"Out of
the Spotlight" Posting for June 18, 2010
As
another school year winds down excitement is growing for children with plans
for fun and adventure during the summer break. There will be trips to museums,
parks, and camps, and long days playing games and exploring outside with
friends.
That
idyllic image of summer vacation, however, is the stuff of lore for poor kids across
the country. For them, summer is not a happy, carefree time, but a season of
risks and setbacks that include academic backsliding, limited access to healthy
meals, and a lack of adequate adult supervision.
The
problem of summer learning loss has been gaining visibility recently: Michelle
Obama highlighted the issue as part of her push against childhood obesity. This
month she teamed with the Corporation for National Service to launch United
We Serve: Let’s Read, Let’s Move.
The National Summer Learning
Association (NSLA) is urging school districts to re-envision summer school
as an opportunity for engaging lessons and enrichment activities for children
and as a critical element in school reform efforts. And, several school districts—including
Cincinnati, Minneapolis, and Pittsburgh—have retooled their summer school
programs to provide more learning and enrichment opportunities for students.
Research
over more than a century clearly documents the academic backslide experienced
by many students, especially poor children, during the summer. However, the
connection between summer learning loss and dropout
rates is not as widely understood. Students who are significantly below
grade level in math and reading when they start high school are far more likely
to drop out. Much of that achievement gap can be tied to the months of learning
loss suffered each summer when they don’t have access to quality learning
opportunities.
The
National Dropout Prevention Center (NDPC) is planning an upcoming
newsletter on the problem of summer learning loss for at-risk students,
with suggestions for designing better programs to keep kids on track during
those long months away from school. The issue will also outline the research,
best practices, and a new vision for summer school to address some of the
academic issues that push students off the graduation track.
The
NDPC/N newsletter includes information on an NSLA project, sponsored in part by
the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to develop summer transition programs
that prepare rising 9th graders for high school. The newsletter will
also feature an interview with Gene Bottoms, who directs the High Schools that
Work initiative at the Southern Regional Education Board. Bottoms suggests that
summer transition programs for students entering high school provide rigorous
academics and interesting hands-on activities for those students who show risk
factors for dropping out.
“So
many students exhibit risk factors for dropping out as early as middle school,”
he says. “If you can do something in the summer before those students get to
high school to head off the academic challenges they are likely to face in 9th
grade, it could give them a great jump start toward graduation.”
Posted by Kathleen
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at Out of the Spotlight, we offer a behind-the-scenes look at the
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poverty. From key political appointees to clashes over policy, we cover
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