Introduction

Nobody knows how well home work works. Most studies cited by both sides use time spent doing home work as the independent variable, then correlate id with test scores or grades. This methodology assumes that time spent on home work is a safe proxy for amount of home work. It isn't. Students may spend less time on home work because they are smart, find it easy and can finish it very quickly. Or they might spend more time due to second generation asian immigrants with taskmaster parents who insist on its being perfect. All of these make time spent at home work a poor proxy for amount teacher assigned in a way that directly confounds a home work test scores correlation.