He gave specifics that indicate that he's complaining about a homework workload which is less than 1/4th of what you just listed for your 9yo, Val.
What he reported (not in the first school, but the Lab school, which is an exam school in NYC, yes?) seemed not at all unreasonable to me.
THAT is why I think that yeah, he's being a bit whiny.
I also strongly suspect that the 79p reading assignment was a matter of a reading assignment which was intended for 3 evenings, not one-- or was intended not as a FIRST read-through, but as a second one specifically for the purpose of pulling out quotes. DD did quite similar activities in middle school. Not excessive, and not necessarily busywork.
What Val describes is not even comparable to what the Dad in this article is listing.
He specifically describes algebra homework which is 10-11 problems per evening, yes? Assume for a moment that this is two, maybe three types of problems-- seems entirely in line with the idea of reasonable repetition for mastery of the concept.
I just don't see this parent as anything but a different sub-category of the parents who-- being honest in my opinion-- tend to ruin authentic GT classes with their fervor to get their kids into them.
Well, if it can't be hard, (because then not very many students can actually DO the work) then it still needs to FEEL hard. Voila-- the body double of rigor, there, is volume of output.
That's not really appropriately meeting anyone's needs, of course. The GT students NEED what most students can't legitimately do. The others need instruction that is meaningfully on their level, too, and could really do without all of the more-more-more-more frenzy.
I just don't think that is really what this author was accurately reporting. Val-- YOUR kids' situation seems like the real thing to me. So does what our local high schools do to kids in honors/college-prep. But this seems kind of tame, honestly. He's reporting EXCESSIVE homework, via time-to-completion, and I'm seeing that the details of this homework shouldn't be taking that long if this student is appropriately placed (apparently taking high school college-prep coursework). Which-- um, is what the teacher told him, too.
Basically, I interpret that as "Sorry, this class IS hard. Maybe it's too hard for your kid."
Don't we all wish that administrators and teachers WOULD do a bit more of that rather than watering down content?
I also think that he's being a little sensationalistic here. It's a modern twist on the similar wry editorials about "ha-ha- I can't do my fifth grader's math homework because I don't understand it, how ridiculous is that?" that were in vogue in the 60's-70's.
