Summer school is a relic of the past. It’s a stopgap measure used to try to help students master the essential content they missed during the academic year. Unfortunately, any educator can tell you that it’s nearly impossible in four to six weeks to make up for instruction lost during the 180 days that preceded them. And, while many summer school programs have been shown to help lessen the effects of summer loss, there is a more straightforward and less costly solution to that problem: eliminate summer vacation altogether.

Teachers are typically contracted to work just slightly more than 180 days each year (including teacher training and professional development days). To be sure, efforts to eliminate summer vacation by increasing the number of days above 180 would likely result in costly contract renegotiations. But why concentrate those 180 days between September and June? Why not shrink summer vacation, so that no student is away from the classroom for more than four weeks at a time, and spread out the extra vacation days by giving slightly longer breaks between terms? 

Some school districts have already begun experimenting with this kind of “year round schooling,” though more typically to reduce overcrowding. And research has shown modest achievement gains — particularly in reading — for the most disadvantaged students. Given that the biggest value add of summer school is its ability to combat summer loss, and that it is our most struggling students who need that summer-school boost, these findings are heartening. 

What’s more, by spreading vacation out across the school year, rather than concentrating it in the summer months, teachers can maximize vacation time by assigning targeted extra practice, enrichment and even tutoring earlier in the year, before students have fallen too far behind. And, because most vacations will take place during the academic year, before students are changing classrooms and teachers, teachers can more directly hold students accountable for completing the extra work they need to catch up. 

Like a lot of our education programs, summer school exists today not because it’s the most efficient way to help our most struggling students, but rather because it’s the way schools have done things for many years. This year’s budget crisis is an opportunity to finally assign this relic to the history books.

NY Times