Homework?

As a teacher, I find it disturbing and maddening that dictives are coming down from the top and telling teachers how to run their own classroom.

Do we tell professionals like doctors and lawyers (lawyers having only 1 more year of schooling then myself) how THEY should be doing their jobs?  Do we tell them what work THEY should be assigning to their paralegals?  OH WAIT, we don't?  So why are you telling teachers how to do their jobs?  

  I don't like giving a lot of homework because, honestly, my students wouldn't do it and their parents couldn't do it with them and it wasn't in Spanish and so I always have a whole slew of children at recess detention for not doing their homework.

But I still assigned it.  And if it took 10 minutes, fine.  And if it took an hour, maybe you should have been paying attention in class, child.  MAYBE you should have done your work during the SCHOOL DAY when I asked you to.  That's most of the "large chunks" of homework that I give. 

And in EVERY GRADE, it is important to read for 20 minutes a night.  If you cannot read, get read to.  If you struggle, pick a book that you enjoy.  But you better be reading.  It is the ONLY way to improve literacy outside of the classroom.  

Or what about the fact that I did TONS of homework in middle and high school.  If I hadn't, I would have NEVER been PREPARED FOR COLLEGE.  Did we forget about this one?  How do we teach good homework habits for college (where ALL of the work is done outside  of school) if we do not model good homework habits starting in elementary school? 

So, sorry, man at the top.  You should ask why we give homework.  Yes, we.  As in, the teachers.  As in, the professionals (with licensure) who assign it in their OWN CLASSROOM.