Why Homework Has Little Meaning for Highschool Students

I understand that the point of homework is for us tom be practicing the material outside of class. But if I were a teacher, I wouldn’t give much homework because I would want my students to actually have some free time during the day.

Since SIxth grade, I have spent almost every night doing homework. I honestly wouldn’t mind going to school an extra hour and a half if we didn’t have homework. I understand that my practices would take place in the dark if this were the case, but that’s not the point. Students deserve the last three hours of the day to themselves. The fact of the matter is that homework is given, and I spent three hours a day doing it. If I put all this effort into my work at home [especially in Algebra 2, which gives the most homework by far, including AP History], then why is only 15% of my math class’ grades based on homework, and the other 85% based on quizzs and tests.

When my teacher first wrote these figures on the board when we came back from Christmas break, I thought to myself “Are you kidding me?” Seriously, why is the majority of our effort virtually meaningless while almost all of our grade comes down to a forty minute test? Based on this system, I could do no math homework for a whole semester and still end up with a solid “B”. If I were a teacher, I would have 30% of the grade be based on the semester final, 30% homework, 30% tests/quizzes, and 10% participation.