Every summer, the news is filled with stories about summer learning loss. The warnings sound dire: two months of math learning lost for most students every summer, and two to three months of reading learning lost for low-income students, according to the National Summer Learning Association. By the ninth grade, “summer learning loss during elementary school accounts for two-thirds of the achievement gap in reading between low-income children and their middle-income peers,” the association says. There can be no doubt about it: as American children lounge poolside, watch too much television, and play too many video games, most are forgetting what they learned in school last year, and low-income students are falling even further behind.

It sounds plausible. But how reliable are these claims? How many of these findings can be replicated? Is summer learning loss really a thing?

Read more...

VISIT WEBSITE

Paul T. von Hippel is an associate professor in the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. The research summarized here was previously published in two academic articles with co-authors Caitlin Hamrock, Joseph Workman, and Doug Downey.