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[Karg]

http://www.wpri.com/Global/story.asp?S=2840136

MILWAUKEE A Wisconsin student says having to do homework over the summer is unfair -- so he's suing.

Peer Larson and his father have filed suit in Milwaukee County Circuit Court seeking the end of summer homework across Wisconsin.

They argue that homework shouldn't be required after the 180-day school year is over.

The 17-year-old says homework for his pre-calculus honors class last summer turned his dream job as a camp counselor into a headache -- causing him "undue stress" and sapping his energy.

School administrators say honors courses require some summer work. They also say it's a matter for schools to decide, not the courts.

The Larsons are acting as their own legal counsel.

 

[belgurdo]

Shit, I agree with him. Why waste three months doing busy work the teachers will forget about or not touch upon by school's start, anyway?

 

[MIMIC]

How much homework did he get?

 

[Karg]

How much homework did he get?

Dunno, that was it for a article. Honest question though. What would be too much? Don't like the workload get the hell out of the honors program.

 

[Dan]

I don't think this is going to go anywhere, if only because the kid is 17 and thus going to school is not legally required of him, nor is taking honors courses. As long as there are courses he can take without summer work and as long as he isn't legally obligated to go to school, he's got nothing.

Even without those circumstances though, I think it'd be a pretty damned tough legal battle, especially since if he won the case there would be a massive legal precedent for basically removing all school work that doesn't take place at school during the school day.

 

[Baron Aloha]

I agree with getting rid of summer homework but I don't think suing is the best course of action.

The summer before my senior year I had "homework" for my Calculus and English classes and it really sucked. For calc I had to do something like 250 math problems and for English I had to read 3 books and write book reports for each of them.

The only thing good that came out of those classes was not having to take any English in college. I also got to skip calc 1 and go straight into calc 2.

 

[xsarien]

Honors, and certainly AP classes, tend to demand a little bit of work over the summer. My high school assigned reading lists for honors english students, and we had to pick, oh, about three of them. No biggie.

The problem was going into AP, when the books were actually assigned. We had to read three of the most interminable, dull books ever shoved through a printing press. Then we had a test on all three on the first day of class. The average score was ~50/100. I got a 30 something. It's not that nothing was absorbed while reading. The questions were just tough, and demanded very long, detailed answers. Prior to that class, none of us were really prepared for that kind of diligence on a high school test.

Anyway, what I'm really trying to say is that this kid's a spoiled brat, and if he wants the transcript fodder, he's going to need to do the token amount of work given to him to prove that he should be in that course.

 

[MIMIC]

I see his only argument as having a summer job as a camp counselor.

 

[Dan]

I see his only argument as having a summer job as a camp counselor.

A very slim chance at that.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/01/21/homework.suit.ap/index.html

This states that he had "lined up a dream camp counselor job last June," which would surely have been after he had enrolled in the courses. 1) That specific job was not forced upon him. 2) He should have known the course requirements before signing up.

His poor planning is not the school district's fault.

 

[snapty00]

While I agree that it sucks that he has to do summer homework (and, in fact, I wouldn't do it myself), he doesn't have a foot to stand on legally. He's going to lose.

When I took honors classes in high school (especially English), we usually had to read two or three books during the summer vacation, but I'll be damned if I usually did. I rarely read them DURING the school session, much less afterward. If it's a vacation, I want to enjoy it, not read a bunch of useless shit (and even now, I believe that's exactly what those books are). What happens with assignments like this is that not only does the work itself suck, but even when you're not doing it, you're often worrying about it. When I went into ninth grade, I did read them, but my whole summer sucked because I put it off until the month before school was to start again; even during the month and a half that I didn't read the books, I worried about getting it done.

 

[AntoneM]

honors courses are not a right, nor are they forced upon students. This is not a case of government missusing it's authority it's a case of a whiny bitch not getting what he wanted.

 

[Inumaru]

I don't agree with the whole lawsuit thing, and of course honors courses are going to require something extra.

However, what I want to know if if those teachers are going to be available to help during the summer! (Read:NO!) If the students have to work over the summer, the teachers should be available to answer related questions for roughly the same amount of time.

And I would guess that ain't happenin'.

 

[Morts]

Aside from summer reading for English classes (which was only sometimes tested on) none of my honors or AP classes have required summer work. I actually didn't realize that situations like that existed. Legally I don't see him having any sort of position, but I guess I do kinda sympathize with him.

 

[Marty Chinn]

Heh have honors courses changed lately? I never had to do summer work for any honors class.

 

[ConfusingJazz]

What a wuss. I didn't do half my summer reading, and I usually did the math problems the week before school started, and I still got a high B low A in all my AP classes.

 

[Pochacco]

High-school is easy.
Summer classes are easy.
Honors classes are easy.

Suck it up kid.
Too lazy to do an assignment but he finds time to file a lawsuit against his school?

 

[TheOMan]

High-school is easy.
Summer classes are easy.
Honors classes are easy.

Suck it up kid.
Too lazy to do an assignment but he finds time to file a lawsuit against his school?

Exactly - If I understand correctly he had 3 months to get this stuff done. Unless he got a stupid, stupid amount of homework, I'm thinking he had more than enough time to get it done. However, I must say that I've never had to do any work of the summer for my honours classes so perhaps the sheer amount he had was staggering, but somehow I doubt it.