Maryland School Abolishes Traditional Homework
There were likely cries of joy from students (and maybe a few parents) at Gaithersburg Elementary School in Maryland when Principal Stephanie Brant announced a radical new experiment: no more traditional homework.
Instead, students are asked to read about 30 minutes a night from a book of their choosing.
Over the past few years, Brant and her staff evaluated what teachers were sending students home with and found they were asking students to complete a lot of worksheets.
"The worksheets didn't match what we were doing instructionally in the classroom," Brant said in a news story on MyFoxDC.com. "We were giving students something because we felt we have to give them something."
Parents appear to support the change, and Brant hopes it will prove motivational for her students.
Unlike most elementary schools, students at Gaithersburg are allowed to go to the library every day instead of just once a week as a class. The school believes this will strengthen reading habits and result in the students consuming more books at their own pace.
According to MyFoxDC.com, the new policy seems to be paying off. Fifth graders at Gaithersburg Elementary School scored around 72 percent proficiency in math and about 81 percent proficiency in reading in the last round of standardized test scores.
Photo: Anne Wick/Getty Images
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