My kid goes to fifth grade a public school. Her school is for gifted children and it is different from the public school she was in before her present school.

They have almost no homework and by that I mean she has homework a few times a year. They will point you to studies that seem to show most kids get very little benefit from homework at this age. They do large projects that integrate several different academic disciplines into one project most the time. They go to math class in accordance to their ability, not their age. They work to improve behavior problems not just punish.

It's so totally different from my school experience. I think it might be part of the way education should change in the future. They receive the same amount of money per child as every other schools in the district but they sacrifice some of the programs found at other schools to make the thing work.

An objection to this kind of thing is that these are super smart kids who mostly have parents that have fostered their kids interests and have books around and know how to conduct themselves in a classroom. There is a sliver of truth to this but I'm gonna tell ya, smart kids are wicked fucked up. Lots of ADHD, spectrum behavior, delusions of grandeur, smart fucking moths and cleaver enough to cause real trouble. I think it takes more skill to guide these classes than many others. There are schools in the district where 80% of the kids will experience houslessness. over the course of the school year. I don't think harshing on a kid who is semi homeless and facing food insecurity over not getting his math homework done will often increase his engagement in school. I don't think harsh punishment for behavior that is a natural outgrowth of such a kids life is probably helpful either.

I think my kids school might be part of a model for a better education system. Making school a more positive experience could make a big difference in my kids lives.

I'm kinda wandering all over the place with this but I'll end with this little thing. One of the toughest grade schools in out district is about ten blocks from my shop. Oregon's biggest housing projects feeds into that school. A teacher I know got a grant to bring a dog trained to work with victims of trauma into the classroom. He said it changed everything in his classroom. Voices lowered, kids were calmer, he had more instructional time and less time spent trying to get kids attention. Before the dog they had a huge attendance problem but after the dog truancy dropped something like 80% and stayed that way for the rest of the year. I'm not saying that every classroom needs a trauma dog but I think it does show that there are different things we could try that aren't obvious and that aren't 3 hours of homework for second grader.