why i hate summer assignments: by jacob adams, 6 comments:.

Hello, Mr. Adams, it's Mr. Stone. I didn't your dumb post because you're dumb. I am just kidding, I actually did read the entirety of your journal entry and it was not dumb. I share your same sentiments Mr. Adams. I don't like summer assignments either but this one was fairly easy. I had no problems doing it at all and you're a big baby. I am laughing because I have deceived you once more as you are not a big baby. Kevin is a big baby because he said he was going to do the assignment, and then he didn't. What a loser! - Chandler Stone

Also it was not 350 words

does anyone actually count them? I don't.

I do, because I'm not a cheater.

I'm using the Belichick rule which means I can cheat.

Hey Jacob it's Mallory and this is my 8th comment! Getting closer and closer to be being done!!! So happy about it because I hate summer assignments as well. And I always wait till the last minute to do my work. And I know I shouldn't but I do... anyways I'm glad I'm almost done but I'm not so glad that school is starting... anyways I got to go finish the rest of my stuff soooo byeeee

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Does Your School Ever Assign Summer Homework?

Thread starter :Zelda:Druggie:
Start date Aug 27, 2012

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:Zelda:Druggie:

Aug 27, 2012

I have never been an honor student, however for the first time last year my teachers recommended me for pretty much all honor and AP classes, which was very shocking. For the first time, I got work; writing, reading, etc, to do over the summer . . . This is exactly why I should not be in honors classes. I begin school in 2 days and have done absolutely nothing, and honestly don't know if I even want to attempt anything. My brain is fried after a summer of no brain-workouts, so I'm scared to even look at the assignments. Anyways, I was wondering how many schools actually do give summer work, and if people do it. When I told my family in Puerto Rico I had school work over the same their jobs literally dropped . . . and my aunt started an hour long speech on how it was an infringement on my rights as an American . . . (lol) Anyways, does your school give a large amount of summer assignments? A small amount? None at all? Do you actually do said assignments? If so, are you a "get it over with" type of person or a procrastinator? Do you view the work as beneficial or pointless? Is it even fair ?! :S

onidarklink2

An hero of our time.

I've had summer assignments every year I've been in school and I've done it basically all of the time. I think having to read a book for English and maybe take some notes on it is okay, but practically everything else, especially the worksheets you get in math, are pretty much useless. What classes do you have to do work in? I usually just end up getting math, english, and maybe work in one of my elective classes which is the case this year with AP psych. I usually try to just space out my work over the summer but I end up procrastinating and doing most of it at the end, days before it's due. Despite having loads of free time over the summer I find it very hard find the willpower to do this type of thing.

A Link In Time

To overcome harder challenges.

I always do my summer assignments and thoroughly enjoy them especially since I have more time to complete them with no school in session. Prior to my freshman year of high school I had to read two books; before sophomore year I read two novels and a history packet; this was repeated between the summer of my sophomore and junior years; this past summer reading three classics was my sole labor. Of course these assignments are beneficial for they stimulate students to think during their off-period. Many forget the information from the past year during the summer and work during this period endeavors to assist in retaining that knowledge. Of course you're biased against this after nine months of learning but it's for your own good.

Zoldyck family assassin

Honestly, I hate summer assignments. I get them all the time and feel like dumping them in the bin. But I don't. Just do it and you will have the rest of the summer to yourself. No interruptions, apart from the simple 'Did I leave my iron on?' Even if they are boring as fug, they are for a reason. After all, of you happen to go back to school and forget what you were doing last, that won't be pretty. If you dislike them, just think: "Is doing a simple summer assignment better than having a detention?'

Johnny Sooshi

Just a sleepy guy.

Quite often it does, but it's usually assigned by the teacher.

Unwanted ZD Member

TheRizardon

Poog tnalp yknuhc.

Nope and I hope they never do!

The Sexy One

My school gives me a "reading list" but nothing else. However, the reading list is a 50-book list, full of classics like Jane Eyre , Oscar Wilde, hound of the baskervilles and all sorts of things. Now I really enjoy reading but I still only read a quarter (if even that) of the assigned books and only if they interest me. Otherwise I read my own books. I read even if I am not assigned anything, so on my part, the list is pointless. Rather, it limits the books I should read and I will read those books slowly compared to others because I have no interest in them.

chrisplushado

All i want is wii friends.

I still have to highlight 3/4 of the book that's due tomorrow! Summer Assignments are cruel.

NESpowerhouse

My school makes us read a book from a list and then do a project on said book. I don't mind the reading part, it's just that doing a project during the summer vacation doesn't really feel right.

SpiritGerudo

Flamey-o, hotman.

Aug 28, 2012

Only the AP/honors/advanced classes have summer homework, which would include me, and I should really be doing it right now. For English we have to read 2 books, do reading logs, and an essay for one of them. Now the essay I can put up with, but they only give you like 5 books to choose 2 from, and they're all about "self motivation" or "don't do drugs" and all of that cliche stuff that we don't need any more of. Apart from that, all of the books are only 100 some pages, and we have to do 15 reading logs each (thats one reading log ever 7 or so pages). And then they don't even let us choose what to write about, all of the reading log prompts are like "How have you changed after reading the book? What did you learn that you never knew before" or "What emotions did the book invoke: laughter, tears, smiles, anger? Why?" And it drives me insane cause I have to get 8 sentences out of 7 pages to fit that. 30 times. But I finally finished all of those and now I should really get to that essay.

PhantomTriforce

I am a person of interest.

Yes, my school assigns summer homework. For English, they assign a book to read which they usually will test us on the first week of school. For Math, they give us problems that cover nearly all of the year's topics so we can be prepared for next year. For Science, they tell us to read the first two or so chapters from the textbook and do the problems. I usually do most of my summer homework really quickly, save English, where I spend my good time reading the book,

Violet Link

Takumi was a mistake and so are the s supports.

Sep 2, 2012

OH MAI GOSH, ALWAYS. EVERY. HECKING. YEAR. GOSHH I hate Summer home works/ assignments! : English Teacher: Okay students, for your summer assignment, you have to make your own note expansion. Math Teacher: Class, for your summer assignment, here's a 10 page Maths worksheet for all of you~! You must finish ALL of them before school starts again, okay class? NOW, ENJOY YOUR SUMMER!!! (....This is what I MOSTLY HATE.) Science Teacher: Class, your assignment for this summer is you have to do a scrapbook about animals about to extinct. IF you fail to send this when the school starts, I WILL report this immediately to the Discipline Teacher's office. I HATE IT SO FREAKING MUCH it ruins my fun... P.S - I live in different places(not America), so yeah.

Sep 5, 2012

Yes they did but we all *****ed and moaned, and like all things in life *****ing and moaning seems to always get the Job done.

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Time is right to go but James Anderson will hate the ‘summer of Jimmy’

Record-breaking seamer is set to bring the curtain down on his England Test career after talks with head coach Brendon McCullum

James Anderson would hate all the faff of a summer of farewells and it would not help England build towards the next Ashes series either for the attack to again use him as a crutch.

‌It is the right time for Anderson to retire at 41 (he will be 42 in July) and with 700 Test wickets , but the next question is whether this will be a long goodbye or a quick nod of the head then exit stage left?

‌Anderson is an introvert who recoils from being the centre of attention. He marked that 700th Test wicket in Dharamsala with a relieved wave to the crowd and no interviews. When Richard Thompson, the England and Wales Cricket board chairman, presented him with a painting to commemorate the moment the following day, Anderson – pint pot in hand – wore a look as if he had just been asked to bowl 10 overs in 45C heat with an old ball on a flat pitch in Rajkot.

James Anderson – Time is right to go but James Anderson will hate the summer of Jimmy

‌So the presumption he will bow out at Old Trafford is probably misplaced and poses an awkward cricketing issue too. Manchester hosts the fourth Test of the summer, the first of the series of three against Sri Lanka. Picking that as Anderson’s last game would mean dragging him around for the West Indies series that precedes it and selecting him ahead of younger bowlers earmarked for the future. Holding him back for Old Trafford would look like a sentimental pick.

‌While telling Telegraph Sport in April that he wanted to unearth pace bowlers for Ben Stokes , Rob Key also insisted England need “skill as well” and Anderson could help “us get there quicker by being around”, which suggests he has a role this summer.

‌But what better way to go than at Lord’s, the venue for the first Test of the summer against the West Indies in July on a ground where he played his first Test 21 years ago, adding some neat symmetry. Both sides could then move on; England look to Australia and use the remaining five Tests to pick new players and try different combinations with the new ball, and Anderson to fully commit to his burgeoning media career.

‌His skill at utilising the Lord’s slope from both ends has brought him 119 wickets, only Muttiah Muralitharan has taken more at a single ground, and while his bowling average is slightly better at Old Trafford, he has never taken a five-wicket haul there. His great England spells have happened elsewhere.

‌It requires a ruthless streak to pack Anderson off after one game. England are loyal and Stokes has only respect for Anderson. Even this decision was made with some reluctance. The allure of going out in front of his home crowd will understandably be hard for Anderson to resist and for the ECB too, who will want to mark the occasion.

A sun-dappled Oval in September is the usual English endpoint but Anderson has never enjoyed much success there. “Be where your feet are,” is one of Brendon McCullum’s phrases, in other words win the game in front of you, but his legacy as coach will be determined by the next Ashes result and he has only 18 Tests left to play with before that series. No, the farewell either has to be Manchester or Lord’s.

‌A retirement knighthood is inevitable and totally justified given Alastair Cook received one for retiring as England’s highest ever Test run scorer. The title sits easily on Cook’s shoulders, Anderson will feel a little less comfortable with it.

‌It was tough watching Anderson toil last summer against Australia. He was never really fully fit after suffering a leg injury for Lancashire before the series started. Four wickets and an average of 85 meant he scraped a central contract and many felt he should have gone with Stuart Broad , arm in arm, bowing out as a partnership. It was to his huge credit that he could summon the spirit one more time and bowl himself to 700 wickets in India.

Stuart Broad (L) James Anderson (R) – Time is right to go but James Anderson will hate the summer of Jimmy

‌It was only when India were setting up the declaration in the third Test that Anderson was hammered around, and his series numbers – ten wickets at 33 – were respectable on such good batting pitches.

‌But just a week or so later Key said England needed “more cutting edge, more pace”. The old pro in Anderson would have got the message and feared the worst when he learned McCullum was flying in to speak to him. It will hurt. He was in tears when he was dropped for the West Indies tour in 2022, and does not say for show that he has one more Ashes tour in him.

‌He should be there but in a different capacity. He was the de facto pace bowling coach in India and his knowledge must not be confined to the commentary box. Anderson enjoys coaching and loves the dressing room craic. His children are teenagers, hitting the road is easier as his family grow up and he would be invaluable in an advisory role in Australia, empathising with bowlers after a bad day and imbuing the next generation with the tenacity needed in an Ashes.

‌As franchise cricket continues its march, we will not see his like again. No other seamer will take more than 1,000 first-class wickets, let alone 700 in Tests, be bothered to hone the sleight of hand skills of swing and seam or relish long days on flat Test pitches. He will deserve every word of praise and accolade. But first, the job for England is to ensure Anderson’s farewell is pitched perfectly, just like one of his away swingers.

James Anderson,
England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB),
Stuart Broad,
Brendon McCullum
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Lawmakers wrap up 2024 legislative session. Here’s what passed and what didn’t

A s the regular legislative session drew to a close, lawmakers at the South Carolina State House raced against time to push through key bills before the 5 p.m. deadline.

“I think this has probably been one of the most productive legislative sessions that I’ve seen," said House Speaker Murrell Smith (R-Sumter).

Bills that successfully reached the governor's desk include a ban on gender-affirming care for minors, adjustments to compensation for college athletes, and the removal of sales tax on feminine hygiene products.

"It is a win for Democrats and a win for women everywhere," said Rep. Todd Rutherford.

Additionally, a bill allowing legal gun owners to carry firearms in public became law earlier this year.

However, not all proposals made it to the finish line.

That includes universal private school vouchers, social media restrictions, and allowing liquor stores to stay open on Sundays.

“We are already piling up a pretty good agenda for 2025,” said Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey.

RELATED: Rules fights and insults slow down South Carolina House on next-to-last day

Bills legalizing medical marijuana and creating a hate crimes law once again died this year.

“Medical marijuana has been one that I’ve been pushing for eight years. It's passed on the Senate, and it dies. Once again in the house, we got to do something, it pulls it at 70% range. And certainly, we can do better than that,” said Rutherford.

Several major priorities now head to conference committees, where members from both chambers will work on compromises. These include a significant energy reform bill and changes in judicial election processes.

“I’m confident we're gonna be able to address the energy needs that all of us understand exists,” said Massey.

“Right now we have some of the best judges anywhere in the country. Our judges don't get in trouble like they do in other places. And so to me, that was needless, and hopefully it'll die on the vine,” said Rutherford.

Lawmakers will reconvene in June to finalize the state budget, continue work in conference committees, and address any bills vetoed by the governor.

Bills that did not become law this session will need to be reintroduced next year.

RELATED: Lack of judicial diversity raises concerns for SC Legislative Black Caucus

Airbnb Q1-2024 financial results

We issued our first quarter 2024 financial results. You can read the details here . Airbnb Co-Founder and CEO Brian Chesky said:

“We had our best Q1 ever, with 133 million nights and experiences booked, along with double-digit supply growth across all regions. I’m proud of our strong Q1 results and look forward to another record summer travel season.”

Overview of Q1 results

Airbnb had a strong start to 2024. In Q1, Nights and Experiences Booked grew to 133 million. Revenue of $2.1 billion increased 18 percent year-over-year. Q1 net income was $264 million—our most profitable first quarter ever. Adjusted EBITDA of $424 million represented a 20 percent Adjusted EBITDA Margin, up 6 percentage points from the year prior.

We made significant progress across our strategic priorities in Q1 and will continue to invest in these areas:

Making hosting mainstream: We remain focused on making hosting just as popular as traveling on Airbnb. To do this, we’re raising awareness around the benefits of hosting, providing better tools for hosts, and helping them deliver higher quality stays. We’re committed to keeping quality high as we grow supply, and in Q1, we removed thousands of listings that failed to meet our guests’ expectations. Excluding the removal of these listings, active listings excluding experiences grew 17% year-over-year with sustained double-digit supply growth across all regions. We’ll continue raising awareness around hosting and improving the overall host experience in the year ahead.
Perfecting the core service: Over the past few years, we’ve rolled out hundreds of improvements to make Airbnb more reliable, affordable, and an overall better service for hosts and guests. In November, we took a huge step forward on reliability with the launch of Guest Favorites, a collection of the most-loved homes on Airbnb based on ratings, reviews, and reliability data. We’re already seeing a positive impact, with over 100 million nights booked at Guest Favorite listings since launch. We’ll continue making it easier for guests to find high-quality and affordable stays on Airbnb.
Expanding beyond the core: We continued investing in less mature markets to unlock more growth, and our approach is working. In Q1, growth of gross nights booked on an origin basis in our expansion markets was more than double our core markets on average, but still represents a minority of total nights booked. We remain focused on accelerating growth in more places around the world while also building towards the future of Airbnb. Expanding beyond our core business will be a multi-year journey, and we’ve already started laying the foundation. Last week, we introduced Icons—a new category of extraordinary experiences hosted by the greatest names in music, film, television, art, sports, and more. Icons mark an important next step in helping people understand that Airbnb offers more than accommodations. This will be critical as we begin to expand our offerings in the coming years.

Q1 2024 financial results

Here’s a snapshot of our Q1 2024 results:

Q1 revenue was $2.1 billion, up 18% year-over-year. Revenue increased to $2.1 billion in Q1 2024 from $1.8 billion in Q1 2023, primarily driven by solid growth in Nights and Experiences Booked, a modest increase in Average Daily Rate (“ADR”) and the shift in timing of Easter from the second quarter of 2023 to the first quarter of 2024.
Q1 net income was $264 million, up 126% year-over-year. Net income increased to $264 million in Q1 2024 from $117 million in Q1 2023 primarily due to revenue growth, interest income and cost discipline. In Q1 2024, we delivered a net income margin of 12%—our highest first quarter ever—up from 6% in Q1 2023.
Q1 Adjusted EBITDA was $424 million, up 62% year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA increased to $424 million in Q1 2024 from $262 million in Q1 2023, which demonstrates the continued strength of our business and discipline in managing our cost structure. Adjusted EBITDA Margin was 20% in Q1 2024 compared to 14% in Q1 2023 1 .
Q1 Free Cash Flow was $1.9 billion. In Q1 2024, net cash provided by operating activities was $1.9 billion compared to $1.6 billion in Q1 2023. This increase in year-over-year cash flow was primarily driven by the increase in net income. Our TTM FCF was $4.2 billion, representing a FCF Margin of 41% 2 .
Q1 share repurchases of $750 million. Our strong cash flow enabled us to repurchase $750 million of our Class A common stock in Q1 2024. Share repurchases for the trailing twelve months totaling $2.5 billion enabled us to reduce our fully diluted share count from 697 million at the end of Q1 2023 to 677 million at the end of Q1 2024. We have a remaining authorization to purchase up to $6 billion of our Class A common stock.

Business highlights

Our strong start to 2024 was driven by a number of positive business highlights:

Mobile downloads are accelerating. Nights and Experiences Booked in Q1 2024 increased 9.5% year-over-year, despite the hard comparison from Q1 2023. We were particularly encouraged by the continued growth of app downloads and usage. In the U.S., Airbnb app downloads increased 60% in Q1 compared to the same prior year period. Global nights booked through our mobile app increased 21% year-over-year, representing 54% of total nights booked during the quarter—up from 49% in Q1 2023.
Airbnb is uniquely positioned for special events. In April, we had over 500,000 guests stay on Airbnb during the total solar eclipse in North America. We saw more than twice as many nights stayed on Airbnb along the direct path of the eclipse for the event compared to the prior year, with many of these locations in rural areas with no hotels. Turning to the Summer OIympic Games Paris 2024, nights booked for stays during the dates of the Olympics are over five times higher than they were in Paris the same time a year ago. Germany is also seeing a similar trend for the Euro Cup this Summer with nearly double the number of nights booked compared to the same prior year period. We’ve also seen increases in supply to help meet higher demand, including nearly 40% more active listings in Paris in Q1 compared to a year ago. These events highlight how Airbnb helps disperse travel and spread economic benefits by allowing people to stay in local neighborhoods where there are no hotels.
Supply growth remains strong. In Q1 2024, our active listings grew 15% compared to Q1 2023. As part of our efforts around quality to ensure we offer the best possible experience for guests, we removed thousands of low-quality listings in Q1. Excluding the impact of these quality-driven removals during the quarter, active listings excluding experiences increased 17% year-over-year. We continued to see double-digit supply increases across all regions, with the highest growth in Asia Pacific and Latin America—the two regions that also had the most year-over-year growth in Nights and Experiences Booked. Consistent with recent quarters, urban and non-urban supply grew at similar rates year-over-year. We also continued to see similar growth in the number of individual and professional hosts and believe the majority of new listings are exclusive to Airbnb.

IMAGES

Pinterest Why Schools Should Ditch Summer Assignments
Frick you all I have no summer reading assignments so this meme makes
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Why I HATE Summer School
I hate summer starter pack : r/starterpacks
37 best I hate summer images on Pinterest

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Summer Of Hate 2012
i hate assignments

COMMENTS

Why Schools Should Ditch Summer Assignments
Just stop. Summer assignments should be stopped. Immediately. Here's why: 1. Summer is…wait for it…a vacation. It is a needed rest from required learning. Summer assignments interrupt that rest and make a mockery of the word "vacation.". Do I mean that students shouldn't learn anything during the summer?
Summer Homework Is Bullshit! : r/rant
Enjoy your summer, and dont sweat the stupid bullshit. I never did homework. Never did summer work. Down right refused too. To the point where some teachers just never bothered to check mine cuz i never did it, and they got so accustomed to it that they somtimes forgot to put the grade in.
I Hate Summer : r/unpopularopinion
I Hate Summer. I live in the northeast where winters are cold and summers are warm. Most people love summer but I hate it because I suffer a huge case of missing out. In the winter, everyone is inside and you don't feel guilty about being inside and just watching tv or killing time. Starting this time of year, people start going out for more ...
Why Do We Give Students Summer Assignments? Seriously, WHY?
ISSUE #3. Everyone needs a break in the summer. Our minds hurt. Nothing hurts your mind like learning or teaching new material. Your mind needs some down time. Why are we taking away the students down time. You might say, "Well David they'll only do the work the last two weeks of summer.". That's even worse.
Should Schools Assign Summer Homework? Educators Weigh In
While "play" was a popular response to the question of what type of work kids should be assigned in the summer, some educators suggested that students of all ages read during break to stay ...
Should kids get summer homework?
Forget languidly balmy weeks unwinding from the stress of an intensive school year. Goodbye, as well, to working her usual summer job as a lifeguard, which Sara unhappily has to forgo — along with the money she hoped to save for college. As her mother puts it, "Summer homework is a full-time job." A working vacation. Sara's not alone.
I hate summer courses : r/GetStudying
I hate summer courses. This summer I took my first summer course, as it was compulsory due to the fact that I will be sitting university entrance exams next year. Ever since I can remember, I've always abhorred summer courses and refrained from taking any, yet here I am. Not even a week has passed and I find myself unable to manage my time ...
How to Deal With Excessive Summer Homework: 10 Steps
Seeing the assignments clearly laid out will give you an idea of how to pace your work. 2. Make a schedule. On your first day of vacation, take a half-hour to plan out your study schedule for the summer. This simple exercise will dramatically reduce the stress you feel as you approach your summer homework.
4 Reasons I've Learned to Dislike Assigned Summer Reading
But summer vacation is not the time to do this. It leaves students with the sense that reading is a responsibility rather than a source of enjoyment and relaxation- not a formula, in my view, for nurturing lifelong readers. 4. They teach kids that many school assignments are just busy work.
The Crush of Summer Homework
Nancy Kalish is the co-author of "The Case Against Homework: How Homework Is Hurting Our Children and What We Can Do About It.". Summer homework sounds like a good idea…until you see how miserable a child looks as he slogs through that pile of book reports, math packets, journal entries, and other typical assignments.
Three Tips to Complete Summer Assignments with Less Stress
Make a plan and have yourself work on at least two summer assignments each day so that you're not bored of the same subject. Complete a step or two (as per your plan) each day and give yourself a small reward. Rewards are helpful to keep you going. If you're feeling extra diligent, perhaps finish an extra step in one day and double your reward.
Love it or hate it, AP Summer work is crucial to students
In a way, being able to complete the summer work is as crucial as having the class perquisites, in my opinion. There were various students in AP Chemistry that told me every day that studying the content for a class over the summer is just as important as doing assigned projects. This just proves that what teachers assign for summer assignments ...
Professional Summer Homework: Pros And Cons (2022)
The summer assignments are not quality work. ... I Hate Summer School; what Should I Do? It is for sure that you might hate summer school for one reason or another. Having gone through a whole semester with coursework all through, you may want to hate summer school. Others may think of dropping school altogether because of the pressure.
Why do I HATE doing university assignments so much?
Here are a few other things that also helped me get going when doing my Master's: Study SMART Not Long: It much easier to implement a regular and successful study schedule if you are studying SMART. o Set yourself goals. o Make study techniques that promote greater results.
Stop Homework
I Hate Summer Homework. In Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine, 12-year-old Douglas Spalding treasures. ... * students report that those summer assignments are collected but never looked at or discussed * if students actually learned the material during the school year in a meaningful way, then there wouldn't be "summer backslide," one of the ...
8 Engaging Summer Assignments Your High Schoolers Will Actually Want To
Summer homework can also be optional instead of mandatory. Students should not be penalized for not having transportation, supplies, or the financial means to complete the assignments. Allow choice—One way to make summer assignments accessible to all is to provide choice. Students can select an assignment based on their resources.
My answer to the teacher asking me why my summer homework isn ...
In my school district the school board requires summer projects be done in english, math, science, and history. The teachers say you have the first two weeks to finish the projects but it actually varies. Each project has different requirements and is at least 10% of your grade for the first grading period. 3.
Summer Reading Assignments: How to Make Them Fun and Engaging
A Quick Summer Reading Assignment to See Who Read a Book Alphabet Reading Check. Even when summer reading is an assignment for the highest-performing students, not all will read during the summer. This can be a problem, especially when this assignment is the first major grade you're taking for a new school year. To nip this in the bud, try ...
Freshman English : Why I Hate Summer Assignments: By Jacob Adams
Along with hating the book I also hate taking notes over it, I mean everything I have to say good ol' Al already said it in his book. doesn't make any sense. Well I guess I I'll get it done because I don't want Ms. Long and my fellow students to be disappointed in me. Moral of the story is this. I don't like summer assignments.
Does Your School Ever Assign Summer Homework?
I have never been an honor student, however for the first time last year my teachers recommended me for pretty much all honor and AP classes, which was very shocking. For the first time, I got work; writing, reading, etc, to do over the summer . . . This is exactly why I should not be in honors...
PDF Academic Instruction Guidance Edition 4.2 FINAL 01.12.24.docx
Curriculum planning and teaching assignments for summer/fall 2024 and beyond (no changes from previous planning guidelines) Faculty, GPTI, and TA work modes: standards of practice related to teaching Proportions of in-person vs. remote/online classes Instruction modes and class assignments Classroom assignments, space utilization, and class ...
Anyone else kind of hate their summer job? : r/LawSchool
To be a little bit of a counterweight here, I hated my summer internships but like(d) my jobs as a clerk and a litigator. I did the typical tedious and boring summer assignments, like looking for needle-in-a-haystack cases and helping with doc review. Those assignments felt like a waste of my time and a waste of a learning opportunity.
Time is right to go but James Anderson will hate the 'summer of Jimmy'
11 May 2024 • 7:32am. James Anderson has taken 700 wickets in 187 wickets - the most by any pace bowler in Test history Credit: Reuters/Francis Mascarenhas. James Anderson would hate all the ...
Lawmakers wrap up 2024 legislative session. Here's what passed ...
Bills that successfully reached the governor's desk include a ban on gender-affirming care for minors, adjustments to compensation for college athletes, and the removal of sales tax on feminine ...
I absolutely hate when teachers try to make "fun" assignments
I hate "fun" assignments as well. Especially those cringy fake scenario assignments where you have to pretend to be someone writing to a real historical person or something. One pagers are usually way too much work. Making a super-hero out of a president's policies feels awkward.
Airbnb Q1-2024 financial results
Q1 net income was $264 million, up 126% year-over-year. Net income increased to $264 million in Q1 2024 from $117 million in Q1 2023 primarily due to revenue growth, interest income and cost discipline. In Q1 2024, we delivered a net income margin of 12%—our highest first quarter ever—up from 6% in Q1 2023. Q1 Adjusted EBITDA was $424 ...