“On another note, this year’s average for homework turned in is riding at 67%,” wrote Brown. “I’m talking a twice-monthly 5 sentence summary of what the student is reading in their own time. I remind students daily, I send text messages through Remind, it’s on my website. The only other thing I could do is do it for them,” she continued.

There is one other thing she can do if students do not hand in required work: fail them. Do the work or fail. People work when there are consequences for not doing so, but consequences are out of fashion so children get passed to the next grade whether they do the work or not. When things get tough, like they did when schools were virtual for a year of Covid, standards are dropper further and children who were absent 98% of the time were passed on to the next grade.

Keep dropping standards and watch homework and project turn-in rates continue to drop.