Hate Your Homework? Buy It Online!

PARIS, March 5, 2009 — -- A new Web site selling homework to elementary and high school students may become a major hit in France's school playgrounds.

The Web site, faismesdevoirs.com (domyhomerwork.com), goes live today, offering to do students' homework within 24 to 48 hours, for a fee. It will cost students (and most likely their parents) $1.25 to answer three math questions, $12 for a detailed outline of an essay, $31 to get solutions to four physics exercises and $38 for a geographic paper.

With the launch of the site, under the slogan "You can't do it? We're here," transactions that previously took place on the sly in school playgrounds have now become an official business available on the Web.

"We make students aware of their responsibilities by putting an educational tool at their disposal," Stéphane Boukris, the site's founder, told ABCNews.com. "It's true this tool can be used in a bad way as well as in a good way."

"We don't provide just answers or corrected versions. We also provide elements, annotations for the students to understand how to do the exercise. There is a real reasoning to reach the solution of an exercise, which is explained to the student. Just like a private lesson," he explained.

But despite Boukris' explanation, the site is already facing a lot of criticism.

"I don't encourage in any way paying mechanisms allowing to render such services," France Education Minister Xavier Darcos told reporters yesterday following the weekly Cabinet meeting.

Parents and teacher unions are on the same wavelength, with many venting their frustrations on blog postings.

"When are we going to see a Web site goworkforme.com?" one teacher jokingly wrote.

"The Web site founder would show more intelligence by giving remedial courses ... in schools," a teaching assistant wrote.