Thousands of children have spent much of this summer in St. Louis-area classrooms taking enrichment classes or trying to catch up in reading or math.
What’s unclear is just how much they’ve learned. Like education departments in most states, neither the Missouri nor the Illinois education departments collect data to see whether they’re getting a good return on their summer school investment.
Assessment data provided by more than a dozen districts in the area paint very different pictures about how much students learn by the end of summer school. And there are gaps in what even districts themselves know.
Some, such as Parkway, don’t test their children to determine whether they grew academically, because the exams don’t necessarily align with the courses. While Mehlville assesses middle schoolers, it does not test elementary-aged children. Hazelwood doesn’t track academic growth for anyone enrolled in summer school, according to a spokesman. St. Louis Public Schools only tests a couple of grade levels, even though 7,100 students in the district participated in summer school this year.
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“There’s kind of a casualness about it that I’ve always found frustrating,” said Kathy Christie, vice president of knowledge and information management at the nonprofit Education Commission of the States.
In Missouri, summer school is voluntary for districts. About 350 out of 520 provide it, plus about a dozen charter schools. Those that do, have different goals and expectations.
Some zero in on remediation for students in elementary or middle school at risk of repeating a grade. Down the hall, other students may be engaged in robotics or enrichment classes.
At the high school level, students are often there to retake failed classes.
Some districts, such as Francis Howell, offer summer school aimed at both kinds of students. But in Parkway, it’s mostly enrichment, with classes ranging from creative jewelry making to video game design. Pattonville focuses on high school grade recovery and advancement courses. Rockwood cut most of its enrichment classes several years ago and now just concentrates on children who have fallen behind. The district began assessing them a few years ago to see what they’re learning.
“It’s summer and nobody really wants to be there very much,” said Karen Hargadine, an assistant superintendent in Rockwood. “We probably ought to see if it’s making a difference.”
Here’s how children in several area districts fared in summer school last year, according to analysis from each of them:
Elementary-aged children in University City schools increased their mastery in every area, including algebraic relationships, writing and multiplication.
More than 95 percent of children who completed summer school in Affton and Ritenour demonstrated a better understanding of reading and math.
In Ferguson-Florissant, more than 80 percent of elementary school students who took part in summer programs last year did better on assessments taken after the program than before.
In St. Louis Public Schools, 55 percent of third-graders and 57 percent of fourth-graders showed improvements on reading tests.
In Rockwood, students on average actually demonstrated knowing less at the end of summer school than at the beginning. Elementary and middle school pupils in the program had lower reading scores when they came back to school in the fall than they did when tested in spring, according to a district analysis. Those who attended summer school most of the time regressed less than those who largely skipped class. However, they lost less knowledge than children who didn’t attend summer school at all.
“Summer school is not intended to catapult them,” Hargadine said. “It’s really just to keep them from slipping further and further behind.”
SUMMER SLIDE
Summer can be brutal on learning, researchers say.
On average, most students slip between June and August, losing a month to two in reading and math. The most likely to experience the summer slide are low-income and African-American students, children who may not have exposure to enriching experiences such as going to museums, the library or to a different city or state.
It’s also commonly accepted that low-achieving students need additional time to master academic skills and content. As a result, summer school is widely used as a tool to stop learning loss and help struggling students catch up.
Rockwood administrators have found that summer school has been the most effective for kids at helping disadvantaged children. The payoff may look minimal, but it still can be helpful to those who need it most, proponents say.
“It’s important to stop the summer slide,” said DeAun Blumberg, spokeswoman for the University City School District. She warned against expecting enormous gains, since children are only in summer school for a short time. “I don’t think three to four weeks in the summer can reverse a poor pattern of learning throughout the year.”
A BIG INVESTMENT
Missouri spent about $120 million on summer school in 2013, according to the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Illinois spent $53.9 million, said a spokeswoman for the state’s Board of Education.
Some say there should be more proof to support making the investment.
“There is a dearth of data on this, and it does make it really difficult for policymakers to decide whether a state should subsidize it or if a superintendent should ask for it,” said Catherine Augustine, senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation’s Pittsburgh office. Augustine is working on a Wallace Foundation-funded study of whether district summer learning programs in six cities provide lasting gains for low-income students.
In Missouri, the number of children participating in summer school has declined significantly.
In the 1990s, summer school enrollment was growing rapidly because of Missouri’s high reimbursement for the programs. That changed in 2006 when fewer state dollars were coming to districts for their summer programs. By 2010, enrollment was at about 31,000 students, according to the education department. This year, it’s about 19,000 children.
With districts cutting their course offerings, many parents are turning to academic and camps outside school. And sometimes getting them to agree to send their child to voluntary summer school programs intended to reach students who are falling can be difficult. That’s because transportation, which would significantly increase the cost of summer school, is often not provided.
