We read less, but everyone actually did the reading. In our case, we read one Platonic dialogue, not three, for example. We did it in class. It meant thinking differently about class time, which became work time. We may not like what we know about how to improve schools because it's very expensive.
Homework is school reform on the cheap.
Homework disempowers teachers and deprofessionalizes them. Well, you can help him at home. But you really can't because teaching those kinds of things is complex. When we ratchet up homework, we're really relying on unpaid labor of parents. I don't think it's fair or equitable.