A Differentiated Homework Plan

Tom Milley

Class Action by Steven B. Frank involves a court action by Los Angeles elementary school students seeking a court order banning homework. In my last post, a review of the book, I set out the entertaining and thought provoking arguments of the children that homework unnecessarily interfered with their right to be kids.

In the book Frank referred to a series of actual American Supreme Court decisions involving schools and related them to the issue of homework.

Most famous was Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas which struck down the “separate but equal” schools of America which had perpetuated segregation and provided inferior education to African Americans.

Most unusual was A.M. v. Holmes which “upheld the arrest of a thirteen-year-old boy for fake-burping in gym class”.

Most significant for the children’s case was Goss v. Lopez which “established education as a property right”. The Court was dealing with the issue of whether Ohio schools could suspend students for 10 days or less without a hearing.

In the majority opinion Mr. Justice White stated:

A short suspension is, of course, a far milder deprivation than expulsion. But, “education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments,” Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 347 U.S. 493 (1954), and the total exclusion from the educational process for more than a trivial period, and certainly if the suspension is for 10 days, is a serious event in the life of the suspended child. Neither the property interest in educational benefits temporarily denied nor the liberty interest in reputation, which is also implicated, is so insubstantial that suspensions may be constitutionally imposed by any procedure the school chooses, no matter how arbitrary.

Here is a link - https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/419/565/

Yet the case reference in the book that caught my attention was a Canadian case:

…. If you look to common law principles to support our claim, you’ll find that in 2009 the Supreme Court of Canada granted one family the right to refuse homework for their son.

I was intrigued. Was there such a case? I could not recall such a decision.

My research showed there was no court decision but there was a unique agreement negotiated in 2009 by Shelli and Tom Milley, Calgary lawyers, with the Calgary Catholic School Board that their younger children would not have to do homework.

In a Globe and Mail article the Milley’s were prompted to take action because:

Shelli and Tom Milley were exhausted by the weepy weeknight struggles over math problems and writing assignments with their three school-aged children. They were fed up with rushing home from soccer practice or speed skating only to stand over their kids tossing out answers so they could finish and get to bed.

And don't even get them started on the playground their daughter, Brittany, had to build in Grade 3 from recycled materials, complete with moving parts. Or the time their eldest son, Jay, was told to cut pictures of $1-million worth of consumer goods from a catalogue.

They reviewed studies that suggested homework, especially for younger grades, did not show a clear link “between work at home and school performance”.

The Milley’s valued education but wanted the opportunity to determine as parents what extra work was needed. They spoke of the frustration of not having time to focus on specific needs. They wanted to work on spelling with Brittany but could not because of all the other homework.

Having struggled through homework with their 18 year old son, Jay, they wanted a different arrangement with their younger children, Spencer who was 11 and Brittany who was 10. It took two years but they reached an agreement with the administration called a “differentiated homework plan”.

In the agreement:

…. their teachers will have to mark them based on what they do in class, and cannot send work home that factors into their grades.

More specifically:

The contract the Milleys and their children signed doesn't go just one way. While preventing teachers from giving penalties when homework isn't done, it also puts clear expectations on the students and their parents - to practice a musical instrument, for instance, and read daily, two activities more clearly linked to academic success, Ms. Milley suggested, than racing through leftover homework. And the parents agreed to make sure their children have "opportunities" to review class work and study for tests. (Although that may as well be homework, Ms. Milley observed wryly, noting that, by her count, Spencer has had roughly 28 quizzes and tests in about 38 class days of Grade 7.) The bottom line: the Milley kids won't be doing any school-assigned work at home any time soon ....

 In an interview with the CBC:

With that bit of paper, Shelli Milley says the children can now go straight to bed after Girl Guides, gymnastics, speed skating and music lessons, without them, or their parents, having to complete long multiplication or jiggle decimal points.

Subsequently individual agreements were worked out on homework with some other parents. Those agreements were more informal.

Tragically Tom died suddenly a year later.

I do not recall excessive homework when I was in grade school. More time was spent at home studying for exams than in homework. I certainly had enough time to read. I would go through about 6 books every two weeks as that was the maximum number of books I could take out of the library.