Teachers are abusing the minds of students.  According to LA Times, “Homework improves academic outcomes, up to a point.” In my opinion, when I spend more than 2 hours on homework each night I do not remember half the topics I learned the previous day.

The average attention span of a high school student is about 20 minutes. If a student spends more than 20 minutes on a subject than they are more likely to rush to get the work done or copy it down from someone else rather than doing it themselves. Teachers always complain that students do not put their best work forward, but still continue to give us mountains of homework that is almost impossible to complete.

Not only will more than two hours of homework a night hurt a student’s academic career, it will contribute to the stress that students already have. Stanford News conducted a survey asking students if they considered homework a primary source of stress and about 56% of the students considered it to be. Bucknor, a Don Lugo AP student stated that she gets “…anywhere from 5-6 hours of homework per night.”

Bucknor also stated that “It is a big portion” of the stress that she feels towards school, but she also has the SAT to prepare for and college applications to fill out. So students are expected to complete the tremendous amount of homework given, study for the upcoming SAT and fill out their college applications? Oh, and I have to also have to eat, sleep and squeeze in a social life too.

Dixon, another student attending Don Lugo who is not taking any AP courses stated that he has “about 2 and a half hours” of homework per night. If you add up the 2 and a half hours of homework per night times the 5 school days, you get about 12 and a half hours of homework per week. Although this is only a half an hour over the maximum hours they are suppose to give, it is still over the maximum amount that is stated in the CVUSD board policy.

Students are practically drowning in stress from the multiple tasks they have to complete when the Chino Valley Unified School District board policy AR 6154 states that teachers are not allowed to give more 10-12 hours of homework per week for college prep and honors classes and no more than 15-20 hours of homework for advanced placement classes. If you add up the 5-6 hours of homework per day that Bucknor recieves times the 5 school days, you will get 25-30 hours a week.

Teachers are suppose to follow these board policies, but it’s evident that they do not when students like Bucknor and Dixon have an average of 25-30 hours and 12 and a half hours of homework per week. Students have too much homework and most of it is not productive or necessary. Teachers need to start following the board policies because in the long run it will improve students academic career.