Homework

Homework. Students complain about it, forget it, borrow it and conveniently lose it. Some even do it. But is it really important? Several area educators say yes. "There's a great need for homework assignments," said Ray Betz, a guidance counselor at Marple Newtown High School. "Homework reinforces and supports what has been covered in the classroom. "It's also good training for valuable use of time in preparation for the many hours the student will put in in college," he said.

IF YOU'RE A parent with a child in school, early fall is the time of year when you may find yourself wondering this: Why, at my age - in my case, over 40 - am I still doing homework? Who decided that parents must oversee every book report, give practice spelling tests and correct long division? Our parents never helped with homework. They sipped gimlets or watched Walter Cronkite while we toiled away in our bedrooms, conjugating verbs. Yet even as parents complain, most still sit down with their kids every night, convinced that across the street there's a dad or a mom diligently finding a square root.

No one leaves the after-school tutorial program at the Schuylkill Falls public housing development without finishing his homework. And it suits the children just fine. Every weekday from 3 to 6 p.m., children ages 5 to 13 clamber into the tenant council office in East Falls to get help with their homework. Seated at several long tables, the children complete their assignments under the watchful eyes of volunteer tutors. A student who has serious difficulty on an assignment often receives one-on-one attention from a tutor.

The cricket hidden in the Upper Dublin school board room fell silent half- way into the meeting, but the school directors continued talking about end- of-summer business until 11 p.m. At the three-hour meeting Monday night, the board approved 19 curriculum- related items, awarded contracts for purchasing supplies and furniture, authorized additional renovation and construction work for several schools and approved the school board's goals for...

THE STATE of California has long been a source of nutbag ideas (just witness the recent gubernatorial recall fiasco). One of the state's most absurd actions came when the legislature banned homework in the early 20th century as part of the Progressive movement. As ridiculous as that sounds, there is a growing chorus of parents, edu-crats and so-called parenting experts who are trying to revive this flawed concept. Homework backlash has gotten tremendous media coverage recently.

Thanks for printing the Sept. 4 letter "Summer homework is fine, but don't overdo it," which expressed concern about Cherry Hill High School East's intensive use of summer homework. I asked about 60 college students how much time they had spent on homework in high school. Most had spent five to 10 hours per week. One had spent more than 15 hours per week. That student had attended Cherry Hill East. Still, it is true that the New Jersey Monthly's rankings of state high schools and achievement have seen East's position fall over the past few years from No. 18 to No. 81. This is well below many other schools with lower socioeconomic status.

Courtni Matthews, no doubt, will have a lot of homework this school year, too. Last year at A.B. Day School in Germantown, she was expected to practice writing words and sentences. Complete math worksheets. Read a simple book. Keep a journal. And she had to complete special projects, such as monitoring the growth of a plant. All this, a single day's worth of homework. Courtni was a kindergartner. "The intensity of homework has definitely changed," said Courtni's mother, Diane Matthews, a secretary in the Philadelphia Home and School office who lives in East Mount Airy.

Family stress over homework is legendary. Whether you're encouraging an overtired first-grader to take "just one more look" at the addition problems or demanding that your 11-year-old turn off the television until after schoolwork is done, supervising homework can be very time-consuming for parents. If you establish a specific homework routine for your children, the entire family will benefit. You'll save time, and your efforts will help instill in your children productive work habits and an organized approach to problem- solving.

Twice this school term, Irene Corner has signed on the dotted line. So has her 7-year-old son, Kevin. And her husband, Larry. As has Sherri Clemick, Kevin's second-grade teacher at Aronimink Elementary School in the Upper Darby School District. The papers they all signed - one covering behavior, the other homework - don't amount to a legally binding contract, and no one's going to be hauled to court for a breach. Taken together, the forms amount to a pact spelling out responsibilities to help Kevin be successful in school.

Chestnut Hill Academy, doggedly seeking permission to demolish a pair of historic campus buildings and launch a new building program, was told yesterday by a city panel to do more homework, come back and try again. The school, on Willow Grove Avenue, is seeking expanded athletic and dining facilities and a new science center. It has proposed demolishing four buildings, including two century-old structures designed by noted residential architect Frank Miles Day. The two Day buildings - Woodward Gymnasium and the Commons - are inadequate, school officials say. Headmaster Frank Steel Jr. told the economic hardship committee of the Philadelphia Historical Commission yesterday that alternatives to demolition would be too expensive over the long haul.

Some applications actually help kids do their homework rather than avoid it. Here are a few that put the   smart in a smartphone: Math , from YourTeacher.com, is free for the first five lessons on an iPhone. To keep going, though, it requires a one-time $9.99 payment. The company makes instructional apps for Apple and Android. From the opening screen in Math, type a keyword, such as " equations," to see a list of lessons that include word problems and real-world uses for the knowledge, such as figuring sales taxes, discounts, and interest.

Some applications actually help kids do their homework rather than avoid it. Here are a few that put the smart in a smartphone. Math , from YourTeacher.com, is free for the first five lessons on an iPhone. To keep going, though, it requires a one-time $9.99 payment. The company makes instructional apps for Apple and Android. From the opening screen in Math, type a keyword, such as "equations," to see a list of lessons that include word problems and real-world uses for the knowledge, such as figuring sales taxes, discounts, and interest.

As another letter-of-intent period passed and numerous South Jersey student-athletes made their college destinations known, the No. 1 lesson of recruiting was emphasized in the story of so many who earned partial or full scholarships. That lesson is simple: Do your homework in recruiting. No greater example of that is Moorestown soccer goalie Nick Savino, who signed a letter of intent with the University of California, Santa Barbara, earning a partial scholarship. UCSB isn't exactly a haven for South Jersey athletes.

Iowa injects sanity into the race The people who cast votes in the Iowa caucuses returned sanity to the presidential primary season. In response to the ratings-driven media firestorm designed to transform this one-time footnote event into a major litmus test for presidential candidates, Iowa took a pass. By voting for the moderate Mitt Romney, the right-wing Rick Santorum, and the lunatic-fringe Ron Paul in large numbers, the caucuses essentially excused themselves from deciding the Republican primary winner before the race even started.

Moneek Pines-Elliott saw the light leaking from under her son Jalil's bedroom door way past bedtime. It was early September; Jalil and his twin brother, Jamil, had just started ninth grade at Germantown Friends School. Pines-Elliott found her son perched on his bed, laptop open. "I'm doing homework," he told her. "I'm almost done. " Pines-Elliott checked the time: nearly midnight. "I was thinking: Oh, my, I hope this isn't going to be habitual. I knew GFS was going to be more challenging, but I'd never thought about the homework.

Going back to school, particularly if it's a new school, can be daunting for kids and parents. There's a lot to consider, from sleep schedules to nutrition and immunizations. Much can be accomplished by establishing good habits, says Julie Yeh, a pediatrician at Greater Baltimore Medical Center, who answered questions about handling the school year. Question: How do I get my child off a summer sleep schedule and back to a school schedule? How much sleep does a child need for school, and does it vary by age?

During the housing boom, many real estate agents found it extraordinarily tough, if not impossible, to come up with even ballpark asking prices for their listings. "Values were increasing at a pace we had never seen in this area," said John Duffy of Duffy Real Estate on the Main Line. For four-plus decades, real estate agents had been used to price appreciation of 3 percent to 6 percent a year, "and then the boom came along, and we were seeing a much faster and higher appreciation, which made it very difficult to price properties," Duffy said.

You can't say Pennsbury's J.J. Denman made a snap decision. Before committing to Penn State for football, the offensive tackle visited seven other Division I schools, including Notre Dame, Michigan, and Wisconsin. "I did my homework," the 6-foot-6, 305-pound junior said Thursday. "No school wanted me more than Penn State did. " Denman committed to the Nittany Lions after a trip to State College last weekend. Near the end of his stay, the 17-year-old and his father, John, chatted with coach Joe Paterno and recruiting coordinator Mike McQueary for about 30 minutes.

Reverse mortgages allow people 62 and older to borrow against their home equity. Like marriage, the experts say, these are arrangements not to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly. That's because reverse mortgages are actual loans that must be repaid in full - when you move, when you sell your house, or upon your death, rather than in monthly installments. But, said David Certner, AARP's legislative-policy director, they're something to consider "if you want to remain in your current home and don't have other options.

Fixed mortgage rates remain below 5 percent, and these days fewer and fewer home buyers seem to be opting for adjustable-rate loans. The average interest rate for a one-year ARM was 3.14 percent Thursday, according to Freddie Mac. The 30-year fixed rate was 4.71 percent. But low fixed rates aren't the only reason that adjustables are financing just 7 percent of all home-purchase loans, according to figures from Freddie Mac, which tracks them. "Home buyers have shied away from ARMs because they are wary of the risks . . . the potential for much larger payments if future interest rates are significantly higher," said Freddie Mac chief economist Frank Nothaft.