In January, LaSalle Parish schools in rural Louisiana announced a districtwide change: required homework is gone. The policy covers about 2,500 students from elementary through high school. Parents may request optional practice materials, Superintendent Jonathan Garrett said, but assignments will no longer be mandatory or graded.
Garrett cited persistent complaints from families and students about homework—parents who struggle to help, assignments that feel repetitive, and tasks that often take longer than expected. He also pointed to generative artificial intelligence as a complicating factor, saying some traditional take-home practice hasn’t adapted to the presence of powerful tools that can do students’ work.
The decision drew a swift and largely positive reaction on social media; the district’s announcement became its most “liked” post this year and prompted parents in nearby areas to ask how to copy the policy. LaSalle’s move sits within a broader trend: homework, particularly in math, has been declining in many U.S. schools.
Federal survey data show that fewer fourth- and eighth-graders are doing math homework than in past decades. From 1996 through 2015, only about 4–6 percent of fourth graders reported having no math homework the night before a survey; by 2024, that share had climbed to more than one-quarter. Teachers report similar shifts. An Education Week Research Center survey found 40 percent of teachers said homework assignments had decreased over the previous two years; among those teachers, 29 percent blamed students’ use of AI for part of the change.
What homework actually accomplishes remains contested. Research findings are mixed because studies face big variations in how long students take on tasks, the quality of assignments, and students’ home circumstances. A 2021 longitudinal study of more than 6,000 students across Germany, Uruguay and the Netherlands found that lower-performing students who increased their time on math homework made measurable gains a year later. By contrast, a 1998 Duke University study of more than 700 U.S. elementary students found that more homework did not significantly boost standardized test scores—though it produced small improvements in class grades—and was associated with worse attitudes toward school among younger children.
Some experts stress that math often requires repeated practice. Researcher and former teacher Tom Loveless argues that procedural math skills benefit from repetition and that classroom time is frequently devoted more to instruction than to practice. Critics worry that cutting homework could worsen math performance at a time when national scores in the subject are already a concern.
Generative AI has added urgency to the debate. A Pew Research Center survey found that more than half of teens reported using chatbots to help with schoolwork, and roughly one in 10 said they had the technology do most or all of their assignments. Educators are scrambling to design homework that preserves academic integrity and remains meaningful when students can turn to AI for quick answers.
Equity is another major factor. Ariel Taylor Smith of the National Parents Union said some districts eliminate homework to avoid penalizing students whose families can’t provide help at home. But she and others note a tension: students who fall far behind may need additional practice, and not every family can or will supply it. In response, some parents create their own at-home routines—reading, flash cards, or extra practice—where schools reduce or stop assigning work.
Families’ experiences vary widely. Jim Malliard of Franklin, Pa., described homework as a daily source of stress: tasks teachers estimated would take 15 minutes sometimes stretched to an hour, complicated by his children’s school-based trauma and bullying. Those struggles led his family to enroll the children in a virtual charter school.
How much homework is appropriate has been debated for decades. A common guideline recommends about 10 minutes per grade level each night (10 minutes for first grade, 120 minutes for 12th). But it’s difficult to create assignments that take the same amount of time for every student. Research also suggests there are limits: a 2014 Stanford study of more than 4,300 students in high-performing California high schools found academic benefits leveled off after roughly two hours of homework per night; more than that was linked to greater stress and less sleep.
Many experts say the focus should be on quality, not quantity. Joyce Epstein of Johns Hopkins, who has long studied homework, argues that research too often measures only time spent rather than the assignment’s purpose. She recommends designing homework with a clear objective and keeping it as short as necessary to meet that goal. In math, this often means targeted, brief practice rather than dozens of repetitive problems.
Some districts are responding by cutting homework volume while redesigning assignments. Wendy Birhanzel, superintendent of Harrison School District 2 in Colorado, described shifting away from long worksheets toward short, purposeful tasks: a focused reading activity, a few math problems, or a brief writing exercise. LaSalle Parish plans a similar approach and is also giving teachers the option to slow the pace of instruction and build practice time into the school day, even if that reduces the amount of content covered over the year. Garrett said he believes in-class practice may be more effective than rushing through a curriculum.
The homework debate has swung back and forth over generations and will likely evolve further as new evidence, technology and public opinion emerge. Variations in students’ backgrounds, time on task, and how teachers use assignments make a single, one-size-fits-all policy difficult. Still, experiments like LaSalle’s are prompting other districts and families to reconsider whether homework helps, hurts, or simply needs to be redesigned for today’s classrooms.
This article was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news outlet focused on inequality and innovation in education. Contact writer Ariel Gilreath at [email protected].