I was just reading this
article and it's a bit interesting, though vague. The gist of the article is helping parents draw the line at where they 'help' their children with homework.
Honestly, that's really not something I've ever given much thought to. If my kids needed help, I helped them. Sometimes that even meant doing an assignment for them (ok, so it was nice to know I can still pull A's, lol).
On one hand I can see where parents doing the assignments for the kids is harmful, but on the other hand...no one excels in all areas and one of the most important things I've tried to teach my kids is that it isn't always a matter of knowing the information so much as knowing your resources to get the information.
One thing in the article jumped out at me though and it was the bit on busy-work versus relevant work. It was nice to see a distinction made between the two forms homework can take. Personally I find busy-work to be a fault on the part of the teacher; amounting to a lack of effort to come up with an assignment that actually relates to the material. Then again, I'm not a teacher so I could be mistaken.
I'm still waiting for one of my kids to get the infamous volcano assignment, too. I wanna make a volcano!!!