Imagine yourself surfing the web to look at colleges you’ve been interested in applying to. The location and weather are perfect for where you want to start a new chapter of your life; they offer your major, and the cost is even satisfactory.  However, as you look through the requirements, distress and regret start to set in because you realize that you don’t have the grades to qualify. Others do – and do you know where those students’ good grades came from? Homework.

Kids across America complain daily about the amount of homework they’re assigned each night, even if it’s close to none at all. Some even blindly say that we should abolish the policy all together, while others suggest it be reduced because it has very little impact on schoolwork. However, a closer look reveals that homework does have a positive effect on student learning.  The website “Working Together: School, Family and Community Partnerships – A Toolkit for New Mexico School Communities” says homework does not serve as a punishment but, instead, it is a policy for schools to help students develop participation skills, increase personal growth, work on preparation and practice, and ensure students of developing important skills that lead to a feeling of accomplishment. Homework recognizes students’ diverse talents and skills that may not be taught in school but may in life.

The Montgomery County Public Schools Board of Education concurs with this philosophy as they state that the purpose of homework is considered beneficial and important in a student’s overall program.

In 2012, The Maryland Department of Education tracked the progress of three- thousand children over the past fifteen years, and their studies showed that spending any time doing homework was beneficial to students; however, the effects were greater for students who put in two-or-three hours a night. The Hoover Institution – an American public organization think tank located at Stanford University in California –conducted its survey; involving a group of teens and the amount of homework they do every night. Twenty-one percent of the teens reported not having any homework assigned or just not doing it, whereas forty-nine percent spent less than an hour and only twenty-six percent spent an hour or more.

Maybe this lack of homework and a desire to abolish it altogether is why countries such as China are becoming much more successful than the U.S. Just as students in the U.S. don’t have a say in the amount of homework they get, neither do teens in China. The difference is they don’t say anything about it. They take what they get without question, and they simply do it. Their study habits are improved and their responsibility levels are as well, which in today’s society is very important to colleges and the global economy. Everyone is competing for a spot and the ones who get in are the ones who stay up all night, regardless of how long it takes to get it done.