The first homework consists

In a single study, parents and teachers of middle school students believed that homework improved students' study skills and personal responsibility skills. Their students were more likely to have negative perceptions about homework and were less likely to ascribe the development of such skills to homework.

Around the same time, prominent publications like the Ladies' Home Journal and The New York Times used published statements from parents and medical professionals to portray homework as detrimental to children's health. In 1930, an organization known as the American Child Health Association declared that homework was a type of child labor.

Galloway, Conner & Pope (2013) surveyed 4,317 high school students from ten high-performing schools, and found that students reported spending more than 3 hours on homework daily. 72% of the students reported stress from homework, and 82% reported physical symptoms.

The 19th-century politician and educational reformer Horace Mann played a large role in the history of homework. Mann, like his contemporaries Henry Barnard and Calvin Ellis Stowe, had a strong interest in the compulsory public education system in the newly unified nation-state of Germany .