The necessity of homework in high school has often been a debate. With the new Prince George’s County grading policy, homework is no longer a high percentage of your grade. English and Math classes are weighted at 10%,  Science classes at 15%, and Social Studies classes at 20%. All of those percentages are out of 100% and split between Assessments, Classwork, and Homework. The new grading policy now focuses more on classwork and assessments.

Merriam-Webster defines homework as “an assignment given to a student to be completed outside the regular class period”, but if the homework is only 10-20% of your grade how are you benefiting? Homework is given to help students practice curriculum at home that was learned during class time. When given homework I don’t look at it as practice, but more as a burden that is required to get done. Often while doing homework I focus on whether it’s  accurate and completed, instead of actually  practicing the curriculum.  Sometimes students understand the homework that’s given, so they end up practicing a topic they don’t fully understand. Which may cause them to be behind in class, or do poorly on future assignments.

Even though teachers are there to answer students questions, they are often dealing with a bunch of other things that are going on in the classroom. Resulting in the student either having to go out of their way to get help, or just being confused in further lessons. If classwork was more focused on then the student wouldn’t have to scram and stress to further teach themselves.

According to Stanford News 56 percent of the students considered homework a primary source of stress, according to the survey data. I feel that students may excel better in classes if classwork was more of a focus than assigning homework. Making sure students fully understand the topic before giving them practice may help them. In a recent Twitter poll, I asked fellow students “Should high school students have homework?” The poll was up for 1 day and my results out of 62 votes 37% said “yes” and 63% said “no.” Of course, it could be argued that the majority of students wouldn’t want homework no matter the weighed percentage, but with the new grading policy homework may cause more issues in classrooms.