Closing the Gap: Summer Learning Loss

An Interview with Chana Edmond-Verley, Senior Program Officer for Community Initiatives for the Doug & Maria DeVos Foundation

DeVos: Explain the problem of Summer Learning Loss?

Chana: In the summer kids are either learning, or have stopped learning or they lose learning. It’s commonly known as “summer slide”. It’s where the achievement children gain during the school year basically seeps out because of the lack of engagement in rich kinds of activities in the summer. Therefore [the students] come back [to school] in the fall, if you test them, knowing less than what they did when they left. It’s like manufacturing “rework” where you make a bunch of parts and 30% of the parts are not good. So teachers work really hard to bring kids up to a certain level in the fall because of the kinds of activities that some kids are doing during the summer and end up losing some of the learning they had gained.

DeVos: Who has done some of the work to discover the findings around summer learning loss?

Chana: This is based on 100 years work of research. This is not a new phenomenon. A researcher by the name of White, in 1906 did a lot of extensive research on summer learning loss and the issue of key transitions particularly transition from preschool into kindergarten and from elementary to middle school from middle school into high school, those are most vulnerable times. Another researcher, Cooper, in 1996, found that every student has some level of loss. And the loss for low income children is more than two months worth of loss. The national average is around 22 % of the learning that students gain is lost. In urban areas the learning loss is upwards to 40%. So close to half of what they’ve learned during the school year gets lost in the summer.

DeVos: Does this require that teachers to make up for this loss somehow?

Chana: Teachers always have to come back in the fall and review what they’ve already taught. It’s pretty dramatic! The issue is the kinds of things kids are doing in the summer. If you are a middle or upper-class child you’ve taken trips to the museum, you’re going to the beach, you’re engaged in reading books, and even the ways parents interact with their kids ensures learning. For low income children, many times they are not doing those kinds of activities. They are just hanging out on the block.

DeVos: Who is addressing this concern and where have you seen some of the work taking place.

Chana: We have engaged the National Summer Learning Association they are on the national level raising awareness and asking for specific summer funding to address this issue. Locally, at the Doug and Maria DeVos Foundation, we’ve we worked with 27 different organizations to provide funding for them to offer an academic enriching summer learning in partnership with the Grand Rapids Public Schools. They provide the academic pieces through a technology based blended learning model. Then the kids leave there and go to churches to do music, art, and science projects to keep the mind pliable and moving.

DeVos: Are there other summer learning models that you can talk about?

Chana: In Philadelphia there’s the Summer Dreamers academy where the public schools have transformed what their summer school looks like. So if you’re in a community that’s doing the same old summer school, which is just remediation, there is a huge opportunity to take that and transform it into something that kids will want to attend. One of the challenges with summer is kids don’t want to attend school because it’s not fun. Baltimore and Indianapolis are also doing pretty rich summer learning programs that could be held up as national models.

DeVos: Do you recommend urban faith youth workers begin to address this issue somehow?

Chana: Youth workers have the opportunity to speak to the heart of a young people. Every youth worker ought to make sure that all of their youth are connected to some kind of learning experience in the summer. Either they are offering at their ministry or ensuring their youth is connected to a summer learning opportunity. That really is half the battle. We don’t want kids hanging out on the block and letting their brains go to mush. Kids need to have at least three to four days a week and they need an all day experience. None of the research shows that once a week programming will move the needle. Collaboration quite frankly may even get them a higher dosage of learning.

DeVos: Are their tools accessible or resources for how to develop, encourage or implement summer learning opportunities.

Chana: The best resource is the NLSA website. They have two page briefs on every aspect of summer learning loss. What parents care about, what students care about, ways you can offer difference aspects of summer learning they have a rich set of tools and also provide technical assistance, consulting difference aspects and have a conference every year.

DeVso: What kinds of outcomes is the NSLA hoping to see from summer learning?

Chana: Impact in academic achievement…Expressly looking at both literacy and mathematic academic shifts. We’d like to see if we have at least stemmed it if not increased it. Also, two college field trips are required. We want to increase kid’s aspiration to go to college, their interest in college and their knowledge of it takes to attend college. We consider if they on a high school and middle school curriculum that will lead them to college preparation. Further, all of our sites have really strong parent engagement activities. We teach parents what it takes for their child to go to college and how to monitor children’s academics. Part of our impact work has an affirmation piece. So we encourage parents to write letters to tell them they believe in them and that they expect them to go to college. We found in the first year that kids didn’t know their parents wanted them to go to college. One other thing is during the summer we also found that kids are food in secure. They don’t have access to the kind of food they have access to during the school year. Kids eat better during school year than they do during the summer. There are dollars out there for food programs that most states leave on the table. Increase number of youth who are food secure, and increase in activity and a decrease in obesity.

DeVos: What else should be known in the faith community about summer learning?

Chana: This is the civil rights issue of our time. Student achievement is suffering among urban youth - who are disproportionately children of color. So this is a social justice issue as well. This is a place where the church can stand tall and to do their part to get connected. It’s a high leverage opportunity and we can’t afford for 40 percent of what we have taught students to seep out. This is an opportunity to close that gap.