California once effectively banned homework for children under fifteen
In 1901 California's legislature passed an act that all but abolished homework for anyone younger than 15. It capped a parental revolt against evening assignments. American attitudes have swung back and forth ever since, while research suggests the benefits depend heavily on a student's age and how much work piles up.
Nineteenth-century homework was mostly memorising a text at home, and it could end a child's schooling. Attendance was optional, many children had farm work and chores, and those who could not keep up simply quit. In 1880 Francis Amasa Walker persuaded Boston's school board to forbid routine maths homework. In 1900 the journalist Edward Bok urged parents to demand an end to homework before age 15, and thousands sent notes to teachers. Critics observed that school hours plus homework exceeded what new child labour laws allowed a child to work for wages, and Congress heard experts suggest teenagers do no more than two hours a day.
The Cold War reversed the mood in the 1950s, as children were urged to keep pace with Soviet pupils. After that, opinion has roughly followed a 15-year pendulum: favoured until the mid-1960s, rejected until 1980, revived after the report A Nation at Risk, then cooling once the Cold War ended.
Studies going back to the early 1900s reach no single verdict. For grade-school pupils, extra homework has not been shown to raise achievement, and the popular claim that it builds good study habits early has never actually been tested. Teenagers who do more tend to earn better grades and scores, but the gains reverse past about 90 minutes a night in middle school or two hours in high school. Weaker students gain most, yet teachers often give them less.
The load can weigh on families. In a 2007 MetLife survey, 89% of American students reported homework stress, and 34% felt it often or very often. A study of 4,317 pupils at ten affluent high-performing high schools, averaging over three hours a night, linked heavier loads with more engagement but also with health complaints and academic stress. Pew's 2019 review of federal time-use data found American 15- to 17-year-olds averaged about an hour a day, around 16 minutes more than in 2003 to 2006, with girls doing more than boys.
Source: Homework
