Students from Finland consistently score the highest on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) exam, an exam that is used to rank nation’s academic excellence. In a documentary, Where to Invade Next, by Michael Moore, Finnish educators name a virtually complete lack of homework and thus more time for relaxation and other hobbies as a key factor to this success. Students in this documentary reported doing 0-30 (a large majority only reporting 10) minutes of homework per night. A book by author Vicki Abeles, Beyond Nowhere, further backs up this data: Finnish schools assign “an average of less than three hours a week.” In comparison, students from my high school spend a median of up to 2.5 hours daily doing homework (17.5 hours weekly) according to a survey I conducted with 95 student participants AND students across America spend an average 1.9 hours daily doing homework (13.3 hours weekly) according to a report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that used data from 2003 through 2007 (title: How High School Students Use Time: A Visual Essay | author: Mary Dorinda Allard).

American students just spend too much time on homework! Not only does this large quantity of homework fail to significantly advance students’ academic skill, it is also detrimental to their sleep, mental, and social health.

In preparation for the next school year, please sign this petition to, at the very least, bring awareness to the unessecesarily large amounts of homework American students are assigned. Most young people recognize the mainly flaws in our education system, and significantly reducing homework is just one way we can improve upon this system.