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This time around, we’ll pass along some comments based on a front page article appearing a week ago (June 13) in the Indianapolis Star titled “Reading, Writings, Regression.” It’s all about a major factor in education of which most of us are vaguely aware but don’t think much about. Sometimes it’s called “The Summer Slide.”

The Summer Slide is how the gains in Spring evaporate in the summer. Teachers are well aware of it, because they bemoan the major block of time they must spend every Fall to remediate it. Research shows that a summer without “an engaging school environment” can cause students to lose about one month’s worth of grade-level skills.

This is a serious setback that falls most heavily on kids in the lower socio-economic levels. Not only that, it has negative effects beyond the next grade. Recent research shows that by the ninth grade, some two-thirds of the socio-economic achievement gap can be traced to summer slides. Blaming demographics is a favorite excuse, but it is true that there is strong correlation between a student’s economic background and his or her success in school. What this research shows is that the achievement gap is less due to just “being poor” than specifically the cumulative effect of the Summer Slide.

Why does the growing achievement gap fall most heavily on kids in the lower socio-economic level? Because it is less likely that they will receive education stimulation in their daily home lives. Anyone who has visited these homes can testify that they find few books, or none, nor any newspapers or magazines. But the TV will be on, serving up mental candy. Schools work to overcome this deficit during the school year. During summer, middle and upper class kids visit libraries, museums, summer camps and far-away vacation spots, while poverty kids while away their days splashing in the poor between sleepovers.

Not that there should be no sleepovers and time in the pool, but the facts are clear: If there isn’t some kind of mental stimulation during those months, those kids will suffer from Summer Slide – and the loss will be cumulative.

What to do about it? We’re all familiar with some of the remedies. Summer school has always been around, but even it is diminishing due to a shortage of funds. And the law does not force any child to attend. Recently, the Indianapolis school district sent out 5,000 notices to families where the child was failing to perform at grade level. Only 1,000 showed up. Year-‘round school has been successful in many places, because it cuts down on the long summer vacation and replaces it with shorter vacations during the year. It was proposed in Richmond a few years ago, but the school superintendent at that time put the kibosh on it.

How about a special school for kids who need help at the most important point in their entire school career, at the end of third grade, maybe something called the Third Grade Academy?

Glad you asked. However, since this blog has gone long enough, we’ll save that amazing solution for next week.

–Vic Jose

Vic Jose :: Jun.19.2010 :: Uncategorized ::

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