John Monfredo: Summer Learning Is More Important Than Ever
Saturday, April 13, 2013
Think about this and multiple in by six years in the elementary grades and you will see how the achievement gap expands due to the lack of summer learning for our low-income students.
Secretary of education Arne Duncan described summer learning loss as “devastating.” This is nothing new to educators for it confirms what teachers know from experience…students lose during the summer vacation too much of what they learned during the school year. As a former principal and now a member of the school committee I am passionate about this topic and have tried to move the needle on summer learning reform.
Summer learning research can be broadly categorized under the following themes:
The impact of summer learning loss on disadvantaged youth. A report by the RAND Corporation entitled “Making Summer Count” found test results show that low-income students lost significant ground over the summer while their higher-income counterparts actually made gains in reading and math. As an educator I saw it each year and attempted to address this issue with summer reading and summer school programs.
Access to books and time devoted to reading. Again, when my wife and I retired (both educators) we formed “Worcester: the City that Reads” in an attempt to place the importance of literacy in the forefront of the community. One of our many activities with all-volunteer group members of the community was to collect books and put them into the hands of low-income children for summer reading. In six years we have collected over 154,000 books and we are currently in the middle of our book drive as of this writing. More access to books results in more reading. Studies find that when schools close their doors, the opportunities to read is often closed … especially for those children without access to books. We all know that students who read more, read better; they also write better, spell better, and have larger vocabularies. A report from the National Institute of Education concluded that “…the amount of reading done out of school is consistently related to gains in reading achievement.”
The importance of successful reading experiences…this can be achieved by involving our children in summer programs through the community. The bottom line is that too many children are losing too much ground over summer vacation, especially low-income children…This is not a school problem; this is a community problem, and we've got to organize ourselves to solve that. Some ways to help solve the problem could be programs through the Worcester Public Schools and the Worcester Public Library. Let’s continue to advertise in our schools and in the media about the summer stops of our Bookmobile, Libby. Let’s involve our inter-faith community and social agencies such as the Boys and Girls Club, United Way and a host of other organizations in summer learning opportunities.
At the present time, our community and our schools have been slow in moving forward to solve this problem. We have had programs during the summer time in our schools but in reviewing the summer data from last year one sees the number of children that dropped out of summer programs before it even started. Also, the percentage of elementary students attending was small as was the attendance. Summer school, in order for the students to hold their own, cannot be a drop in center for it to be effective. In some cases last summer we ended up with a teacher-pupil ratio of four to one due to attendance issues. On the positive side the secondary level did have good attendance and the data did show growth.
As I reviewed the data last September, I made a motion at our school committee meeting to address this issue. It will finally it be addressed next week and hopefully a discussion will take place as to what changes need to happen. Here are some ideas that need to be discussed:
First of all as a community let’s make an all-out attempt to encourage learning by using the media to encourage summer reading and enrolling in summer school programs. Let’s promote summer school and other summer opportunities through a variety of marketing and outreach strategies…telephone calls to the home, summer learning fairs, back-pack letters on three different occasions, PTO meetings, signs on city buses, interfaith groups, radio and TV commercials. I would also suggest that the Worcester Public Schools use (in many of our low-income schools) our wrap-around coordinators to recruit students and address the issue of learning loss with our parents.
Programs need to include a parent involvement component, for based on research and according to my experience, this can result in more positive achievement and participation in summer school programs and in community opportunties. We need to have the parents buy-in to a summer program for we need to increase enrollment and attendance. In addition, these outreach meetings should also assist parents in ways of expanding learning opportunities in the home.
Next to recruiting students to attend summer programs we need to increase their attendance for this is critical. Let’s consider incentives for perfect attendance within the community. Swimming opportunities for those students who attend during the afternoon from various agencies as well as enrichment opportunities could be offered. At each school site have someone who can call if a child is not showing up or have someone make a home visit. Working with organizations such as U. Mass Memorial or with the inter-faith groups could lend a hand in reaching out to many of our parents whose child has poor attendance.
Let’s also reach out to other agencies such as the Worcester Art Museum, Broad Meadow Brook and other groups that run summer programs and see if some scholarship programs can be offered to those students in need of assistance.
What about college and universities helping out? Could the colleges and universities come up with a program that would assist the children in Worcester? We have many colleges with lots of empty rooms in the summer time and if asked I’m sure we can get some to assist the children in our schools. The programs could be separate or it could be in partnership with a school close to the college. Many of the college students are looking for internships during the summer time and this certainly would assist them and the students in need of service.
The National Summer Learning Association through Johns Hopkins University suggested a set of principles that should guide summer learning. Some of them are as follows:
- Increase the length of summer school to six weeks.
- Have all students participate in summer learning…not just those students who are struggling.
- Strengthen and expand partnerships and coordinate programs between agencies and funding streams.
- Encourage attendance in a variety of ways, such as providing comprehensive supports and engaging programs.
- Provide professional development for staff in youth development.
- Target key transition periods…transition to kindergarten, middle school, high schools.
- Develop an evaluation system and see what works well and what doesn’t. In establishing an evaluation one can clarify program objectives, levers of change and needed supports.
- Add enrichment opportunities for students in the arts-music, theatre, and dance, as part of summer school offerings
- Increase student’s wonder and interest in the nature world and physical sciences. Get students involved in learning about astronomy and robotics. There are many college students (especially at WPI) who might be interested in fostering students in these areas through engaging courses.
While there is overwhelming evidence on the side of adding time during the summer months, budget constraints and the lack of data about the effects of summer learning loss make it a tough sell. However, that is no excuse for not moving forward. Let us enhance summer learning with our summer school recruitment , embrace community based programs and reach out for resources from our libraries, colleges, social agencies, churches and museums that have the means of making a difference in this community. Now is the time to seriously make the necessary plans to assist our children in summer learning. Let’s do it for the children!
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