Homework can only count for 10% of student's grade, new L.A. schools policy decrees
The Los Angeles Unified School District has enacted a new policy saying that homework can count for only 10% of a student's grade.
The policy is intended to account for the myriad urban problems facing the district's mostly low-income, minority population. It's also aimed at supporting L.A. Unified's increasing focus on boosting measureable academic achievement.
According to the new policy, "Varying degrees of access to academic support at home, for whatever reason, should not penalize a student so severely that it prevents the student from passing a class, nor should it inflate the grade." It was distributed to schools last month.
Critics -- mostly teachers -- worry that the policy will encourage students to slack off assigned work and even
