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Education Dive
High expectations for summer programs as learning gaps predicted to grow
Advocates and researchers are emphasizing the role of remediation and
enrichment in mitigating learning loss as "three months away from
school has stretched to six."
Linda Jacobson
May 28, 2020
With experts predicting and school leaders expecting significant
student learning loss because of school closures, advocates,
researchers and others stepped up efforts this week to emphasize the
role that out-of-school-time programs play in minimizing the damage.
On Thursday, for example, the Afterschool Alliance, the Boys and Girls
Clubs and other organizations will hold an afternoon virtual town hall
event to draw attention to how after-school and summer programs can be
part of economic recovery and provide ongoing learning experiences for
students.
“After-school programs and after-school staff are the best-situated
people to be addressing the concerns we have about ... kids and this
isolation that they are facing,” Jodi Grant, the executive director of
the Afterschool Alliance said Tuesday during a virtual Congressional
briefing. She added that out-of-school program providers are part of
restarting the economy. “Parents can’t return to work if their kids are
home or home every other day.”
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, passed in March,
included more than $13 billion for K-12 schools, which districts can
use to support summer programming. Governors also have discretion in
using almost $3 billion in additional relief funds for either K-12 or
higher education.
Meanwhile, out-of-school-time programs have “risen to the moment,”
Grant said, and have been working well beyond the normal 3-6 p.m. time
slot to offer virtual learning, as well as handle meal and learning
packet distribution. But she added 75% of programs surveyed have
reported they are “at risk of closing permanently or laying off staff.”
In New York City, for example, advocates with the Campaign for
Children, a nonprofit, estimate 175,000 children and youth would be
affected by $175 million in proposed cuts to some city summer programs.
“These devastating cuts to youth summer programs will
disproportionately impact the communities that have suffered the most
during the COVID-19 pandemic and continue to exacerbate existing
inequities,” Sharon Greenberger, president and CEO of the YMCA of
Greater New York, said in a press release.
‘A time of elevated risk’
The expectations for what summer programs can accomplish are also
extremely high this year. Tanji Reed Marshall, the director of P-12
practice at The Education Trust, a nonprofit, said during a National
Summer Learning Association press briefing Wednesday that summer will
be “the opportunity” to not only make up for missed learning during
school closures, but to also focus on new learning in preparation for
fall and provide additional enrichment for students.
A new analysis of the impact of school closures on students' learning
also shows normal variations in students' achievement levels that exist
within schools are likely to be wider this fall. In a typical 5th-grade
classroom, some students might be testing at a 2nd-grade level, while
others have mastered 8th-grade content, according to the analysis from
NWEA, a nonprofit assessment organization, and a team of university
researchers.
At best, those gaps would remain the same, they wrote. But depending on
how much learning was missed during the break — or how much parents
were able to supplement the curriculum — there could be an increase in
students at "extreme instructional levels."
“Three months away from school has stretched to six,” added Karl
Alexander, a professor emeritus at Johns Hopkins University who has
conducted extensive work on summer learning loss.
Noting that summer “is a time of elevated risk,” Alexander was also
among the authors of “Shaping Summer Experiences,” a recent report from
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. The
report concluded summer experiences have an impact on children’s safety
and health, as well as academic and social-emotional outcomes.
There is, however, a “lack of systematic attention to creating
high-quality summer experiences” for children with the greatest needs,
including those in youth detention programs and in foster care, added
Dr. Rachel Thornton. A pediatrician who also served on the committee
that wrote the report, Thornton noted summer is “fragmented” for many
students, with the services they receive throughout the school year
often disrupted.
In her role as president of the Council of Chief State School Officers,
Wyoming state Superintendent Jillian Balow said her focus is on
extended learning and removing barriers that make it difficult for
before- and after-school providers and summer programs to collaborate.
“The landscape has changed for all students across America,” she said,
adding states are currently responding through a mix of developing
frameworks for summer programs, offering guidance and implementing
policies to reduce gaps in learning for students.
'An opportunity to engage'
In Birmingham, Alabama, Michael Wilson, a former elementary school
principal who will participate in Thursday’s town hall event, said
without in-person summer programs, there could be a rise in an "old
term from the '80s — latchkey kids."
"One of the things that after-school and summer programs do is give
parents affordable care for their children," he said. "We have to face
the fact that that’s just not going to happen."
Wilson is currently moving into a new role as principal of the Magic
City Acceptance Academy, a charter school expected to open in the fall
of 2021 that will focus on serving LGBTQ students in grades 6-12. The
nonprofit that will operate the school, Birmingham AIDS Outreach,
already runs an after-school program that, Wilson said, has experienced
an "uptick" in participation in its virtual program compared to the
normal drop-in version.
"We still have an opportunity to engage them," he said, "and if we have
to do that digitally right now, it's better than not doing anything."
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