How to kill any desire to learn: give children massive amounts of busywork disguised as homework. With No Child Left Behind, teachers are supposed to give kids homework every day, in second grade mind you, so that parents will spend time with their kids. Kids will be smarter. The actual outcome: frustrated parents and kids who hate school.

A Texas teacher decided to stop the madness with a no-homework policy:

Brandy Young, a second-grade teacher in Godley Independent School District, not far from Dallas-Fort Worth, passed out a letter to parents, telling them that she will not be assigning homework to students this year.

“After much research this summer, I am trying something new,” she wrote in the letter, which was posted on Facebook. “Homework will only consist of work that your student did not finish during the school day. There will be no formally assigned homework this year.

Hallelujah!

There is no evidence that front loading education, as has been the trend for a generation, results in smarter adults. In fact, Americans are getting dumber, not smarter.

Back in my day, a second grader came home after school and played until dinner, went to bed, and then moaned and groaned and went to school. Now, a kid comes home and is stuck doing an hour or two of homework in elementary school. It’s ridiculous.

This is the same government, by the way, that’s lamenting fat kids. Maybe if the kids didn’t have their recess and after school play time taken away, they wouldn’t be so fat and stupid.

Get rid of homework for fourth grade kids and younger. Give them 1/2 hour recess in the morning and afternoon and an hour for lunch. Teach them reading, writing, times tables, and spelling. If you can’t do that in the 9 hours/day you have them, the problem is in the classroom.

I hope this teacher getting rid of homework for second graders is part of a new trend.