homework policy in texas

Texas Teacher Announces No-Homework Policy for Class

Brooke Young said she decided on the policy after much research over the summer.

— -- An elementary school teacher in Texas has decided to do away with homework.

In a letter that has been shared thousands of times on social media, Brandy Young, a second-grade teacher at Godley Elementary School in Godley, Texas, wrote that after "much research over the summer," she would not assign her students any homework other than any work that was not completed in class that day.

"Research has been unable to prove that homework improves student performance," she wrote in the letter, handed out to parents during a meet-the-teacher night on Aug. 16. "Rather, I ask that you spend your evenings doing things that are proven to correlate with student success."

In her letter, Young suggested that parents eat dinner with their children, read together, play outside and get their kids to bed early.

Samantha Gallagher, whose 7-year-old daughter, Brooke, is in Young's class, posted a photo of the letter to her Facebook page. It has been shared more than 68,000 times.

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Gallagher said she and her husband "love" the policy because it will allow Brooke more free time to practice gymnastics, read and play outside, she told ABC News.

Without the looming prospect of nightly assignments, Brooke has started the school year with a "positive outlook," Gallagher said.

Gallagher said she and her husband feel "very fortunate" that Brooke has such an "amazing" and "innovative" teacher.

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Texas teacher implements no-homework policy, the Internet rejoices

A second grade teacher's no-homework policy has gone viral, thanks to a student's mother posting about it on Facebook.

Last week, mom Samantha Gallagher posted a note on Facebook  from her daughter's teacher reading: "After much research this summer, I'm trying something new. Homework will only consist of work that your student did not finish during the school day. There will be no formally assigned homework this year."

Godley Elementary School teacher Brandy Young told parents research doesn't prove homework improves performance. So, she said, time after school is best spent eating dinner as a family, reading together, playing outside and getting children to bed early.

It was a decision Young said she made with the support of her district.

"Our district, campus, and teaching teams are exactly the supportive environment you need if you're going to break the mold and try something new," Young said in an email. "We're never really afraid to voice new opinions and ideas because our leadership is always so supportive, and our co-workers want what's best for educating our students."

Gallagher said her daughter is "loving her new teacher already!" The post has more than 67,400 shares on Facebook and started a healthy conversation on Reddit: I wish this was the homework policy when I was in school .

The response has been overwhelmingly "supportive and positive," Gallagher said. "Many who have responded are educators themselves wanting info from Mrs. Young on how to go about implementing the policy themselves."

Hosburgh said her daughter had about an hour of homework each night in first grade.

“We plan on spending more time as a family unwinding and catching up in the evenings,” she said. “Also Brooke is interested in gymnastics and this will allow more time for that.”

The National PTA and the National Education Association recommends the maximum amount of homework (all subjects combined) should be 10 minutes or less per grade level per night. So, second grade students should have 20 minutes of homework per night.

Parents' role changes as homework is more challenging

Duke University Professor Harris M. Cooper, author of The Battle over Homework: Common Ground for Administrators, Teachers, and Parents , said short and simple homework assignments are necessary.

"A creative and thoughtful teacher can make reading with parents the homework assignment or go out and play, keep track of your batting average," Cooper said.

No homework is a "bad idea," he said, because homework creates good study habits and self-discipline. He said it also allows parents to monitor their children's progress.

"Homework is a lot like medication," he said. "If you’re taking too much, it can kill you. If you take too little, it has no effect."

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Second-grade teacher's unique homework policy goes viral

By Jennifer Earl

Updated on: August 24, 2016 / 9:20 AM EDT / CBS News

Every school year, elementary school students are faced with new challenges.

They have to make new friends, get to know new teachers and learn how to juggle more complex courses.

But there’s at least one stressful thing second-graders at Godley Elementary School in Texas won’t have to worry about this year: homework.

Brandy Young, a second-grade teacher at the school, passed out a letter to every parent at a “Meet the Teacher Night” ahead of the start of the school year to explain her new homework policy -- or should we say, no-homework policy. 

A pleased parent posted a photo of the letter on her Facebook page , and it went viral with more than 59,000 shares.

“Brooke is loving her new teacher already!” Samantha Gallagher captioned the picture.

The mother of 7-year-old Brooke was thrilled to know that her daughter won’t be overwhelmed with homework this year.

“There will be no formally assigned homework this year,” Brandy Young explained in the letter. “Rather, I ask you spend your evenings doing things that are proven to correlate with student success. Eat dinner as a family, read together, play outside, and get your child to bed early.”

The teacher said homework just wasn’t working for her classroom anymore. So, she decided to make meaningful change.

“[Students] work hard all day. When they go home they have other things they need to learn there,” Young told CBS News. “I’m trying to develop their whole person; it’s not beneficial to go home and do pencil and paper work.”

Dozens of people praised Young’s view on homework, Gallagher included.

“Finally more teachers are catching on to this!” one Facebook user commented.

“Hopefully this will change some things,” another wrote.

Gallagher is looking forward to the new routine.

“We’re happy that at the end of a long school day she’ll get to come home and unwind and be a kid... go outside to play, make new friends, spend more time as a family,” Gallagher said.

Young, who is a parent herself, wants to bring more families together.

The  Godley Independent School District is a district of innovation, following  The Leader in Me school model, Young explained.

“Our superintendent really encouraged us to be innovators,” Young said. “Whether or not it’s popular, I just wanted to see if it would work. You can’t know if it’s gonna work unless you try it.”

Several other teachers within the district are also considering taking a similar “no homework” approach. And Young is happy to hear it. 

“For any teacher considering anything that might benefit their students I say go for it; if something doesn’t work, change it,” she said.

Jennifer Earl is the Vice President of Growth & Engagement at CBS News and Stations. Jennifer has previously written for outlets including The Daily Herald, The Gazette, NBC News, Newsday, Fox News and more.

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Texas Teacher’s ‘No Homework’ Rule Strikes a Chord With Parents

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By now, you’ve probably seen the note a 2 nd grade teacher in Godley, Texas, sent home with her students saying she would not give any assigned homework this year.

A parent posted the note to Facebook , and it went viral. As of this afternoon, it’s been shared more than 73,000 times.

In the note, teacher Brandy Young wrote, “research has been unable to prove that homework improves student performance,” and she asked parents, “to spend your evenings doing things that are proven to correlate with student success,” such as reading together and getting your kids to bed early.

In an interview with the Star-Telegram, Young said, “I want my students to have a full life. I want them to develop their whole person, not just this paper-and-pencil student that they can be working on in the classroom. When my students go home, they have other things they need to learn there... The homework outside of the room needs to be meaningful, engaging, and relevant. When I re-evaluated what I was sending home, paper-and-pencil practice, I decided it wasn’t meaningful, and it wasn’t relevant, and it wasn’t engaging for my kids.”

Many parents praised the move and used the opportunity to lament their young children’s long, arduous homework assignments.

Cathy Vatterott is a professor of education at the University of Missouri-St. Louis . She’s written about this topic extensively. Her book, Rethinking Homework , was published in 2009. She said in the past 10 to 15 years more elementary schools have implemented homework policies that set limits on the practice, while some have eliminated homework altogether in favor of having students spend a certain amount of time reading each night.

10-Minute Rule

The schools that seek to limit homework often encourage teachers to abide by what’s known as the 10-minute rule, which is advocated by the national PTA and the National Education Association. It calls for students to have 10 minutes of homework per grade level. So students in 1st grade would have 10 minutes of homework, while students in 2 nd grade would have 20 minutes and so on.

Vatterott credited parents for this shift away from homework in elementary school and categorizes it as part of the balance movement.

“Adults are saying we need work-life balance,” said Vatterott. “Now they’re saying we want that for our children as well.”

She said there are also more concerns now about elementary students feeling stressed and suffering from ailments related to that condition.

And, then there’s the research showing homework offers little to no benefit for children in the early grades.

“There’s a lot of homework out there that is not helping kids,” said Vatterott. “It’s busy work. It’s not contributing to kids’ actual learning.”

She said too many teachers are assigning more homework than the 10-minute rule allows.

“The teachers are piling it on because they think that rigor equals load,” said Vatterott. “Piling it on does not mean, ‘Oh, we’re a really tough, rigorous school.’”

Quality Assignments?

She said when she started researching homework 18 years ago she began to question some of the work that was being assigned.

“My joke is the word search put me over the edge,” said Vatterott. “Why are we doing a word search? Why are we finding these words in a sea of letters? What is the educational value of that? I think parents are getting more skeptical, and I think they’re getting more militant. They’re starting to just say ‘No, we’re not doing this.’”

There are those who say homework is not really about the work when it comes to elementary students. They suggest that learning to complete assignments teaches children responsibility.

But Vatterott disagrees.

“I think it teaches compliance and obedience, that no matter what crappy task gets sent home I have to do this,” said Vatterott, who argues that she is not anti-homework.

“I am for reasonable amounts of homework that can be done without help,” said Vatterott. “I am against excessive work. I’m against busy work, and I’m against failing kids for not doing homework.”

She supports the 10-minute rule but stresses it has to be time-based not task-based. So while it might take one student 20 minutes to do 10 math problems it might take another student 40 minutes, and teachers have to account for that.

“I think that is developmentally appropriate in the sense of how much sleep kids need, how much downtime they need, how hard they’re working during that day,” said Vatterott. “I would be fine if we would stick to the 10-minute rule in elementary school, and I’m also OK if we say we’re not going to do homework at all and maybe introduce it in the 4 th or 5 th grade.”

A version of this news article first appeared in the Time and Learning blog.

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North Texas Teacher's ‘No Homework Policy' Goes Viral

Superintendent says teachers were encouraged to be innovative. another education expert cites the benefits of homework, by holley ford and noreen o'donnell • published august 22, 2016 • updated on august 26, 2016 at 6:01 am.

A North Texas teacher's decision to skip homework for her second-grade class in favor of giving them more time to play and spend with family is sparking a debate about its value for young children.

Even as some parents praised the new policy and her announcement of it went viral on Facebook, a professor who has analyzed dozens of homework studies cautioned against the approach.

Brandy Young, a teacher at Godley Elementary School in Johnson County, told parents she would not send home assignments because research had been "unable to prove that homework improves student performance." Only work unfinished during the day would have to be completed at home, she wrote.

She instead asked parents to spend their evenings doing things that would help their child to succeed in school and offered these suggestions: Eat dinner as a family, read, play outside and go to bed early.

"Take what you've learned in the classroom and apply it outside of the classroom," Young said. "That's what I hope they're doing with the learning that they get in my room."

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Her letter to parents was posted on Facebook by a mother, Samantha Gallagher, who wrote that her daughter was loving her new teacher. The post has been shared more than 69,000 times.

Asked about the policy, the superintendent of the Godley Independent School District, Rich Dear, said that teachers in the district were encouraged to be innovative and to do what was best for their pupils.

"And Brandy and some of our second-grade teachers felt like that reducing assigned homework was good for our kids," he said. "And I support them for putting our learners first."

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A half dozen second-grade teachers were dropping homework for the year and would evaluate the results in their classrooms, Dear said.

"We're not saying we won't ever assign homework," he said. "We're just saying we aren't assigning homework just for the sake of assigning it. Meaningful homework will always have its place."

One education professor, Harris M. Cooper of Duke University, the author of "The Battle Over Homework," disagreed with Young's assessment of homework. It can improve achievement for second-graders if it covers vocabulary, spelling, math and other subject matter that children learn through practice, he said.

Homework can be beneficial in other ways too, he said. It can show children that what they learn at school can apply to what they enjoy doing at home. It lets them know that they can learn anywhere. It can help them develop strong study and time management skills. And it allows parents to keep up with what their children are doing in school.

Assignments for children that age should take 20 minutes and should be short, simple and lead to success, he said. Children can be asked to read the back of a cereal box and discuss it in school or to apply math to sports that they like, whether goals scored in soccer or a batting average.

"Make it relevant, make it fun and make it part of what kids want to do," he said. "That's her challenge, not cut it off entirely."

A Met Life survey done in 2007 found that 60 percent of parents thought that schools were giving the right amount of homework, according to Tom Loveless, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author of The Brown Center Report on American Education, an annual report analyzing trends in education. Twenty-five percent said the amount was too little and only 15 percent said too much.

Another poll conducted by Public Agenda in 2006 reported similar numbers: 68 percent of parents finding the amount of homework about right, 20 percent saying too little and 11 percent saying too much. And a third poll, by AP-AOL in 2006, had the highest percentage of parents saying too much homework was assigned, 19 percent, to 23 percent too little and 57 percent about right, Loveless said.

Vicki Abeles, a producer and director whose documentary "Race to Nowhere" looked at what she calls the pressure-cooker culture dominating American schools, said she was in favor of Young's approach.

"Six hours in school is already a full work day for a 7-year-old, and adding more seat time to that day only squeezes out other activities that are just as critical to healthy growth," said Abeles, now the author of "Beyond Measure: Rescuing an Overscheduled, Overtested, Underestimated Generation." "The practice of assigning homework is a reflex -- something we do because it's been done that way before, not because we actually sat down and considered what was most beneficial to kids. And it's refreshing to see a teacher break the habit."

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A Closer Look At One Texas Teacher's No-Homework Policy

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What if there was no homework for the entire school year?

A Texas teacher wrote a letter to parents of her second grade class telling them just that .

Brandy Young of Godley Elementary School, in Godley, Texas, wrote, "Research has been unable to prove that homework improves student performance. Rather, I ask that you spend your evenings doing things that are proven to correlate with student success. Eat dinner as a family, read together, play outside, and get your child to bed early."

Here & Now 's Meghna Chakrabarti speaks with pediatrician Dr. Jeffrey Brosco , a professor at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, about the idea.

Interview Highlights: Dr. Jeffrey Brosco

On Young's claim that research has been "unable to prove that homework improves student performance"

"That's true, although it depends on the age of the child. There's been 30 or 40 years of research looking at this. If you look at elementary schools kids, up until fifth grade or so, there really is no evidence that homework improves academic outcomes.

If you measure kids who get homework, who don't get homework, compare them — their reading, writing, math skills are pretty much the same at the end of the year. So from that point of view, she's absolutely right. There's probably some reason to start doing homework in middle school and high school, probably one to two hours seems to be the right amount for, especially high schoolers. That does seem to improve academic outcomes."

"We want to encourage curiosity, we want to encourage a love of learning, a good relationship with trying to figure out what's happening in the world, rather than making it all about worksheets." Dr. Jeffrey Brosco

On other possible benefits of homework, like focus and discipline

"These are all ideas that homework might be useful for. Again, there's not research showing that it does. I've heard parents say this is a good way for the school to communicate what a child is learning because they see what the worksheets show. The problem, of course, is to the degree that parents take on the homework as their own, then that chance of independence and organization and responsibility can get lost."

On alternatives to traditional homework

"I should point out that there are entire school systems, like in the country of Finland and Sweden, where there is absolutely no homework and the kids' academic outcomes are really superior. So we should probably be rethinking school a little bit, especially in the elementary school years.

We want to encourage curiosity, we want to encourage a love of learning, a good relationship with trying to figure out what's happening in the world, rather than making it all about worksheets. If you're learning about math, the assignment might be like talk to your parents at home and figure out ways they use math. So maybe you play a board game, or cook something with one of your parents, or maybe you build something."

On using homework as a strategy to close the achievement gap

"More homework is not the way to do it. We have to be careful about how we think about parent involvement, more generally. It turns out that things that are more important are for parents to have an expectation that their child will do well and go to college. That their parents are generally interested: 'What did you learn today, what happened in school?' Perhaps to some degree, that parents help make sure that children get the teacher that best fits their personality and learning style.

A lot of the other things that are routinely touted as important — going to the school, meeting with the teachers, joining the PTA, doing a whole lot of other things — probably don't make as much difference. Sometimes we label parents as not being involved while it's not clear it's the best for their child."

On what elementary education should focus on

"The natural curiosity of children really should drive a lot of what we are doing with learning. The idea is that math and reading and writing and those sorts of skills are just that — they're skills to use in the world, not an end in of themselves."

Dr. Jeffrey P. Brosco , director of the Mailman Center for Child Development and professor of clinical pediatrics at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.

This article was originally published on August 25, 2016.

This segment aired on August 25, 2016.

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Texas teacher's new "no homework" policy goes viral

FORT WORTH, Tx (WTHR) - A Texas mother's Facebook post about a new homework policy put in place by her daughter's teacher has gone viral.

Samantha Gallagher says that her daughter's teacher sent home a letter that said the class would not be given homework for the school year.

The letter read:

"Dear Parents, After much research this summer, I am trying something new. Homework wil only consist of work that you student did not finish during the school day. There will be no formally assigned homework this year. Research has been unable to prove that homework improves student performance. Rather, I ask that you spend your evenings doing things that are proven to correlate with student success. Eat dinner as a family, read together, play outside, and get your child to bed early. Thanks, Mrs. Brandy Young"

Gallagher's Facebook post has been shared more than 66,00 times and a thread about her post on reddit has thousands of comments.

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Teacher creates no-homework policy so students can enjoy family time

GODLEY, Texas -- Kids across the country are heading back to school, but in a small Texas town, one second-grade teacher is making a big promise.

Brandy Young, a teacher at Godley Elementary school, says this year, her students will have no homework.

Not tonight. Not any night.

Young passed out a letter to every parent at "Meet the Teacher Night" before school started to explain her no-homework policy.

The letter reads:

"After much research this summer, I am trying something new. Homework will only consist of work that your student did not finish during the school day. There will be no formally assigned homework this year. Research has been unable to prove that homework improves student performance. Rather, I ask that you spend your evenings doing things that are proven to correlate with student success. Eat dinner as a family, read together, play outside, and get your child to bed early."

Samantha Gallagher's 7-year-old daughter Brooke is in Young's class. The mom posted the teacher's letter to Facebook with the caption, "Brooke is loving her new teacher already!"

"I am very grateful Brooke has an innovative teacher who is willing to adopt new policies for the benefit of her students and their families," Gallagher said.

The note is opening up a great conversation about education, our kids and our future.

Gallagher says her family is thrilled by the new homework policy - especially little Brooke.

Dozens of parents in the Godley school district and outside the district praised Young's policy on Facebook. Gallagher's post has since been shared more than 67,000 times.

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Texas teacher's unique no homework policy goes viral

GODLEY, TX (KTRK) -- One teacher in north Texas is starting the school year with a revolutionary policy - no homework.

Brandy Young is a second grade teacher at Godley Elementary School in Godley. She passed out a letter to every parent at "Meet the Teacher Night" before school started to explain her no-homework policy.

The letter reads:

"Research has been unable to prove that homework improves students performances. Rather, I ask that you spend your evenings doing things that are proven to correlate with student success. Eat dinner as a family, read together, play outside, and get your child to bed early."

Samantha Gallagher's 7-year-old daughter, Brooke is a student in Young's class. Gallagher was so pleased with the policy she posted the letter on Facebook with the caption, "Brooke is loving her new teacher already!"

"I am very grateful Brooke has an innovative teacher who is willing to adopt new policies for the benefit of her students and their families," said Gallagher.

Dozens of parents in the Godley school district and outside the district, praised Young's policy on Facebook. The post has been shared more than 64,000 times.

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