Schools rethink homework

Dogs may not have anything to eat, but students could feel less stress if more schools reconsider their homework assignment policies.

Why it matters: Conversations about the value of homework in education have simmered for years, but students' mental health struggles and artificial intelligence have pushed it to the forefront.

• 37% of 13-year-old students said they had "no homework assigned" on the day before a National Center for Education Statistics survey in 2023.
• In 2020, that figure was 29%. In 2012, it was 21%.

Case in point: Butterfield Canyon Elementary School in Herriman, Utah, has had a no-homework policy since 2020.

• "It helps increase the overall social-emotional health of our students because they're not so focused, especially at the elementary level, just on 'academic, academic, academic,'" Jay Eads, the school's principal, told Axios.
• "They're able to explore other aspects of their life, which they should be doing at this developmental stage."

Zoom out: While students have shown some improvement in mental health metrics since the pandemic, overall wellbeing has not reduced to pre-2020 levels, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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