Healthy homework? Legislation for student well-being

Pilar Schiavo (00:00):

Can you write a law that bans homework?

Denise Pope (00:06):

Welcome to School's In, your go-to podcast for cutting edge insights in learning. From early education to lifelong development, we dive into trends, innovations, and challenges facing learners of all ages. I'm Denise Pope, senior lecturer at Stanford's Graduate School of Education and co-founder of Challenge Success.

Dan Schwartz (00:30):

And I'm Dan Schwartz. I'm the Dean of the Graduate School of Education and the faculty director of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning.

Denise Pope (00:40):

Together, we bring you expert perspectives and conversations to help you stay curious, inspired, and informed. Today we are talking about a subject that has been so controversial for years and years and years, and it's probably going to surprise you. It's not what we would normally think as controversial, but for years and years and years, homework has been not only the bane of students' existence, but a topic that is hotly contested by parents and teachers as well.

Dan Schwartz (01:17):

So Denise, I know where you come down on the debate about homework, given that you just said it's the bane of kids' existence. So how did you treat homework for your kids? Did you give them M&Ms for every right answer? What did you do?

Denise Pope (01:34):

Oh my God, no. No, no, no. You know me, I'm not about extrinsic motivation and bribing. But I will say as an educator, it's really hard because my kids had homework in elementary school and my kindergartners would come home with a bunch of homework and I'd have to sort of bite my tongue and say, "Don't spend a lot of time on it," or "maybe we should just throw it away and I'll talk to your teacher." But it's really hard to find that balance as a parent because you want to be respectful of the teacher. But I also had all this knowledge of the research that showed there's really not a huge correlation between homework, particularly in the early, early grades like kindergarten and student achievement.

Dan Schwartz (02:14):

Wow. So now I know the reason for homework, it's to teach the parents restraint.

Denise Pope (02:18):

Yeah, exactly.

Dan Schwartz (02:18):

I always wondered what it was for, and now I know.

Denise Pope (02:21):

That's it, that's it.

Dan Schwartz (02:23):

I sort of passed along my attitudes towards homework to my kid, so I'd watch TV and shout at him to do his work. That was kind of the sum total of it.

Denise Pope (02:33):

So was he also watching TV? You were both watching TV and he was supposed to do his work at that time or?

Dan Schwartz (02:38):

Maybe, maybe. Okay, so today we are very lucky to have, uh, State Assemblywoman Pilar Schiavo, and she is in southern California and introduced a very interesting bill called Healthy Homework. And so welcome, Pilar. Thank you for coming.

Pilar Schiavo (02:58):

Thank you for having me.

Dan Schwartz (02:59):

And it'd be great to hear sort of what motivated you to create the bill. Did you channel Denise and decide this is something to do, or how'd this happen?

Pilar Schiavo (03:09):

I channeled her and I didn't even know her yet. You know, I was channeling my child really. I have a now 12-year-old in seventh grade, but when I was running for office just a couple of years ago, I had picked her up from school and we were driving home and she said, "What can you do..." We were kind of talking about what I could do when I got elected. And I said, "Well, we get to write laws." And she said, "Oh, can you write a law that bans homework?" And, you know, I think probably every fourth grader's dream. And it got me thinking though, obviously the bill does not ban homework, but it did get me thinking about, you know, what are things that we could do about homework? Because like Denise, when my kid was in kindergarten, she was coming home with a huge packet of homework on Monday and it was due on Friday.

(04:01):

And my first job out of college was early childhood education, I worked for a tribal head start program. And so I learned a lot about early childhood brain development and how play and socialization and all of those things were so important for brain development. And so it really, uh, when she started coming home with this homework, I started researching what's normal homework for kindergartners and what do other countries do? And I started seeing that other countries are emphasizing play and all the other ways that kids learn. And so when I finally got elected, you know, I wanted to do it my first year, but I knew it was a controversial bill and we had to do a lot of legwork and conversations to do it. So we did a lot of that that first year. And then I was so excited to find Denise and partner on the bill in my second year and be able to get it across the finish line.

Dan Schwartz (04:54):

That's great. So Denise, just to give some broader contextualization, do we know where homework came from? Like was this something the Ancient Greeks did? Where did this idea of homework come from? It's really diffuse, the number of reasons people give homework are sort of poorly defined and generally, well, because I did homework. Who started this?

Denise Pope (05:16):

Well, that's a very good question. I can't point to the exact person who started homework, but it started to come when there were certain things that needed to be covered in terms of the people who were setting curricula way, way, way, way back when. And this idea of coverage and what makes someone a full human being. And so if you, kind of jokingly, but going back to the Greeks, right, there's a conception that a full human being has both mental and academic capability, but also physical capability. And so schooling was really kind of the whole day, right. You would do these things, you would read, you would enter into debates and sort of town hall meetings, but you would also do physical activity. So you couldn't fit it in just the time that you needed to work. And if you kind of fast-forward to the Agrarian calendar where there was only certain times of the day that kids were in school and the rest of the time they were actually out helping working the fields, et cetera,

(06:20):

your time for schooling got shorter and shorter. And so this idea of we have to fit it in, when are you going to do it? You're going to do it almost as a third shift. And that's what Pilar and I talk about all the time. The first shift is what you do in school. The second shift is if you have a job or you work, which back then everybody was doing, now you have extracurriculars or a job or you have home responsibilities. And then kids have this third shift which is doing homework.

Dan Schwartz (06:49):

I see.

Pilar Schiavo (06:50):

And that was really powerful when you said that to me, Denise, because I come out of the labor movement where we fought for an eight-hour day and the weekend. And so kind of putting that lens on it to think about you know, yeah, we're not asking anyone else to do this, to do three shifts a day where they go to school all day and then they go to an after-school day program, and then they come home and they sit at the table and they do homework until it's time to go to bed. We're not asking other people to do that. We see the value of that downtime and time with your family and time to pursue your interests.

Denise Pope (07:28):

Yeah, one of the biggest things that we find with homework is the interference with sleep and the interference with what we would call playtime, downtime, family time, really time to spend with family which we know is a protective factor. Time to play, which as you said, Pilar, that is how people learn. It's actually the job of a child is to play. And downtime, like the last thing you want to do when you come home from work is to sit down and do homework. Even though Dan, I know in your job you probably have to do that and I have to do that and Pilar has to do that, but you know, it would be really nice if kids did not have to do that. And the impact on sleep is huge, absolutely huge.

Dan Schwartz (08:09):

So this is the against homework argument. So when you brought the bill forward, were there people who stood up and said, "No, kids still need to do homework because..." What came after the because?

Pilar Schiavo (08:23):

I was really surprised at how few people actually said how important homework is, because I literally talked to anyone who said they were an educator. I talked to them, I said, "Hey, I got this bill I'm working on, want to know what you think about it?" Because I really wanted to hear from people. And a lot of people were talking about how, especially educators about how they don't give homework anymore. They give very little homework just if you don't finish something in class. And you know, I think I ran into a teacher when I went to speak to some students at a school, a sixth grade teacher and she was saying that, "Well, if we don't give them homework, then they're just going to be on their screens all evening. And that's not any better." Which I get and as a parent I struggle with that too. But also it felt a little bit like micromanaging kids' time after school. The arm of the educator can come through into after school and kind of control what's happening all evening at home, which I think all teachers and educators have their kids' interest at heart, right?

(09:33):

They're trying to make sure kids are learning and they're making their learning goals that they need to make. And it's coming from a really sincere place. But I think that there does have to be that downtime. I see my kid just come from school exhausted and how important that downtime is after school for her. And we know we have a mental health crisis right now. And that was the other really big impetus for me to do the bill, is that when we talked about Dr. Pope's research and how it's one of the top stressors in kids' lives. And we literally overnight could do something about it if we wanted to you know, and take one of the major stressors off kids' plates, it just seemed like it was time for us to have a real conversation about it.

Denise Pope (10:17):

One of the biggest things that I hear is "We've always had homework, there must be a reason for it. It's not sort of real school if you don't send homework home." Right? We've been doing it for years, so there must be a good reason for it. And there's also people who feel that it builds and teaches responsibility, right. Well, you should know to take the paper home and then sit and fill out the paper and then bring the paper back and turn it in. But what I always say is if we were going to design a curriculum to teach responsibility, that would not be how we design the curriculum. Just take the paper home, do this thing, take the paper back. We would have a whole different curriculum around responsibility. So that didn't work for me. I do hear the, "Well, we need to keep kids busy because otherwise they'll get into trouble."

(11:02):

Kids are going to get into trouble or not get into trouble with or without homework, right, is what I usually say. So I sort of have heard every excuse in the book for homework with one exception, which is we can't send a non-reader to third grade or there's certain things we need to cover. And if I don't send them to this next grade or class with that information, that teacher's going to come back and say, "Hey, you're handicapping me. You're making this really hard for me." So the coverage excuse comes up a lot. There's a whole equity issue that we talked about when we were putting the bill together as well, which is one in five students actually don't have the technology at home to be able to do their homework. So already we have an equity issue. Think about people whose parents don't speak English, who literally don't know how to do something and don't have the resources around them to get the help. So that raises a whole bunch of other problems with homework.

Pilar Schiavo (11:59):

Yeah, they don't have parents to help them or kids who take care of their younger siblings. That's what I did growing up when my mom was working outside the home. Luckily later they had a home-based business and my mom was around. But yeah, I was watching my brothers and had to help them with homework.

Dan Schwartz (12:17):

But you were thankful they had homework, so you didn't have to entertain them.

Pilar Schiavo (12:22):

No, because if they didn't do homework, they'd be outside playing and that was much better because they were out of my hair.

Dan Schwartz (12:27):

Okay, okay.

Denise Pope (12:27):

Nice.

Dan Schwartz (12:30):

What was the substance of the bill?

Pilar Schiavo (12:32):

The bill really, I think like I said, starts a conversation. It doesn't require school districts to do anything. It still preserves local control. And I think one of the important things that we also did in the bill is that we require input from everyone who's kind of involved in students education, from parents, from students, from teachers obviously administrators, school counselors or social workers, mental health workers, educators who work with students with disabilities, that they all have to have input into that policy. It doesn't create a requirement, so it's not a required policy. That's one of the amendments we had to make. But we did say that it's optional for them to take on and then they can update the policy every five years. The goal is to have homework policies in place by the school year that starts with 2028, in the fall of 2028, but could have model or draft plans that they're working on the year before.

(13:33):

And at this point, I think it's an opportunity for us to start a conversation with school districts, with educators, with parents, with students to kind of really make conscious choices about homework. And really take a step back and look at the homework policies and see is it really working for people? Through this process obviously, I looked at different homework policies and some of them are just how do you make up missing homework, was basically the policy. And so I think that there's a lot of work that can be done and I think that, you know, just sometimes like you're saying, you do things by habit or you do things because this is what I experienced or this is what my mentor taught me. Or one of the interesting things when I was talking to all of these teachers about homework is that I don't think not one of them said that they were taught about what was effective homework in their teacher training when they were getting certified.

(14:33):

And so it was kind of whatever their mentor, teacher did was what they did or what they experienced that they thought was fair. Or what it says at the end of the book in the chapter that they're teaching to give for homework. And so it's really kind of willy-nilly all over the place a little bit and seems like a lot of people don't even know about the research on homework, what's effective, what's not, when is homework actually detrimental?

Dan Schwartz (14:59):

I didn't know that one could do legislation that's designed to teach people rather than regulate them and enforce them. It's really interesting. You look at this bill and it's basically saying, you need to think about these things and learn about these things and then you go make your decision. I thought that was a really effective way of, it's a very educational way of getting people to change behavior as opposed to saying, you must do this.

Denise Pope (15:25):

I mean I have to say I was frustrated by this because the original bill had things that were actually required, Dan. And then in order to get it passed, we had to water it down. And I was a little bit bummed about it, and then Pilar really put the spin back on it and said- and made me feel so much better, that you know what, we are educating people. It's exactly what you're saying, Dan. And that's the first step to change, which we know. And as part of it, they do have to educate themselves on the research about homework. It's not required, but it's highly encouraged that before you put together a policy, you will probably do some research or look at other policies and get educated.

Dan Schwartz (16:07):

No, I think it's brilliant. No offense Denise, but I think more school administrators are going to pay attention to legislation than the papers you write.

Denise Pope (16:13):

Oh, for sure.

Dan Schwartz (16:15):

But they don't have a choice. So what a great way of dissemination. Everything I've ever discovered I'm going to try and legislate so that people have to actually learn what I've done. It's a brilliant idea. I really liked it.

Denise Pope (16:26):

I like the optimism.

Dan Schwartz (16:33):

So Denise, I know your attitude towards homework now. What was it like when you were a kid? Like, did you, couldn't wait to get home and do homework and you sat at the table and had cookies and milk? What was your homework experience?

Denise Pope (16:49):

No, no, not like that, no. Usually honestly when I would come home from school I'd be exhausted. And there are actually many pictures of me lying on the couch, falling asleep to Gilligan's Island in the middle of the day because I just... Which dates me, I know, but I just wasn't ready to start homework. And I went to a school that actually had quite a bit of homework. It was a very intense school and I did it. I would do my homework. I was pretty diligent about doing my homework. I was a nerd. We've sort of established that on this show before. Did I love it? Was I excited? Was I like, "oh my gosh, I'm so excited for homework?" No, but I will say this, I love to read. And when the homework was reading and we read a lot of fiction at my high school, I have to say I did like it, like I looked forward to it.

(17:39):

And so that wasn't a chore. I was not a math person, and we've talked about that before too. So that homework took me a long time and I did not love doing it. And sometimes I would have to call a friend and say, "Help."

Dan Schwartz (17:54):

Well, not to probe too much. Help means what?

Denise Pope (17:58):

Not like tell me the answers.

Dan Schwartz (18:00):

You do it for me?

Denise Pope (18:01):

No, because I was such a goody good right? Such a goody good. Every once in a while maybe, I don't know, maybe I would copy an answer here or there. But most of the time, no, I wanted to learn but it was hard for me. And luckily I had friends in better math classes than me and who could help me. But yeah, I was sort of a nerd, I did my homework. Are you going to tell me that you didn't do any homework when you were growing up, Dan Schwartz?

Dan Schwartz (18:26):

I can tell you what I learned from homework.

Denise Pope (18:27):

Okay

Dan Schwartz (18:29):

Procrastination. I really got good at it. I'm going to put it off, I'm doing it on the bus to school if I have to. So I did this straight through college. I just managed to do as little homework as possible. So the great irony, the heavens have punished me so that I have a job now where it's all homework. I'm like always doing homework, I can't get it done at the job.

Denise Pope (18:55):

Your procrastination skills have not served you well, is that what you're saying?

Dan Schwartz (18:58):

No, the world had revenge on me for procrastinating. And so now I have a job where basically I'm working until 11:00 PM every night doing homework.

Denise Pope (19:07):

To prepare for the next day?

Dan Schwartz (19:09):

To answer all the email that we get about School's In that say how wonderful it is. And I want to respond to everybody personally.

Denise Pope (19:17):

The fan, the fan mail, you're responding to the fan mail?

Dan Schwartz (19:20):

Yeah, I got to keep the fan base going.

Denise Pope (19:21):

Okay well, if I had fan mail as my homework growing up, it would've been a much different thing. Forget Gilligan's Island, I'd just go right to the fan mail, man. Before we return to the conversation, we have a quick invitation for all of you.

Sam Wineburg (19:39):

Pretty much everyone struggles to separate fact from fiction online. That's why digital literacy isn't just nice to have, it's essential. I'm Sam Wineburg, Professor Emeritus at Stanford and co-founder of the Digital Inquiry Group, a new nonprofit that teaches students to make wise choices about what to believe online. I'll be joining Schools' In for a live taping at Stanford on May 21st. We'll dive into digital literacy in the AI era. How young people, educators, and all of us can better navigate the internet and avoid tumbling down rabbit holes.

Denise Pope (21:13):

So any listeners who happen to be in Palo Alto in May, please register now using the link in the episode description. We are so excited to see you there.

Pilar Schiavo (20:27):

Another piece of the bill Denise started to talk about is that you have to consider impacts to mental health, to students with learning disabilities, to students with IEPs or 504s. And one of the interesting things that I heard from after-school education program director that I spoke to about it, is that parents are getting so overwhelmed. And I saw it in parents' faces when I would talk to kids and parents about it, you know, they're begging for relief in a lot of ways. They're like, when does your bill go into effect? But parents are figuring out a way around it. They're getting 504s for their kids to address homework and try to do it that way. And that was really interesting that they brought that up and they said basically more astute parents, parents who are more aware of it. But it brings up this equity issue there too, that only some people are having access.

Dan Schwartz (21:23):

What's a 504?

Denise Pope (21:24):

Yeah, I knew he needs to know what a 504 is, Pilar. Go ahead.

Dan Schwartz (21:28):

I didn't do my homework. Sorry.

Pilar Schiavo (21:31):

So a 504 is basically a plan you can come up with for student if they need help getting access to their education. So maybe they have ADHD or some other kind of learning disability. You can do it for depression, anxiety, other kind of mental health issues as well. And then an IEP is kind of a higher level mandated accommodations that are required to do to help students learn with supportive services and things like that to come along.

Denise Pope (22:03):

What was becoming crazy is kids were being so stressed about homework and falling behind, or it was becoming such a source of tension in people's homes that they would actually go and beg someone, a doctor, a therapist or whatever to allow them to get a 504 that would allow accommodations and kind of lower the pressure and maybe reduce the homework for that particular kid. And you know, the surgeon general just put out a report on the stress of being a parent of young kids. And homework is a very big source of tension. And parents, as Pilar said, they didn't want to be the homework police. Everyone's exhausted at the end of the day, the last thing you want to do is fight with your kid over what they need to do. And especially when they think it's busy work or as a parent, you don't even know how to help them.

Pilar Schiavo (22:53):

Yeah, my kid had a meltdown in fourth grade over, as you can imagine, I have had busy lives and evening events and stuff like that. And so I'm trying to get her to do homework in the back of the car while I'm driving to an event, that didn't work out. And then it definitely didn't happen at the event. And so we get home, you know, when it's time to go to bed and she needs to get sleep. And so I just said, "Just don't do your homework tonight." And she started bawling and just was like a puddle of tears and afraid her teacher was going to be disappointed in her, that she was going to get in trouble, that she was going to be kept in for a recess. And it was fourth grade. And I'm like, what is going on? Why is homework so stressful in fourth grade? It really blew me away.

Dan Schwartz (23:42):

So there's one side of this which is homework's stressful and another side of it that the homework's just not achieving any goal. So I have a great example of both simultaneously. So my son goes to high school and it's his first class, and the teacher assigns some incredible amount of homework that's due like the next day. And I look at this and later on I get a chance to talk to the teacher. I said, "Why'd you sign that? That was like 12 hours of homework." She said, "I didn't expect them to do all of it." And it was just sort of like, "Well, how are they supposed to decide what...?" So that was a stress model and a very bad pedagogical model.

Denise Pope (24:27):

Yeah, that's not okay.

Dan Schwartz (24:28):

But I bet I could come up with homework that's actually fun and useful. Like, can I do that? And if it's fun, it'll not be stressful or I can make it fun and stressful.

Denise Pope (24:39):

No, you don't want it fun and stressful. Here's the thing, here's the thing. It's always going to be when can I fit this into my life as a kid, as a parent, how does this all fit in with all the daily responsibilities and what we know kids need? They need time for exercise and outside time. They need time to spend with family, they need sleep, all of that stuff, right, how to find that balance. But we're not saying all homework is bad, we're just saying if kids think it's busy work and they have too much to do or they don't have the resources to do it, right, it is not being effective. So what is effective, right? There is such a thing as effective homework, is finding the right amount. It's showing them the purpose behind it and making it engaging and fun. There's actually really good research that if the homework is engaging to the students, they're more likely to do it and not cheat on it.

And whatever they're having them do, it's more likely to stick. So it doesn't mean that all homework is bad, it just means that as you're designing homework, really think about from the student's point of view, which is why I'm so excited that the bill says, "We encourage you to include students as part of this conversation." Because they'll tell you if it's boring or if I think it's busy work or whatever. And I think most kids know that not all homework is going to go away. Certainly as you get into the older years, you have to do things to prepare for class. It makes sense to read a chapter of a book in order to discuss it in school. So as we think about the takeaways from all of this, I do want to just say that Pilar's daughter played a very key role in the making of the bill.

And it was so hard for me because I would have to speak after her. So she would go and she would give the students view of homework and why it really affected her life and why she was an expert witness, because she was living through it right, as to why the bill should happen. And then they'd be like, "Oh my gosh, that was so amazing. Wonderful. Oh, Dr. Pope, do you have anything to say?" And it was like, who's going to follow that? She said it all. So Pilar, that was amazing, really amazing.

Pilar Schiavo (26:52):

Yeah, it was a really incredible experience to go through to have my kid and I running this through the process, and her there every time and all the education committee hearings. And it was a really memorable experience I think we'll remember forever.

Dan Schwartz (27:08):

Oh, that's awesome.

Denise Pope (27:09):

I love it, I love it. So as we think about takeaways for the listeners, Pilar, what's one thing you want them to leave with?

Pilar Schiavo (27:18):

I really hope that people will take this as a tool to their school boards and start conversations there. I'm hoping, as I said, I come out of the labor movement, I think about things as an organizer. And I really think that this can be a useful tool for parents, for students, for educators to bring to their administration, to bring to their school boards and to start this conversation. Say, "Hey, you know I think we should look at this. We should think about what is our homework policy? What kind of impact is it having on our kids? Is it really having the kind of impact on their education we want to? Is it negatively or positively impacting their mental health? You know, is it creating inequity?" All of the things that I think a conversation like this can really help to address.

And so I hope that people will use it as a tool. They can reach out to our office if they need help doing it. We are gonna, you know, try to do that ourselves and start some of these conversations with some of the bigger school boards in the state, and see if we can get the ball rolling on moving this policy forward.

Denise Pope (28:19):

Super exciting. Dan, you want last word on homework?

Dan Schwartz (28:23):

I think the thing I learned which may be true of education in general, is that people want homework to do too many things simultaneously. So it's not being optimized for anything in particular. And so that leads to all these, that's the way we've always done it kind of responses. If you really knew why you were doing it, you'd probably make it effective, shorter, fun, things like that. So the bill, which is intended to make people do exactly that, is a great idea.

Denise Pope (28:55):

Great. That's the part that I'm leaving with, first of all for Dan Schwartz to be an optimist about policy, you don't even know how amazing that is, Pilar. But this idea that policy is to teach and to educate is just something that I'm going to leave thinking more about. So I appreciate that from this conversation very much. So pilar, thank you so much for joining us. We know you're so busy. Thank you for all you're doing and all the legislation that you're working on these days, education related or not, because I know how much you do. And thank all of you for joining this episode of School's In. Be sure to subscribe to the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you tune in. I'm Denise Pope.

Dan Schwartz (29:35):

And I'm Dan Schwartz who learned that he should close the blinds before we start recording.

Pilar Schiavo (29:41):

Homework for next time.

Dan Schwartz (29:42):

Yeah.

Denise Pope (29:44):

Exactly.