Parent Concerned about Busywork

Almost every night, my very bright first-grader brings home the work that she hasn't finished in class. The teacher says that my daughter simply won't do the work in class and must complete it at home. Yesterday, I looked over her work and saw that there were 10 pages of just printing the word "people" at least 10 times on each page. Many of the other parents of children in this class have problems with such busywork. Should I be concerned? - Too Much Repetition
Answer: Have you found out why your child refuses to complete her work in class and what she is doing instead? Is it possible that she likes bringing work home to do? Is it all repetitive exercises? It is definitely time to get answers to these questions. You don't want your daughter to get in the bad habit of not completing her work or only doing work that is interesting. Talk this over with her. Hopefully, she has not assumed your attitude that much of her schoolwork is just busywork.
Assignments like the one you describe are likely to turn children off to doing their schoolwork. Then, having to do them at home establishes homework as something that is very unpleasant to do. Remember that at times, repetitive work has the value of drilling until something is well-learned. At other times, it has close to no educational value.
We realize that all work cannot be challenging for every student in a class. Nevertheless, your bright daughter might be far more willing to work with the word "people" if the assignment for using the word was more imaginative. It would be a good idea for you and the other concerned parents to have a conference with this teacher and find out his or her reasoning behind assigning so much repetitive work.