AMERICAN STUDENTS are being overworked, says an alarmed chorus of newspapers, magazines, and books. As described by the popular media and even some academics, the crisis is reminiscent of “Sister Carrie” and Industrial era child-labor scandals. “Overbooked: Four Hours of Homework for a Third Grader” blared a recent cover of People magazine. Beyond the headlines and behind the expert quotes, however, one discovers a story of political agendas, manipulated data, and a credulous public that wants to believe children are working oh-so-hard, even when they’re barely breaking a sweat.
What gave this story credibility were its academic sponsors, Etta Kralovec and John Buell, authors of “The End of Homework.” What robs their oft-cited work of its credibility, however, are their half-cocked research and political fervor. They reference a newspaper article linking a spate of suicides in Hong Kong to excessive homework, except that the article is from a newspaper in Zimbabwe. Homework, they argue, is anti-democratic and “pits students who can against students who can’t.” Kralovec and Buell sound like fever-swamp socialists, especially when they complain that homework “fits the ideological requirement of those who maintain the status quo in our politics and society.”
