Homework in many cases was a matter of passing or failing the class. Thankfully DSS20 was great at test taking and got made it through high school by getting As and Bs on mid-terms and finals.
Reminds me of a blog post by a high school teacher:
http://educationrealist.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/homework-and-grades/Homework and grades.
By educationrealist
February 6, 2012
The NY Times rewinds the typical homework debate. The post gets predictable pro and con responses: “homework is ruining my kid’s life” vs. “homework is a necessary component to learning”.
As is often the case, the situation at hand involves middle and elementary school students. High school homework rarely gets much scrutiny, unless it’s high achieving students complaining (with a lot of justification) about the huge amount of work they have to stay on top of to stay competitive.
But outside the top 10%, homework’s impact on high school students is a much neglected issue, and it shouldn’t be. Few people seem to understand the inordinate influence homework has on student transcripts—and the results, for the most part, are near-fraudulent.
High school students are far less likely to do assigned homework and the consequences for non-compliance are much higher, because students who don’t do homework often fail—not for lack of demonstrated subject matter skills, but simply for not doing their homework.
I think math grades should depend nonlinearly on homework and test scores. Students who can show they can do a certain type of problem should be exempted from doing lots of homework problems of the same type.
