Homework and Harm: How Discrimination Follows Disabled Students Home

After a full day at school, many children are handed a second workload to bring home. This practice is so normalized that few people ever stop to question it. But when you pause, it becomes clear just how harmful homework can be, especially for disabled students.

For disabled students, homework is rarely about enrichment or exploration. It is often unfinished work from the school day. The reason is not laziness, poor focus, or “not using class time wisely,” as they are too often told. The truth is that schools are failing to provide the accommodations they need. Instead of addressing barriers in the classroom, the work is pushed into evenings, transforming school into an endless double shift.

This is discrimination. When supports are not provided, students are penalized twice: first by struggling to access learning during the day, and again by being burdened with extra work at home. Families are forced into the role of enforcers, straining relationships and reinforcing the false belief that the child simply needs to try harder. If your child consistently brings home large amounts of unfinished work, it is not a reflection of their ability or effort. It is a sign that accommodations need to be revisited. Parents should not feel obligated to uphold a system that refuses to meet its responsibilities. The duty to provide equitable access rests with schools, not families.

Research has long debunked the supposed benefits of homework. There is no evidence that homework boosts achievement in elementary or middle school. Even in high school, the correlation is weak and largely disappears under closer study. The common claim that homework teaches responsibility or discipline has never been substantiated. Meanwhile, the harms are well-documented: frustration, exhaustion, loss of interest in learning, and conflict at home. For disabled students, homework deepens inequities by punishing them for barriers the system refuses to remove.

And yet, more homework is being piled onto children, especially younger ones, for whom there is absolutely no evidence of any benefit. The result is predictable: a generation of students who equate learning with drudgery and compliance instead of curiosity and growth.

Homework reflects an outdated factory model of schooling, where productivity is measured in hours and outputs rather than in understanding or inclusion. It assumes all students learn the same way and that repetition equals mastery. This one-size-fits-all model fails most learners, and it especially harms those who require different pathways and supports. When work is sent home simply because a student could not finish it during the day, the message is clear: your needs don’t matter here, your inclusion is conditional, and your learning is your family’s problem after hours.

The problem is not that disabled students “don’t get down to work.” The problem is that schools fail to provide timely accommodations, punish students for disability-related barriers, and use homework as a default expectation instead of a thoughtful, purposeful tool. We need to flip the script. Schools should only assign work outside class when it is truly meaningful, not because of tradition, pressure, or policy. And they must never use homework to offload their responsibility to provide accommodations.

Education is a right, not a reward for compliance. When disabled students are regularly given homework because their needs were not met during the day, that is systemic discrimination. It creates unequal access to learning and teaches children that their struggle is a personal failing.

Disabled students do not need more hours. They need real access. They need classrooms designed to meet their needs in the moment, not a pile of worksheets that serve as evidence of their supposed deficits. Most importantly, they need time after school to rest, to play, and to simply be kids. Without that space, many will burn out before they ever have the chance to thrive.

Every child deserves to end their school day with dignity, not with a second shift.