For many students, summer is synonymous with sunning and snoozing. Summer is also the season of learning loss. Aptly (and alliteratively) dubbed “summer slide,” this seasonal skills drop-off adds up to one month of lost learning. For some students, the downward slope is especially steep, influencing educational attainment years later.
Suggesting that kids learn less during summer break is no great revelation, of course. Sure, some budding scribes and junior prodigies will still pen perfect prose or master mind-bending math. But for most, summer’s to-do list is more mundane.
What’s the best predictor of summer learning, or its lack? The family pocketbook reigns as summer sovereign. Children with affluent parents access a smorgasbord of enrichment options: travel, camps, or lessons. Lower-income students face fewer choices.
So significant is summer learning loss for these kids that it accounts for much of the growing socio-economic achievement gap by ninth grade. That’s the finding of long-running research from Johns Hopkins University sociologist Karl Alexander and colleagues.
During the school year, students across the economic spectrum actually make similar learning gains, Alexander has found. Summer ushers in more languid learning for all, but low-income students are hit hardest. Cumulative seasonal losses are largely responsible for the difference between poor and affluent kids in college-preparatory class placements or four-year college attendance.
“Calendar reform”― converting some traditional schools to year-round schedules ― has been touted as a way to mitigate summer slide. In February U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., introduced legislation to pilot year-round schools in some low-income districts nationwide.
In North Carolina, school districts have increased year-round schooling to boost performance or accommodate growth. The Wake County Public School System operates 50 year-round elementary and middle schools. Other systems statewide offer year-round options, albeit on a smaller scale.
Year-round schooling isn’t desirable for every family, so parents should always get to choose. Currently Wake County’s school system assigns students to a base school (either traditional or year-round). Parents may apply to a “calendar option” on the opposite schedule of the base school. Placement is not guaranteed, however.
Do year-round schools deliver? Some studies reveal modest academic benefits; others do not. According to sociologist Paul Von Hippel’s research, year-round students learn more than traditional-school students during the summer, but less during the rest of the year. However, year-round schooling is linked with higher reading scores for low-income students.
Public-private partnerships, such as those supporting summer bridge programs for disadvantaged kids, are promising. The nonprofit Breakthrough Collaborative (which won an award from Johns Hopkins) coordinates intensive, six-week summer sessions for low-income middle schoolers in 27 cities. Students attend programs during three consecutive summers and receive follow-up guidance in high school. Results are impressive.
For all students, the least expensive summer pastime ― reading books from the public library ― is also among the most enriching. Placing books “in the hands of children,” according to New York State Librarian Bernard Margolis, “is the best antidote for the ‘summer slide’ in children’s reading achievement.”
My mother would agree. The daughter of a widow who worked as a telephone operator, my mother spent long summer days at the public library with books as companions ― and transports, even, to another world. She went on to become a high school English teacher (later, earning a doctorate from Georgetown University). A devoted proponent of summer reading, she required me to read up to 500 pages a week in the summertime.
Many summers (and pages) later, I can recall the opening lines to her favorite Emily Dickinson poem: “There is no frigate like a book to take us lands away.” The comparison serves us still.
Kristen Blair is a Chapel Hill-based education writer and Carolina Journal contributor.