Homeschooling is a small effective class size, but my parents were by no means wonderful teachers (even though they are wonderful people). For homeschooling during 6th and 7th grades, I mostly used the purchased curriculum books myself without significant involvement from them. On a typical day, I probably received less instruction from my parents than a student in a regular classroom (sometimes no instruction).
It seems crazy to me that I was able to complete an entire days worth of lessons this way in the amount of time most 6th and 7th graders spend on homework alone.
Regardless, suppose studies were to show that adding hours of homework was necessary for students to be successful academically (and as far as I know they don't show this). Rather than deciding to destroy our children's free and unstructured time with homework, why don't we figure out how to change school so that this homework isn't necessary? It's clearly possible to generate well-educated and competitive children with significantly fewer hours of education per day. The homework is just a bandaid for something that isn't working (and probably not even as effective as a bandaid).
If you're self-pacing then you don't have to waste time covering material you've already mastered or banging your head against material you're not ready for yet because you're missing fundamentals. If you're much ahead of or behind average then that can be a ton of time—most of your day, even—lost to waste there. Not productively repeating material to attain mastery, I mean, but stuff like taking four weeks to cover a math concept or technique that you could easily have completely understood and internalized in the first week, then moved on to using it in more complex work, if it'd all been presented to you that quickly.
Probably 10% of the school day's moving around or preparing to move around or settling down from having moved around, or recess or otherwise not-learning (not to shit on recess—I wish they'd give kids more time for it in lower grades). Another 10-15% is stuff you might not consider part of your "school day" if you're homeschooling (PE, music, library visits, "specials") or nonsense you don't have to worry about (assemblies). So there's maybe a quarter of the day accounted for with no allowances for faster and/or better-tuned pacing or more personalized instruction—poof, 90ish minutes of your day back, 180ish days a year, for 13 years, like magic. Self-pacing you fit it all that remains in 2 or 2.5 hrs, don't need more than minimal breaks so there's minimal padding to that time, and the rest of the day's yours.
Public school's alarmingly wasteful of children's time, but saves parents a ton of time, collectively, in exchange.
It seems crazy to me that I was able to complete an entire days worth of lessons this way in the amount of time most 6th and 7th graders spend on homework alone.
Regardless, suppose studies were to show that adding hours of homework was necessary for students to be successful academically (and as far as I know they don't show this). Rather than deciding to destroy our children's free and unstructured time with homework, why don't we figure out how to change school so that this homework isn't necessary? It's clearly possible to generate well-educated and competitive children with significantly fewer hours of education per day. The homework is just a bandaid for something that isn't working (and probably not even as effective as a bandaid).