kitchen table math, the sequel: help with homework

Monday, April 9, 2007

help with homework

I've just found an amazing statistic:

In kindergarten through grade 12, 95 percent of children had parents who reported they assisted with homework (table 4).

source:
Parent and Family Involvement in Education: 2002-03 (pdf file)
NCES

Table 4 reveals that only 16% of students in grades 11 and 12 have parents who report giving no help with homework at all.

Even more incredible, parents who did not themselves graduate from high school report spending more time helping with homework than parents who have attended graduate or professional school. (Don't know whether the difference is significant.)


parents helping w/homework 1-5 days a week, by education level

Less than high school: 74%
High school grad or equivalent: 73%
Vocational/technical education
after high school or some college: 71%
College graduate: 68%
Graduate or professional school: 67%


Ed went to school in Levittown, PA. He had no help with homework, and yet somehow managed to acquire an education good enough to prepare him for Princeton.

Steve H has said many times that he received an education good enough to major in science and math in college (first physics, as I recall, then computer science?)

No help with homework in Steve's case, either.

The bad gets normal.


reality show

Ed says he'd love to see a student body swap.

Send all the Yonkers kids to Scarsdale; send all the Scarsdale kids to Yonkers.

Keep the teachers, principals, and superintendents in place.

What happens to the scores?


meet the parents

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