Contact

Reaching the National Homework Authority is straightforward. This page explains how to send a message, what geographic scope the service covers, what details to include for the fastest and most useful response, and what a realistic timeline looks like after a message is sent.

How to reach this office

The contact form on this site is the primary channel for submitting questions, feedback, or requests for clarification on any homework-related topic covered across these pages. It is the fastest route to a response because messages arrive pre-sorted by subject — unlike a general email inbox, which tends to become a remarkable archaeological dig.

For questions about specific homework types, grade levels, or subject areas, the form accepts plain-language descriptions. No special formatting is required. If a question relates to a topic already covered in depth — the Frequently Asked Questions page, for instance, or the How It Works breakdown — referencing that page in the message helps route it to the right subject matter context quickly.

There is no phone line. This is intentional: written messages create a record, allow for careful, sourced responses, and eliminate the particular misery of being placed on hold while hold music plays.

Service area covered

National Homework Authority operates at national scope within the United States. That means content, examples, and referenced frameworks draw from US-based educational standards and sources — including the Common Core State Standards Initiative, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), and the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

State-level variation does exist in homework policy. The National Education Association (NEA) has published guidance noting that homework expectations differ meaningfully across grade bands and school districts. Messages from all 50 states are accepted and addressed with awareness of those regional differences. International inquiries are also welcome, though responses will note where US-specific standards or sources may not apply directly to other national curricula.

What to include in your message

A clear, specific message gets a better answer than a general one. The following breakdown reflects the 4 categories of information that most directly shape response quality:

1. Grade level or age range. Homework norms for a 3rd-grader differ substantially from those for a high school junior. The NEA's longstanding "10-minute rule" guideline — 10 minutes of homework per night per grade level — produces very different numbers at each end of the K–12 spectrum.

2. Subject area. Math, reading, science, history, and foreign language homework each carry different cognitive load profiles and different research bases. Naming the subject narrows the relevant literature considerably.

3. The specific question or concern. A question framed as "my child has 3 hours of homework every night in 5th grade — is that typical?" is answerable with reference to published research. A question framed as "homework" is not.

4. Whether a cited source or study is needed. Some messages are looking for practical framing; others need a pointer to peer-reviewed research or a named public standard. Knowing which saves a round-trip.

What does not need to be included: personal identifying information beyond a working reply address, school names, or teacher names. Those details are not relevant to the types of responses this site provides and add nothing to the quality of the answer.

Response expectations

Messages submitted through the contact form receive a substantive reply, not an automated acknowledgment loop. The realistic window is 2–4 business days for most questions. Questions that require pulling from primary sources — such as a specific state's department of education guidance or a published NCTM position statement — may take up to 7 business days.

A few honest contrasts worth setting upfront:

Answerable here: Questions about homework research, how homework functions across grade levels, what published educational bodies recommend, how to interpret conflicting homework advice, and how to navigate the material covered across this site.

Not answerable here: Requests to complete homework assignments, provide tutoring, review or grade student work, or advise on specific teacher-student disputes. For the latter, the relevant starting point is typically the school's own communication channels — or, for broader policy questions, the local school board, which operates under public meeting requirements established by state open meetings laws across all 50 states.

Messages that fall into the "not answerable here" category will receive a brief, honest reply explaining why and, where possible, pointing toward a more appropriate resource.

Response quality also scales with message clarity. A 3-sentence message that names the grade level, subject, and specific question almost always produces a more useful answer than a paragraph of context without a clear ask. That is not a complaint about long messages — it is just a pattern that holds reliably across the full range of questions received.