Courtesy MyFoxDC.com:
By John Henrehan, FOX 5 Reporter
GAITHERSBURG, Md. -
Gaithersburg Elementary School has abolished homework. Instead, students are being asked to read a book for about 30 minutes a night.
When Stephanie Brant came aboard as principal two years ago, she and her staff conducted a review of homework assignments.
"We really started evaluating the work that we sent students home with," explained Principal Brant. "We started looking, and really, it was a lot of worksheets. And the worksheets didn't match what we were doing instructionally in the classroom. It was just: we were giving students something because we felt we had to give them something."
So, Brant got permission from the school district to implement a radical experiment: the only homework assigned here is reading.
Fifth grader Ann Urrutia got regular homework here as a second-grader; then it went away. We asked her if she misses doing those math problems at home.
"We do [the math problems] in school," she explained.
Urrutia estimates she reads about 30 minutes a night.
That's the principal's goal: 30 minutes a night of reading for every student. Parents appear to be generally supportive of the abolition of traditional homework.
MORE
By John Henrehan, FOX 5 Reporter
GAITHERSBURG, Md. -
Gaithersburg Elementary School has abolished homework. Instead, students are being asked to read a book for about 30 minutes a night.
When Stephanie Brant came aboard as principal two years ago, she and her staff conducted a review of homework assignments.
"We really started evaluating the work that we sent students home with," explained Principal Brant. "We started looking, and really, it was a lot of worksheets. And the worksheets didn't match what we were doing instructionally in the classroom. It was just: we were giving students something because we felt we had to give them something."
So, Brant got permission from the school district to implement a radical experiment: the only homework assigned here is reading.
Fifth grader Ann Urrutia got regular homework here as a second-grader; then it went away. We asked her if she misses doing those math problems at home.
"We do [the math problems] in school," she explained.
Urrutia estimates she reads about 30 minutes a night.
That's the principal's goal: 30 minutes a night of reading for every student. Parents appear to be generally supportive of the abolition of traditional homework.
MORE