Each Monday, at around 6 p.m., I arrive home with my two boys, 8 and 6 years old, in tow. As they wearily shuffle through the door, dragging their coats and knapsacks behind them, I brace myself for my least favorite part of the day. After seven or eight hours of school, and a 90-minute chess club meeting that they choose to attend, they are now responsible for completing their homework.

“Okay, guys,” I say enthusiastically after dinner, “Let’s just get it done.” They know exactly what I’m talking about.

They want to throw a ball. Play Boggle. Torture each other. Trade Pokémon cards. Watch their favorite television show.

“We all know the homework’s got to get done,” I say. “It’s almost seven. I’ll sit with you guys. Come on. I bet it won’t take that long tonight.” Nag, nag, nag.

Sound familiar?

The debate over whether or not American schoolchildren are spending too much time doing homework has reached a frenzied pitch with the recent release of two books, “The Case Against Homework”(Crown) by lawyer Sara Bennett and journalist Nancy Kalish, and “The Homework Myth” (Da Capo) by educator Alfie Kohn.

These books passionately and systematically challenge the idea that more homework yields more learning. “No study has ever found an academic advantage to having kids do homework before high school,” Mr. Kohn told me this week. “Even in high school, there is no proof of a causal relationship between homework and academic achievement. There is a weak correlation such that some of the kids who do a lot of homework get higher grades and scores. But there has never been a shred of evidence to show that homework builds character, independence, discipline, or good work habits.”

“Many countries with the highest scoring students on achievement tests have teachers who assign little homework,” Ms. Bennett said. “Most teachers are so overworked they can barely get through their lesson plans, let alone devise meaningful homework. After seven hours a day of school, shouldn’t children be free to pursue their own interests? To do outside reading? Reading is what educates children, not drills.”

Huh? Each night as I twist arms (read: nag), it is the prospect of my children’s increased knowledge and sound work habits that give me the strength to persevere.

Some of those who argue against the glut of homework recommend that homework be limited to 10 minutes a night per grade. “If first-grade teachers knew they could only assign ten minutes, at least they would pick and choose and not be so quick to assign busy work such as mindless reading logs that just suck all the love of reading right out of the activity,” Ms. Kalish said.

This is particularly worrying to me, since I initial several reading logs a night.

But not everyone agrees that American children are being overworked or, for that matter, that there has been a significant increase in the number of hours children are spending completing homework assignments.

A 2003 study conducted by the Brookings Institute found that only a third of 17-year-olds have an hour or more of homework each night and that half of all schoolchildren have no homework at all. According to the director of Brookings’s Brown Center on Education Policy, Tom Loveless, homework boosts learning, especially when parents know how to foster good study habits. Only about 5% of American children have more than 2 hours of homework each day, according to his studies.

But I wonder what whopping percentage of that small group lives in the Tri-State area? Perhaps the majority of American schoolchildren aren’t being bogged down with hours of homework. What about the tens of thousands of students who attend the elite, private, and selective public New York City schools?

“There is no doubt that the schools in New York are loading it on, and at a younger and younger age,” a private school administrator, who asked not to be named, said. “The schools would never admit it, but in many ways we are catering to a highly-ambitious, competitive, type-A parent body who wants to see their children rigorously educated, really at any cost. Twenty years ago, we never gave homework in third grade. Today these kids have at least an hour a night, if not more.”

It seems that in New York, and all across the country, elementary students are finding themselves facing the greatest increase in homework time. This is, of course, questionable, because all of the researchers (Messrs. Loveless and Kohn included) agree that during these early years, homework correlates least — if at all — with academic achievement.

The country’s top homework scholar, Duke University’s Harris Cooper, author of “The Battle over Homework: Common Ground for Administrators, Teachers, and Parents” (Corwin), analyzed nearly 200 studies and concluded that homework does not measurably improve academic achievement for children in grade school. He also found that for high school students in particular, performance diminished after two hours of homework.

“Kids are not vending machines,” Mr. Kohn said. “You don’t put in more homework and have more learning come out the other end. Your instincts might tell you otherwise, but the research is overwhelmingly conclusive.”

It might not be clear what sweeping educational policies will best serve the majority of American children. But it is decidedly clear that children being raised in the privileged world of private, competitive schools are being overworked each night, especially in the early grades, when there is hardly any proof of any academic benefit.

“Parents need to reclaim their family time at night,” Mr. Kohn said. “If teachers can make a case that most children in their class can benefit from an assignment, well great. But that’s very different from assuming that all homework, regardless of it content, is valuable.”

“These selective schools are all about sweat and tears instead of creating a love of learning,” he continued. “Saddling children with homework does one thing: It kills the love of learning.”