There was a movie made about homework a few years ago ("Race to Nowhere" was the appropriate title). I remember way way way too much homework - to the point where it was harmful as other posters noted.
One reason some high school students are spending so much time on homework is that they are not smart enough for some of the classes they are taking. Pushing everyone to take AP classes has become a political crusade. Some AP Calculus teachers may be assigning too much homework, but there are also some students taking AP Calculus who have not mastered algebra and trigonometry and therefore struggle with calculus problems.
There was no trigonometry in the calculus I learnt.
Bostonian, a lot of K-12 homework is busywork and of limited or no value to student learning. My middle schoolers are routinely assigned word searches and other silly assignments that don't teach them anything, yet take a lot of time to complete.
That said, I agree with the idea that a lot of students are taking courses that are too hard for them, or, alternatively, overall course loads that are too much for them cognitively.
Then there is the factor of bad course design combined with bad textbooks. One of my kids was forced into a crappy pre-algebra course last year and two hours a night wasn't enough for him to learn that material. Even my eldest (math whiz) would have done poorly in that course. It was a mess of mixed-up concepts from beginning to end.
Talullah, maybe you took a very light calculus course or you've forgotten the course content. It's not really possible to get a proper grounding in calculus without trigonometry.
