LAUSD Declares Homework Racist, Classist

I am a student in LAUSD and I am taking 4 AP classes currently. My parents' been working till 2 AM since I was 10. I had no problem doing my homework even though I always get home at 6:30. The reason why kids don't do there homework is not because there is not enough time to. They are just lazy and think that it is okay to not do homework.

LOL.  I just laugh at the LAUSD and thank God that my kids don't go to those schools.  Just keep voting those Liberal Democrats into every office people, but don't be shocked at the results. 

Why make them do anything,anymore,it comes back to the parents,sad,we make excuses more and more to make things easier for minorities and those that have so-called problems,this doesnt help them at all,it just makes be lazy and unaccountable the norm.California is on its way to being a 3rd world state,where most of its inhabitants are unable to better themselves and no motivation to do so!!

Thought readers would find it interesting to read the third installment of LAUSD Chief John Deasy's recent speech at Occidental College in which he talked about 'A Tale Of Two School Systems' (Part III): http://patch.com/A-mVns

Thought readers would find it interesting to read the third installment of LAUSD Chief John Deasy's recent speech at Occidental College in which he talked about 'A Tale Of Two School Systems' (Part III): http://patch.com/A-mVns

All this policy will do is continue to lower the bar rather than find creative ways to encourage students to excel in spite of their circumstances. And unfortunately, the students will gladly oblige to only reach that high...Besides, whatever happened to personal accountability? That expectation seems to have been lost entirely, and has nothing to do with a kid's homelife.

Grades are one thing, but if the completion of homework is any indicator of the support for education that a student receives at home, then other indicators, like STAR testing, will still reveal some sort of achievement gap between one group and another, as students who generally receive more home support are generally more successful - parents from such homes will still have students practice their reading at home, etc.  From what I understand, STAR testing scores are used more frequently and reliably to measure any sort of achievement gap, anyway.  Decreasing the impact that homework has on grades won't do as much.

Look, it's good that homework and its impact upon the grade should be limited... but, not for these reasons. I was a very bright student, and I routinely ignored my homework because it was a boring waste of time for a student who caught on quickly. Nothing irritated me more than watching myself get A's on all my tests, but still getting C's and D's in classes, coming in behind students who would routinely flunk or otherwise get low marks on their exams, yet get an A or B in the class simply because the grading rubric was so heavily weighted towards homework. The grades reflected who did the most busywork, and completely ignored who had actually mastered the material. Indeed, teachers weighted grades towards homework, because they knew most students were not learning much, and favoring homework to real performance was an easy way to still pass students on a level. Many, if not most of my teachers, would assign one of three grades for homework: Check-plus, Check, or Check-minus. In other words, students were not graded for having answered items correctly, via a percentage or somewhat accurate letter-grade. Homework grades were assigned based on whether students had done their homework more or less correctly, had merely attempted their  homework, or had not attempted their homework. Those were the three marks! It doesn't take a genius, to figure out how one of the dumbest girls in my graduating class, came within an hair's breadth of becoming saludatorian (see, my high school also eliminated factored grades from advanced classes, because factoring advanced coursework's grades was also deemed too elitist... introducing the problem of a girl who took the simplest math and english courses - neither AP nor even College Prep courses - threatening to edge out our best and brightest, who had taken AP Calculus, English, etc.). This girl just handed in all the busy work - no matter how poorly done - and got average marks on her exams. She managed to pull almost straight As.

It's a great thing that less emphasis is being put on grades for homework; hopefully the teachers are still assigning homework on providing feedback for students who do the work, though. And, as a last thought, if all the weight of grading simply shifts to in-class busy work, you can be sure that the same pretense of grading will go on, as students get at least B grades simply for "trying" to do the assignments.

Saves all those lazy teachers from having to check, correct and assess the homework. Soon we will have the situation that teachers should not teach or grade because it will identify those students who could not care less. Permanent school holdays will be declared with the teachers drawing their salary for being politically correct, but strong budgetary savings as a consequence of the lack of need for school buildings or their maintanance.

Precedent: EU and US paying farmers for not growing crops, or raising animals or producing milk, butter and cheese.   

The achievement gap won't go away until we start hitting Asian and White students over the head with a crowbar at the start of every school day.

If Homework is so racist then we should charge it with a hate crime!

Wow, knowledge and beliefs show themselves in so many ways. I do not normally make comments on blogs such as this, though I feel this one is necessary.  Yes, I think the 10% is a good idea. As a student I did not do homework if I understood the material in class. On occasion the additional practice that thoughtful intentional homework provided was a welcome comfort. There were times (plenty) that I did not understand the homework and rather than being docked for not completing it, I was encouraged to ask questions about it so that I might master the information or methods for later use in the class. As a teacher I am not going to punish a kid for not doing their homework. Punishment will arrive when the student is asked to show competence in the subject at hand. "Kill and drill" was the way of some of my teachers. For some it works, but that "some" can not be divided by your obvious bigotry.  So... for those who are complaining about this... Why would you EVER give more than 10% for home work ANYWAY! Regardless of who is in your class. The LAUSD position has not stated that homework will not count. Yet, that is the argument that most of the commentators have implied.  For example my course - Test  and quizzes 50%, Classwork 25%, Semester Project 15%, Homework 10%   If you do not have a project as such,  add the 15% back into classwork.  Duh!  Please, do not bring your ad hominem arguments in to this.  If you do, your ignorance will expose you. Take care.

"Good to know someone's finally onto those insufferable little brats (future "handicapped narcissists" blubbering to their shrinks about their perfect childhoods) who suck Otter Pop 'front the tube while Mom and Dad fill out their multiplication tables."--Blatant anti-white racism at its worst. Why don't they just pass a law forcing our kids to eat powdered lead every once in a while, so that they will finally perform at the same levels as blacks and Latinos?

I'm sure the author of this racist piece would be perfectly okay with that idea.

Pathetic. And real nice message that people haven't picked up on: that the kids who do their homework and work hard are probably cheating by getting parents to help them,

I love this policy. All this will do is keep the minority down even more. The white folks and Asians will still insist on homework for their kids while the Hispanics and blacks will do nothing to get ahead. The minority I'd being taken for idiots in America and they are living up to the role.

White kids shouldn't have to go to school with blacks and mexicans. 

LAUSD just wants to make sure we have the dumbest population possible.  What a bunch of evil hypocrites.  These kids can't read, and they haven't learned the discipline to work.  No surer way to make those who are down stay down.  And soon, they'll be able to vote!

So might it be a good time to revisit the immigration criteria and target more educated migrants?

Bring back racially segregated schools. Non-whites can have their own curricula..no homework, no standards, everybody majors in black and Chicano studies.  The education of white children should not be sabotaged by non-white  intellectual cripples.

I remember when UCLA had a community-relations meeting in South LA at one of the high schools and some of the parents were demanding to know whether it was true that UCLA operated a "recruiting center" in Asia, as was rumored, due to the amount of Asians that attended there. They believed that it was unfair that so many Asians attended while their own kids were passed over. UCLA officials assured them that there were no "recruiting centers" in Asia. My point: people better quit whining and get use to it ! There are lots of Asian "Tiger Moms" out there who DO demand academic excellence and who DO make their kids engage in homework activities and these kids are going to academically run rough-shod over theirs.

And people wonder why their kids can't get into the UC system or one of the CSU schools? If you think homework is "racist" or "bourgeois", then college is not for you or your kids. Sorry! ...I'm so glad I have veered away from the education profession!

Oh lawds, dis is da truff. dat dere homewerk beez rayciss 'n sheeeit, homewerk is fo dem yt's and ching chong people.

my chirruns need to go do stuff on da skreet not do homewerk, how is dey sposed to do flash mobs and steal stuff foy dey mammy if dey have all dis homewerk to do.

brb not doing my homewokr because im poor and its racist.

I just typed that this was "unbelievable," but upon reflection I realized that it's totally believable because I used to work in the CA public school system, so I know how it is. There is absolutely no expectation of discipline, self or otherwise, in the public schools. How proud the LAUSD will be of their new policy when kids are graduating from high school with even lower levels of skill than have now, which is almost impossible. They don't and won't have the skills to produce anything near $7.25/hour of value to a potential employer, so they're basically unemployable. The only skill they have of any value is the ability to roam around in packs and beat up innocent people, and running through department stores stuffing their pockets with whatever they can get their hands on.  Congratulations, LAUSD, for ensuring that the next generation of Angelenos will be an even bigger scourge to the city than the current one.

Living is racist because it is more likely to be completed successfully by kids with a secure home life.

This proves only one thing...that if one is terminally stupid and trying to close a gap between failing students and excelling students by handicapping  success with an academic standard even lower than the rest of the world’s standards than it is now,  your future is assured in the American educational  field.  Only an American "educator" could presume that a colorfully diverse  parade of equally uneducated dumbbells will be an American asset in the competitive production lines of the world's  markets. 

The trouble with limiting one's perception of reality in order to accommodate a preferred conclusion,  is that the consequences are invariably errors in identifying a cause, which results in  applying an error as remedy.   The educational racial gap is not _caused_ by anything other than a widely documented over representation of black disinterest in education, encouraged (indeed,  exploited)  by the education field's unceasing efforts to reward it, rather than correct it with penalties.    If  blacks were excelling and whites were failing,  what would "educators" do to close the "racial gap;" they'd tell these white academic failures to sit down, shut up and learn something so they can grow up to be successful  human beings and penalize disobedience.  The same can and should be said to ALL kids, regardless of color, if that racial gap is ever to be closed.

American history does not prove that different colors require different standards; it proves that color coded double standards create major social problems, one of which is widespread, politically correct, socially acceptable racism.   As usual, past and present,  "educators" have it backwards....that's why educators keep insisting that racism originates in trailer parks, not American classrooms. 

Perhaps the lower class/minorities are the ones who would BENEFIT from homework. They don't tend to get the best grades, so LAUSD thinks that decreasing the amount of education they get is going to help them somehow? They're going to graduate with even less knowledge this way, completely unprepared for college. Brilliant. The dumbing down of America continues...

You are just spewing liberal gibberish.  These same children go on to college on full scholarships without any help from their parents, who are working at two full time jobs and probably not at home nor have time to do their child's homework. Besides that, I don't know of any school that grades homework or gives any extra credit for it. You don't even have enough sense to know that you can't graduate and go on to college if your parents do your homework and you just sit idly by. You are so full of hate for the Middle Class yet you have no idea what you are talking about. There are plenty of minority children who go on to college the same way.  The difference is not in the type of home but the type of character individuals have.  You are the racist and bigoted one.

Wait a minute, is this the twilight zone? Homework is racist? So anything that whites excel at and blacks can't excel at, is racist?  So then what is the point of whites even bothering to do well in school if blacks are just handed their grades? A white works their butt off and gets the same amount of praise as a black who doesn't work as hard. And explain to me how this possibly makes society better? By dumbing down the already horrbile educational system. So we have a perpetuating standard where whites have to do well to succeed, but minorities don't, yet they still get the benefits.

Well, just another nail in the coffin of California. A horrible economy, over run with illegals, whites a minority, political correctness everywhere, and now grades are racist. Sure, why not?

"coddled middle class".??? Are you kidding me.

Actually, much of the homework I assign is part of project -based learning -it is not "rote" work, and as part of a project will be worth much more than 10%- so how can LAUSD dictate to teachers what is "homework" and what is not.