Summer learning has taken on greater urgency and new forms since the pandemic, as policymakers and education leaders have sought to extend and deepen students’ opportunities for academic development and enrichment. Summer programs can also be a way to heighten students’ connection to school and their own paths as learners.
To find out more about new developments in summer learning—and what works best in summer programming—we recently spoke to Allison Crean Davis, the vice president for education studies at Westat and director of the National Summer Learning and Enrichment Study. Funded by The Wallace Foundation, this research project includes a series of reports on how states and school districts have responded to the call for greater attention to summer learning in the wake of the pandemic. A third and final report will be released later this year.
How has the role of summer learning programs within school systems changed since the pandemic?
One of the major changes has been the attention paid to summer learning on a national basis. The summer of 2021 in particular was a turning point. That’s when kids were beginning to return to school broadly, so there was an opportunity to bring kids together in person. There was also a call to action at that time from the White House and the U.S. Department of Education for states and school districts to use summer learning to help kids recover academically and socially from having spent so much time away from school, their peers, and their teachers. And then finally the really big change was in funding for summer programs. That came from the federal government, earmarked specifically through the American Rescue Plan. So all this created the opportunity for summer learning to roll out at a national scale in a way that we hadn’t seen before.
Your most recent report says that, in response to that call to action and the funding, many state leaders focused on the potential of summer learning through an “equity lens.” Do you think that has altered the role and purpose of summer programs?
I think it has, and in fact, over the last 10 or 15 years, a lot of the research on summer learning has had an equity lens. There’s a wealth of data showing that kids who do not have opportunities for enrichment programming over the summer tend to slip in their academic skills, whereas kids that have access to different learning opportunities and enrichment opportunities, such as travel and camps, come back to school retaining more of their learning from the prior year. That has been a part of the “summer slide” over time—it’s been a contributor to gaps in performance between different groups of students.
So summer learning has been increasingly conceptualized to make a difference by providing the opportunity for kids who don’t necessarily have a lot of enrichment opportunities over the summer. I think that is more in focus now because, in general, many educators are more focused on equity, particularly in equity of opportunities.
Your report also notes that there’s been a strong emphasis on social-emotional learning in summer programs launched after the pandemic. Was that surprising to you, given the traditional perception that summer school is about addressing academic needs and the recent focus on accelerated learning and learning loss?
Yes and no. I’m not surprised that people focused on social-emotional learning because it is important, and it is not unrelated to academic learning. It’s very much related and a contributing factor. Also, because of the pandemic, there has been a lot of concern about student mental health and just the lack of socialization opportunities kids had during the pandemic. It felt really important just to bring kids back together in learning how to socialize again.
It’s important for school leaders to think of summer as an opportunity for learning to be tailored in different ways to the needs of their students.
What we found is that emphasis on social-emotional learning was coming from the states in their plans that they wrote for their American Rescue Plan funding. But what we learned from districts is that nearly all of them also offered academic programming. And many of them paired that with social-emotional learning opportunities. So the translation in terms of what has really happened on the ground is that summer programs have had strong elements of academic programming, in part because I think teachers and families understood we had to curb that learning loss.
What goes into making a high-quality summer program at the design level? What are the steps that leaders need to take to get there?
The best evidence we have is from a randomized control trial that was conducted by the RAND Corporation and The Wallace Foundation over a decade ago. One basic ingredient is having high-quality staff. We want to have programs where the staff are well-trained and specialized in educating students in the areas that are priorities for the students, the school, and the district.
The next thing is starting early with planning. This was something that a lot of schools and districts did not have the luxury of doing in 2021. But generally, planning should begin at the latest by January for the next summer. It’s also important to have a blend of academic and enrichment activities, so between three and four hours of academics, and then usually three or four hours of enrichment blended into the day.
The research also says that programs should run for at least five weeks, optimally six weeks, and be five days a week. And of course, the other important ingredient is having a coherent curriculum. So what are students learning during that academic time period especially, and is it aligned to what they’ve learned during the academic year? There should be some cohesion to what they’re learning. Finally, it’s important to have smaller class sizes during the summer so that students are getting personalized attention.
So that’s the best evidence we have so far. One of the exciting things as summer learning has scaled throughout the country is that we’re now in a position where we can study what school systems are doing in a number of different contexts and learn about different ways in which programs can be successful. So we will have a wealth of new evidence and ideas to draw on.
In terms of the messaging and communication, how can school systems counter the traditional perception that summer school is punitive or just about academic recovery?
It is a challenge. It is kind of amazing how sticky that concept of summer school being punitive has been. But there are some really good resources to help people think about how to message for summer differently. One is a guide commissioned by the Wallace Foundation that came out in 2018. It goes into everything from including messages that are important to the students you are serving and using students as messengers to understanding your audience, what the particular needs are in your community, and what will get people excited about coming to summer learning. And really having messaging that is engaging, consistent, and has multiple facets—not just one flyer or poster. It should be clear. It should be simple. And it should elevate the value proposition of summer learning programming for parents and help them understand how it will help prepare students and propel them into their future in a positive way.
You also want to have a written plan and be able to articulate exactly what this experience will look like for the kids in the program. This can help counteract some of that old messaging about it being punitive. If students and parents hear that kids will be involved in different enrichment activities, that there’s going to be a camp-like atmosphere, and that there will be field trips and a lot of exciting things that might not traditionally be associated with summer school, it helps flip the equation.
At the day-to-day level, what can school leaders and educators who are involved in summer learning programs do to ensure they are engaging and effective?
There are a lot of proven ways. One is making summer distinct and different than the traditional school year, so kids aren’t just going into classes and sitting in rows of desks all day and then having a bell ring. Summer should feel like a different experience that is fun, engaging, academic, and enriching, and still have some continuity with the school year in terms of the curriculum and the way kids are learning.
Use summer as a time and space to innovate, find new ways of working, and think about finding some continuity with the academic year.
There can also be a trap where people feel like academics are a no-no for the summer, that academics are a turnoff for kids. But the evidence does not support that. The evidence supports having a blend that provides some different context around the academics so kids feel they’re in a unique and novel experience. Most kids want to learn. They have no problem with learning when it’s fun and blended with other enriching activities. So educators shouldn’t shy away from that.
The other thing I will say is that most successful summer programs also leverage partners. Summer is a time when educators can really get creative. Look around. Look at your community assets. Look at your Boys and Girls clubs, the YMCA, your local arts programs, parks and rec programs, libraries. Think about how to harness those partnerships in ways that, again, will help with staffing and enrichment and bring new life and new experiences into the learning.
It’s been three years since President Biden’s call to action on summer learning and the inclusion of funding in the American Rescue Plan, which is now sunsetting. What’s your sense of what summer learning will look like in the near future?
It’s a great question. There’s a lot of energy and excitement to sustain summer programming and the benefits we’re seeing for kids, but that’s tempered by some concern about the funds going away.
So, again, this is where I think partners can come in. There’s a lot of efficiency and economies of scale that can happen when we are leveraging our community partners. There are also additional funding streams. A number of people who have been doing the hard work of building capacity and providing technical assistance to the coordinators who run summer programs are also helping them identify different funding streams that they may not have realized could be leveraged for summer learning programming. So just because the ARP funds are sunsetting, it doesn’t mean that the whole program has to sunset. There’s a lot of energy around building bridges from those federal funds to other local funds and other more personalized, tailored ways of supporting this work. Funding matters, but it’s also the people and the ideas that will sustain the programs.
How should school leaders be thinking about summer learning as part of their overall academic programming and school-improvement planning?
It’s important for school leaders to think of summer as not optional but as an essential component in their academic programming, an opportunity for learning to be tailored in different ways to the needs of their students. It’s also an opportunity to engage with partners that frankly may also be great partners during the traditional academic year.
So, use summer as a time and space to innovate, find new ways of working, and think about finding some continuity with the academic year. Let the academic year and the curriculum inform and build some continuity for students and what they need to learn in the summer. And let some of that innovation that can happen in the space of five or six weeks during the summer inform what you do and try during the academic year.
Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length.
