Reading, Writing and Ridiculous

Ok...gonna rant a bit today...please no hate comments.  It's merely my opinion and I'm not trying to start WWIII.

So...

My younger son who will be a junior this year is taking 2 AP classes.  Generally, taking an AP class necessitates homework during the summer.  Now I have no problem with homework such as reading a book or two for an English class - especially if it's going to be discussed when school begins.  I do have a problem with HOURS and HOURS of work that requires extensive research and reams of paper to print the so-called report.  Is this necessary? Is my student learning something "valuable" from giving up an ENTIRE week or more (at least 8 hours each day) working on summer "homework?"

My next question is, will said teacher of class actually read the REAMS of paper from each student (at least 30+) or just casually glance at it and give it a random grade based on some unknown Rubrik?

Trust me, we've had the above happen.  At the end of my son's freshman year, he completed a 40+ page report (yes, we had to print the whole darn thing out for the teacher).  The teacher gave it a cursory look and gave him an "A."  The turnaround time on this project after handing it in was about a week.  She had 100-150 students to evaluate.

Really?  Do you REALLY believe she read all those papers?  I don't.  I provided feedback to the principal who said this particular teacher (who retired this year with the pay cuts) was one of the best.  (She was so bad that my son did poorly on his annual standardized state test - first year ever to not receive a commended due to the way the teacher instructed the students to answer the questions).  One of the best?

So forgive me if I'm a bit cynical about this "project" for AP English III, but I have my doubts that it will be used or read by the teacher.  And I totally resent my son having to spend his last week of summer vacation working on something that appears to be a waste of time.  (Now if it were an assignment during the school year and a reason for the assignment was stated, I would have no problem with it - it's an interesting assignment - just incredibly time consuming).

Isn't summer vacation - by definition - just that?  VACATION?  Cessation from work?  As it is, Grayson took an online health class the first part of the summer so he could take more music classes during the school year.  After all, isn't that why he's attending an ARTS MAGNET school?  (And he also was gone for 3 weeks on mission trips and 1 week for family vacation, otherwise, the other weeks were ALL spent on homework.)

So please forgive me when I don't repost the Facebook status about "somewhere a teacher is working hard and spending her own money on preparing for her students." I know teachers are underpaid and overworked.  I get that.  But so are parents and students during the summer and I hate being the homework Nazi during the summer when my kid should be able to read fun fiction and just hang out.

(And as a side note - yes, I realize this is another reason why some homeschool.  Definitely the flexibility to decide if the work is relevant and necessary during summer.  My argument isn't about what's better - I think every family has to decide what the best option is for their kids.  We've chosen public school and been happy so far.  It's just this darn summer work that makes me cranky and the Arts Magnet school has FAR more homework than the local high school.  And I can't believe that the teacher - who already is overworked and over-commited - has time to grade all the work. Just my humble opinion - for what it's worth. I greatly appreciate teachers and all they do for their students, but I just don't get what's fueling this summer assignment school of thought. If there's not enough instructional time during the school year, then that needs to be addressed and changed.  But there were countless days during the school year when movies were shown in the classroom and NO instruction took place.)