Summer Learning and the Achievement Gap

Reading Comprehension Averages over the Five Years of Elementary School, by Family SES Level: A gap of .5 GE in the Fall of First Grade Increases to 3.0 GE by the End of Fifth Grade

Chart 1 School Year versus Summer Learning: A Seasonal Perspective on Cognitive Growth Fall Year 1 Spring Year 1 Fall Year 2 Spring Year 2 Fall Year 3 Testing Schedule First Winter First Summer Second Winter Second Summer Winter Gains: First Winter: [Spring Year 1 - Fall Year 1] Second Winter: [Spring Year 2 - Fall Year 2] Summer Gains: First Summer: [Fall Year 2 - Spring Year 1] Second Summer: [Fall Year 3 - Spring Year 2]

SCHOOL YEAR CUMULATIVE READING COMPREHENSION GAINS Low SES, School Year High SES, School Year SUMMER CUMULATIVE READING COMPREHENSION GAINS Low SES, Summer High SES, Summer *Cumulative gains on California Achievement Test in reading over elementary school years and summers. Sample consists of Baltimore Public school students who entered first grade in 1982. Test “scale scores” are California Achievement Test Scores calibrated to measure Growth over a student’s 12-year school career. Sources: Doris Entwisle, Karl Alexander, and Linda Olson, Children, Schools, and Inequality, 1997, Table 3.1

Summer Setback and the 9th Grade Achievement Gap: Selected Comparisons 74 CAT-R Points 9th Grade Achievement Gap 116 CAT-R Points 9th Grade Achievement Gap 133 CAT-R Points

"Virtually all of the advantage that wealthy students have over poor students is the result of differences in the way privileged kids learn when they are not in school…. America doesn’t have a school problem. It has a summer vacation problem …" Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers, pp. 258 - 260

How Quickly Things Can Change Summer Loss: The Phenomenon No One Wants to Deal With: “Schools whose poor children are learning over the year will suffer because summer loss will cause them to fall farther and farther behind their middle-class peers and to fail to show much growth in reading and math. It will thus appear that the schools are failing, and they will be blamed for what is happening – or, more accurately, is not happening – in the family and the community.” Gerald W. Bracey Phi Delta Kappan, Sept. 2002 “Summer learning loss …is devastating. There is a ton of research. We need to do something about it. [Children] get to a certain point academically in June, and over the summer they lose that. They come back in September further behind. It is literally a step backwards. I worry a lot about children from disadvantaged backgrounds falling behind at the time we need to be accelerating their rate of improvement.” Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education, Interview, June 25, 2009