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I have talked to many teachers and homework experts about this. The first rule is that she start the homework as soon as possible. Come in the door. Get a drink and snack, then start. No TV or other distractions until it is done. That provides a useful motivation, and eliminates the pressure of homework conflicting with bedtime.

    It is best to start with the complicated assignments, when she is fresh and focused, and leave the lesser assignments for last. Both she and you will learn shortcuts as you proceed. Your daughter will feel better about what she has left to do if the hardest stuff is done.

     If you follow those rules and still feel the work is more than she can handle in a reasonable time, call or email the teacher or teachers and seek their advice. Tell them what kinds of homework are most time consuming. In interviewing parents about their homework experiences, I have encountered several stories of kids who were doing too much because they misunderstood the assignment and were too shy to ask questions about it. Teachers will tell you that homework has little or no impact on final grades, and that is true. I will tell you that in 6th grade we have plenty of data that homework has almost no effect on achievement, although by 7th grade it is beginning to have some importance and in high school it does effect learning. For the time being relax, stay in touch with the teacher, and don't let it get to you.

  Great question. I think volunteering is very important if your child attends a school that is lacking in resources, provides little support to teachers and needs all the help it can get. You will be helping not only your child but all children in the school, and encouraging a community spirit that may not only improve learning at the school but build a movement to get the resources the school needs from the public officials who are not supplying them.

    I am guessing, because of the three-hour evening meetings, that your school is not like that. Schools in trouble do not have time for a lot of time-wasting chat. If we are talking about a lot of involvement at a well-functioning school by parents who just like to get involved, then I think you can choose how much time you spend on this without worrying what its effect will be on your child. There will be plenty of other parents in your situation who also do not have the time to do much. Keep your focus on your children. Make sure you do not sacrifice time with them, particularly being home with them at night when questions arise and important conversations bubble up. If you have time to chaperone an occasional field trip or work a booth at the school fair, do so, but don't worry if you have to miss out on that stuff. My wife and I both had jobs, did not volunteer much, but responded when we could, chipped in at fundraisers, and it worked out fine for our kids.

  I just read it. I hope others will do so. I had a different reaction from yours. The superintendent argues that NCLB was a conspiracy of ignorant powerful people against educators and parents and kids, and bemoans the fact that he and other educators did not rise in objection before it was passed.

    That is not how I remember what happened. NCLB was the natural extension of a movement to improve schools that began in southern states like Georgia in the 1980s whose schools were way below the national mean. Democratic governors like Bill Clinton and Richard Riley argued that the poor schools were hurting their economies and limiting job opportunities because companies would not locate in states that had such bad schools. They began to raise standards, improve curriculums, give competency tests and more training to teachers and test student performance. There were few objections from voters and parents because they largely agreed the schools were bad in those states and thought this approach would work. Both parties in the 2000 election favored making such changes national. Bush was elected. NCLB passed with majority support in both parties.

     Georgians are feeling bad because a lot of educators in Atlanta decided to take short cuts and tamper with the exam score sheets to improve the results. But the data indicate some improvement in achievement throughout the country, including places where there was no evidence of cheating, particularly in elementary schools. NCLB has run its course and we are looking for new and better ways to fix schools. I wish the Ga. superintendent had devoted some of his piece to what we should do now to help our kids learn. It doesn't help much to spend a lot of time rehashing the past, particularly when his version of it ignores that fact that most people, including many educators like himself, thought the changes that were being made had merit, and there is much evidence that our schools---even in Georgia---are better for it.

  This is an excellent suggestion. If you find that your school or your district is not staying on top of this, email me the details at mathewsj@washpost.com. Feel free to message me at that address on anything you want to tell me or ask me.

  A fine question, which I have been getting from parents for many years. You are the wise consumer of data who understands that the test scores we use to measure schools don't measure the schools as much as they measure the incomes and backgrounds of the families. If a school has very few low income students, it will have high test scores. If it does have a lot of low income kids, the test score averages will be lower.

    However, you have had the good sense or good fortune to choose northern Virginia to live, and I think that simple decision solves your problem. The school districts there, Arlington, Fairfax, Arlington, Loudoun, Prince William, Falls Church and Alexandria, are among the best in the country. Their school boards are smart. Their superintendents are well-organized. They have the pick of the best teachers. And most importantly their average incomes are high so the standards are high, as are the expectations.

    This does not always produce great schools for all kids. But the northern Va. districts have been run by people who take their responsibilities seriously and have opened up their challenging courses and their best teaching to all children, no matter what their backgrounds. If you find a house in any of those districts that you like, buy it. You will like the schools. Even Alexandria, which has gotten some bad publicity because its larger low-income population has lowered test averages, is a well run system that college educated parents have found to be full of wonderful teachers and principals.

     If you want one measure of how good the schools are, as opposed to how affluent the parents are, go to washingtonpost.com/highschoolchallenge and look at my Challenge Index ratings of all the local high schools, plus the best schools nationally. It is the one school ranking system I know of that measures the energy and focus of the school staffs. I think you will find the results encouraging.

  I agree. My wife and I didn't get home until dinner time and often  the homework was done by then. They might have a few questions, but they learned to take care of it themselves. That was the way my parents, including my mother the teacher, did it. We had to take responsibility for it. I think you can make suggestions if a child is struggling, but it is best to give them time and space to work it out.

  I envy your children having such wise parents. I don't think this is in conflict with my last answer. You were setting forth expectations and letting them do the work. Just one question: where and when did you encounter a no-reading-ahead rule? I don't see why anyone would consider that necessary for most kids, but if you have students who want to read ahead, who in their right mind would try to stop them?

I would love to hear what other readers think about this. Here is my radical suggestion: Since it's sixth grade and the report card results count for nothing, why not experiment with stepping back and letting her decide whether to do the homework or not? I would even suspend enforcement of bedtime rules for awhile if she gets a panicked late urge to get it done. I wouldn't even tell her that I was changing my approach. I would just stop asking about homework. If she had questions, answer them, but let nature take its course. If the teacher calls to say she is slipping, tell the teacher what you are doing and seek her advice. But in the meantime, just back off and see what happens. Anyone else out there ever try this, or some other approach to the homework resister?

Tell them it is going to be just like their old school, with plenty of kids that they will find friendly and fun to be with, and teachers that they will love. If the public school draws from the same neighborhoods that the religious school did, that will be true. If there is a great socio-economic difference between the two schools, you should still be positive and say they will find friends and good teachers, but keep that conversation going as school starts to see if they are running into anything different with which they need help.

    If it is a different mix of kids, tell them that is one of the reasons why you are glad they are going to the new school, so they can learn more about all kinds of kids and people. Be positive. They will find a way to make it work for them.

  Tell us more about what you have observed first hand. There are plenty of good teachers in Atlanta, as in other cities. I know some of them. They teach as good teachers have always taught, helping kids both learn the content and think through its meaning. We have always had tests, both good ones and dumb ones. These days some of those tests are written by teachers who work for the state, and not just the tests in the classroom written by your children's teachers. I have visited many schools in the NCLB era, and before. The nature of classroom teaching has not changed much, except in one way.

   Teachers these days pay more attention to review, to checking to make sure children have learned what has been taught. The state tests put pressure on them to do that. That is not a problem for me as a parent. Would you want a teacher who presents lots of material, has all kinds of projects, but never checks to see what has been learned?

    As for remedial classes for college, those are the result of our schools having many more low-income and immigrant children than we used to, and even more important having a much higher percentage of kids going to college than happened in the past. If you want to go back to the days when  kids who did poorly in school gave up and never tried college, so the colleges did not need to give remedial courses, that is your choice. But most people would prefer that we give every person every chance to improve their lives, and in some cases they need remediation.

  I think you should consult a specialist. Ask your pediatrician to recommend someone---these are often psychologists---who handle kids with learning problems. It could just be a maturity issue that disappears when she gets a little older. Or it could have something to do with her eyes, or ears or brain processing. Experts have a lot of experience treating small children who have such issues.

     You might even ask the school  if it can have one of its experts evaluate her. Most larger districts employ people who do this. Let me know what happens. mathewsj@washpost.com.