Checking Homework and Metacognition (Thinking about Thinking)

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/nurtureshock/archive/2009/11/18/at-what-age-do-you-no-longer-have-to-check-your-children-s-homework.aspx

This Newsweek article by Po Bronson, author of Nurture Shock, is titled "At What Age Do You No Longer Have to Check Your Children's Homework?". This is a complex question as many middle schoolers are still developing metacognitive skills for self-evaluation (do I get it?) and the maturity for self-advocacy (I should see the teacher).

An interesting Letter to the Editor regarding Math homework in the New York Times today.
Here is the text:

To the Editor:
I wonder if the educators cited in the article have ever tried to teach the New York City-mandated math curriculum to students who enter high school at a sixth-grade level. Perhaps gifted students can “chill” during vacations.
But the 98 percent of students who don’t attend Stuyvesant and the other specialized high schools need to catch up — and homework is one of the few tools we teachers control that can help us provide individualized instruction.
We either raise the level of homework for these kids or lower our expectations of them — the choice is obvious.
Mitch Kurz
New York, April 4, 2007
The writer is a math teacher at the Bronx Center for Science and Math.