With the start of another school year a couple months away, homework debates are sure to rage once again. Last fall, the Brookings Institution suggested that, contrary to some reports, most American students spend very little time on homework.

High school students do less than an hour a day and thus score consistently lower on international tests than their major foreign competitors. Brookings assures us that most Americans accept homework and implores the rest of us to stop whining. Otherwise, sit back and watch our nation fail in the global marketplace.

As an author of several books and articles questioning the value of homework, I was among the major “whiners.” Yet before asking me to hang my head and issue my mea culpa, Brookings needs to do its homework.

In a report titled “Do Students Have Too Much Homework?,” Brookings argued that the vast majority of Americans are either satisfied with the amount of homework their children receive or even demand more. They cited survey research by Public Agenda. Typical of all survey research, much depends on how the question is asked. Parents who were offered or could see no other way to help their children’s performance might well say homework is fine.

Brookings neglects another survey by Public Agenda that asked if homework was a source of family conflict. That survey revealed that 50 percent of families reported conflict in the last year and a third experienced homework as a continuing source of conflict.

If students are making little progress in school, is more homework the answer? Despite the great hype, the study provided no new empirical evidence that homework improves student performance. Yet the most careful work on homework, even by many of its defenders, is much more ambivalent on the question of just how effective homework is and even concedes that homework in the elementary grades does not improve student performance.

Are schools already making the best use of the time available to them? And no, I am not talking about much needed recesses and physical education programs. A former colleague, Etta Kralovec, points out in a perceptive new book, “Schools That Do Too Much,” that such activities as fund-raising projects, pep rallies, and administrative announcements waste three times more U.S. classroom time than in Japan. And waste of time and professional resources is only compounded by making our public schools responsible for the community’s sports and drama.

Even so, U.S. schools are not doing as badly as Brookings suggests. Educational statistician Gerald Bracy points out that many of these international test scores provide apples and oranges comparison. In the United States more of the student population than in many of our competitors continues through high school graduation.

There are lessons we can learn from countries that do well in international tests. Robert Kuttner points out that: “in these countries, the national or provincial government assumes responsibility rather than leaving school funding at the mercy of local property tax wealth. These countries … also far surpass the United States in … early-childhood enrichment programs, which make young children ready for school.”

I would argue that academic performance on the high school level could be better enhanced not by homework but by expanding the opportunities for students to do intellectually engaging independent work in settings in which they have adequate resources and trained personnel available to help them.

If schoolwork is appropriately structured and opportunities for independent work provided, students, like adults, can do all they need to do within a 40-hour week. A neglected aspect of the story is just how important leisure and hobbies are. Some of the difference between children who do well in school and those who don’t is attributable to what happens on vacations, weekends, and time away from school. Homework is not the key variable.

Johns Hopkins University researchers point out in a recent study of children’s academic progress: “Better off children more often went to city and state parks, fairs, or carnivals and took day or overnight trips. They also took swimming, dance, and music lessons; visited local parks, museums, science centers and zoos; and more often went to the library in summer.”

Ironically, just as Americans are being told to spend more time on homework, corporations and the Bush administration are striving to remove many of the federal protections workers enjoy against excessive overtime. Adult workers need more free time, not only to connect with their children’s schools, but to engage in the hobbies and play that sustain creativity and lifelong interests across generations.

Children are more than recipients of school knowledge. They are siblings and community members, budding artists, musicians and athletes. They are natural inventors and scientists and spiritual beings. Do we give our children the time to exercise these selves?

John Buell’s most recent book is “Closing the Book on Homework.” Etta Kralovec and he will be signing copies of their recent books at Rue Cottage Books in Southwest Harbor at 7 p.m. Friday, July 16.