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Summer homework? Sue the school.

CBL4

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A student whose vacation plans were spoiled has sued to end summer homework in Wisconsin, claiming it creates an unfair workload and unnecessary stress.

Peer Larson, 17, had lined up a dream camp counselor job last June, but honors pre-calculus homework turned his summer into a headache.
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http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/01/21/homework.suit.ap/index.html
Poor guy. To be in an honors class, he needed to do some homework over the summer.

CBL
 
CBL4 said:
Poor guy. To be in an honors class, he needed to do some homework over the summer.
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Homework during a holiday? Whoever thought of that should be shot. Children deserve some private times and places, and holidays are very definitely a time when schoolteachers should have no business telling children what to do.
 
So apparently, just being smart is no longer the criteria for honors classes?
Instead it is how much free time one is willing to give up?

Why does this remind me of schools that wanted students to sign a mandatory 'volunteer work' agreement to graduate?
 
Man, I hope that kid never grows up and gets asked to do overtime.

Oh, and this: "... had lined up a dream camp counselor job..."

As if I didn't need any more proof that he was a dork. I hope they get stuck with court costs when they lose.
 
shuize said:
Man, I hope that kid never grows up and gets asked to do overtime.
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I seem to recall that you often get payed for that. Personaly I think he has the right idea.
 
Sure. Let's pay him for learning.

As suggested above: If you don't want summer homework, don't sign up for the honors class. Heaven forbid he actually gain an education in the process.

No, I think I understand the attitude. "I want to be able to list honors calculus on my college application, but I don't want to have to do any extra work that goes with it."

A similar attitude exists with students all over the world. Here in Japan, for example, English conversation classes are a huge business. Many years ago when I taught part-time I would meet people who would come to class once a week for an hour and then never pick up a book to study on their own. Oddly enough, they just couldn't understand why they weren't improving. Their attitude was, "I'm coming to class, therefore I should be able to speak English." It never crossed their mind that if they wanted to learn, it might take a bit of personal effort beyond sitting in the classroom.
 
shuize said:
Sure. Let's pay him for learning.

As suggested above: If you don't want summer homework, don't sign up for the honors class. Heaven forbid he actually gain an education in the process.

No, I think I understand the attitude. "I want to be able to list honors calculus on my college application, but I don't want to have to do any extra work that goes with it."
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I hope not. I was more hoping the atitude was here is a money makeing opertunity better take it.
 
Getting a strong whiff of elitism here...if the guy actually has to get his hands dirty with work he is a dork, and doesn't deserve to be in honors classes with the truly deserving rich kids and their spare time?
 
Not in the least. (I grew up doing blue-collar jobs myself) But I found the description of camp counselor as a "dream job" rather than just a "summer job" kind of odd.

To tell the truth, crimeresearch, I sort of saw it the other way. Maybe I'm mistaken, but I thought I detected a sense of entitlement in the "give me the honors label but don't expect me to work for it" attitude.
 
I had an easier solution back in my high school days with AP classes. They wanted me to do work over the summer. I ignored them. Everyone was happy.

Of course, oddly enough, at my high school the higher level the classes were, the less work was involved once the school year started. Average classes had a lot of work. Honors, significantly less. AP. . . we did almost no homework. God, I was glad I was smart. . .
 
Bubbles said:


Of course, oddly enough, at my high school the higher level the classes were, the less work was involved once the school year started. Average classes had a lot of work. Honors, significantly less. AP. . . we did almost no homework. God, I was glad I was smart. . .
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If he was smart he would probably be able to busk it. Perhaps he was given the work to do because he isn't too smart.
 
Bubbles said:
I had an easier solution back in my high school days with AP classes. They wanted me to do work over the summer. I ignored them. Everyone was happy.

Of course, oddly enough, at my high school the higher level the classes were, the less work was involved once the school year started. Average classes had a lot of work. Honors, significantly less. AP. . . we did almost no homework. God, I was glad I was smart. . .
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Ditto both paragraphs. This is the case with my oldest son. He's in a public health-science academy (all honors). The summer before last he refused to do the summer work claiming it was too hard and he didn't understand it. This caused quite an ado between the two of us which I won't go into. The wife was a bit more understanding and let him get away with it. Nothing came of it. He did, however, do last summers homework. During the school year he averages about a half-hour's homework a night.

In order to stay at the academy he has to do about 10 hours of medical-related volunteer work a semester. Since he already has a part-time job at a dentist's office (sterilizing stuff mostly) that means he doesn't/can't get paid for those ten hours (although the doctor made it up to him with a slight raise).

To demonstrate the foolishness of youth, he wants to quit the job with the dentist (which pays about $9/hr currently) and get a job a Fuddruckers (a fastfood kinda joint that pays MinWage). It's a "cooler" job, dontchaknow.
 
shuize said:
Not in the least. (I grew up doing blue-collar jobs myself) But I found the description of camp counselor as a "dream job" rather than just a "summer job" kind of odd.

To tell the truth, crimeresearch, I sort of saw it the other way. Maybe I'm mistaken, but I thought I detected a sense of entitlement in the "give me the honors label but don't expect me to work for it" attitude.
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I suspect that we don't have enough information on this particular kid to decide...I figured that 'dream job' meant that he was working with underprivileged or handicapped campers, and felt that this particular job would advance his future career along those lines.

And I definitely presumed that the school had wasted so much classroom time prepping everyone for standardized tests to make the politicians and administrators look good, and that they assumed honors kids would just naturally have their whole summer free to do nothing but their honors work...which should have been covered during the school year.
 
There are two issues where I consistently line up with Republicans instead of Democrats. Those issues are tort reform and school choice.

If this kid or his parents didn't like the policy of the school regarding homework, they ought to have the right to find a different school that fits their liking. But filing a lawsuit? That seems ridiculous to me.

Curiously, the case came from Milwaukee, where they do in fact have school choice. If he was eligible, then it would make his lawsuit even more ridiculous. I have no idea what the rules are about Milwaukee's voucher program, or whether this guy was eligible.
 
Rob Lister said:

To demonstrate the foolishness of youth, he wants to quit the job with the dentist (which pays about $9/hr currently) and get a job a Fuddruckers (a fastfood kinda joint that pays MinWage). It's a "cooler" job, dontchaknow.
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I don't mean to derail the thread, but what's cooler than being a youth with money? Not to mention he would deal with a lot less people(a-holes) at dentist's than working for Fuddruckers.
 
There are already bans on summer homework in Wisconsin, but they aren't statewide. This guy is suing to make them statewide as I understand it.

I don't know that I agree a lawsuit is the right way to approach this issue, but I do think summer homework is plain evil. I also think taking a vacation from work using earned days and having to work is evil.

I don't think the AP class has anything to do with it, I never had summer homework and didn't hear of anyone I knew having any either. The closest we ever came to that was on the first day of school being told to write an essay about "what I did on summer vacation".

Point is it is a vacation. For those not wishing to take a vacation there is summer school. I am not even sure how such an assignment would work. I mean you graduate from one class meaning you have already passed. You haven't yet entered your new classes so who assigns the work?
 
Here's the thing. Honors classes are not required; they are electives. This boy chose, by himself, to take this class. And he also chose to do all the homework, which he knew he would've had to do in order to be in the honor's class the following fall. Now, we're talking about last summer's homework here, and apparently he's in the honors class at the moment as a result of doing his homework over the summer. That means he and the rest of his kids are at the same level in his class currently.

Homework during the summer is kind of a dumb idea - summer is sacred. On the other hand, obviously this school's honors class is significantly advanced compared to other schools'. Let's take a look at what will happen: The lawsuit wants to end summer homework, period. My guess is that since he's a junior, he's planning on taking an honors class his senior year as well, and doesn't want to do the requisite summer homework to get into it. If the lawsuit succeeds, then none of the students will be assigned the homework, leaving them all completely unprepared for the course. The result is that the honors course will have to be disposed of or the cirriculum dumbed back to handle skills that would've been taught by the summer homework. Thus, next year's honors graduates will be less skilled than this year's honors graduates. It means they will have to take an additional college calculus course when they get to university, to make up for the homework they didn't want to do. So unless this guy's next "dream job" is at Al's Crab Shack, he's going to have to do the work anyway.

This school, via it's summer work program, is saving considerable time and even money for motivated students in the long run. If this boy isn't motivated enough to do the work, he should drop the class and choose one where he doesn't have to do the homework; it's that simple. Because he has that option, I think suing to end the summer homework is actually inconsiderate of those who have a little more appreciation for what the school is doing for them.
 
Joshua, I didn't read the story that way...did he choose to take an honors summer class and then didn't want to do ANY homework?

Or was this a class from the regular school year that wasted student's time not covering the material properly, and expected them to get themselves ready for fall on their own time over the summer?
 
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