I wonder what the range of average work loads are these days in typical American high schools. Of course, it would vary depending on the caliber of the high schools, the typical number of courses per semester (6 v. 8), the level of the classes (AP/GT v. Honors v. Standard), the abilities/disabilities of the students, etc. What has been your experience/impression?

It is entirely possible for both accounts of homework to be true within the same school, in this age of equal outcomes and "differentiated task demands".

What do you mean by work loads? How many classes they take? How many hours of work are expected for each class? What kind of work they have to do? Are they involved in performing arts? Athletic teams? Service organizations? Scholastic competitions? There are so many variables! And performing arts on our high school are a course, but require participation outside of the school day.

High school workloads seem fine so far. Actually a little light at the moment.

Teaching what is not being taught in class is not so fine, however.

I am curious about this too. It appears that in our school district, a standard course load will be 6 units, a rigorous course load will be 8 -9 units (see example below). Taking 9 units will involve skipping lunch which I have heard some high school kids do. Caveat: my kids are not in high school yet, so I am not speaking from actual experience. Perhaps people with more experience can post a typical course load for junior and senior load for a strong student in their school.

The science course in my "rigorous course load" example refers to regular or honors science. AP science as I understand it will take up 2 units (1 unit for the regular class, 1 unit for lab).

English (1 unit)
History (1 unit)
Science (1.5 units)
Math (1 unit)
Foreign Language (1 unit)
PE (.5 unit)
Elective (1 unit)
Elective (1 unit)

My daughter
AP Stats (Most AP Calculus BC)1 unit
AP Language Composition 1unit
AP Physics 1.5 units
AP Us History 1 unit
Spanish 4 1unit
Band 1 unit

The school only has 8 periods. This could be her schedule next year when she would be a junior.

There is a kid who is in all 6 of my child's classes this year. His mother just reported to me that he has 4 hours of homework a night. My child has less than 30 minutes a night...

Canadian experience for an IB diploma: 6 year-long courses generated the equivalent of about 1.5-2 hours of homework per night, on average, in grades 11 and 12. Because of laptops in class, almost all homework was completed in class time in parallel to lectures and required little to no out-of-school work on weeknights, with maybe 4 hours total on weekends dedicated to longer-term projects.

This left ample time for socializing and extra-curriculars.

I think we may have a similar homework disparity between standard v. Honors v. Gifted courses. I am not sure if anyone has 5 to 7 hours of homework but some kids are stressed by the workload and/or grades. There has been some instances of crying in class. My kids are pretty chill but they admitted only because they are acing everything. I am still trying to get a handle on how much homework my kids actually have. It's hard to tell because they are usually goofing off (social media, YouTube, web serials, etc.) while doing homework. There has been some late nights but only because they left them last minute.

I am wondering about number of courses, hours of homework per course, and types of assignments. I would not include extracurriculars as that can really vary by personal choice. For example, our students take eight courses but four every other day. Our instrumental music courses would be included in the above but I would probably not include outside auditions or even concerts.

Um . . . I was referring to actual students . . . LOL.

Interesting, at our school, all students take eight courses. I just found out that at least one of the AP Sciences (Chem) take up two periods. WTH?

What does she do during the remaining 1.5 periods?

Perhaps he has an exceptionality (adhd, dysgraphia, etc.) that makes it difficult to complete class work. It also depends on whether he is actually working the whole four hours or mixing work and play.

Our school doesn't have IB although our very large district has a couple of schools that offer IB. Unfortunately, they are not popular here and the programs are not at one of the better schools. The other thing that I have noticed is that high school has changed a lot since the old days. Students don't spent that much of class time "listening" to lectures; they are engaged in actual work, group discussions, projects, presentations, etc.