Amy Clipston had a request that was a new one for her daughter’s first-grade teacher.
Many parents had marched in to demand that their children, even those who couldn’t tie their shoes yet, get more homework. Clipston was the first to request the opposite – that her daughter opt out of homework altogether.
“I felt my child was doing quite fine in school,” said Clipston, a chemist with three children, noting that her daughter’s schoolday in the highly competitive Lower Merion School District was 61/2 hours, with a 20-minute recess. “I felt 10 to 20 minutes of homework a night was not accomplishing anything.”