

Prior research suggests the majority of parent homework help ends up being counterproductive, including doing work for a student or providing confusing or inaccurate explanations for a concept. not only in terms of who actually was able to provide more hands-on help at home, but also in the extent to which teachers felt that they had to grant exemptions to students from more privileged backgrounds.” Designing better homework “It was much more rooted in the status and the power of families. “It wasn’t a consistent application of rules,” Calarco said. Existing homework policies tended to be applied in favor of students of parents who were highly involved in the school. In an earlier related study using the same students, Calarco and her colleagues also found teachers felt significant pressure from affluent and white parents to excuse their children when they failed to complete homework. “Sometimes you just feel stupid because he’s in 5th grade, and I’m like-I should be able to help my son with his homework in 5th grade.” ask me a question, and I’ll go look at it, and it’s like algebra, in 5th grade,” the mother told researchers.

“I still can’t really figure out division. One mother of a 5th grader in the study said she barely passed her GED high school equivalency exam, and often struggled to help her son with math. Meritocratic teachers also were more likely to assign homework that students could not complete independently, either because it was too difficult or required input from parents. Teachers who took a meritocratic approach to homework were more likely to adopt punitive homework policies: giving extra credit on tests for students who turned in homework, or keeping students back from recess for not completing it, for example.

What they’re not interested in is being told they’re supposed to know how to teach every subject at every grade level, just because somebody said it was a good idea,” Epstein said. “Parents are in fact interested in their children’s work and success.
