Summer Loss: The Phenomenon No One Wants to Deal with

Abstract

AS I REPORTED in March Research column, poor students lose academic ground over summer, while their middle-class and affluent peers gain in reading and hold their own in math. This strikes me as an important finding, but it seems to have had little impact. Between 1996 and 2000, just a few articles in Education Week mentioned it, but always as a small part of a larger article that focused on something else. Interest in phenomenon of seems to have been largely limited to researchers, but it is certainly long-standing. Twenty years ago, Donald Hayes and Judith Grether reported that a seven-month difference in reading achievement between poor and middle-class students in second grade had widened to two years and seven months by end of sixth grade. in research reported in March column, gap grew in spite of fact that two groups made similar progress during school year. Hayes and Grether concluded that the differential progress made during four summers between second and sixth grade accounts for upwards of 80% of achievement difference between economically advantaged and ghetto schools. Eighty percent! Just that finding should have been sufficient to make people sit up and take notice, but now there's more. The phenomenon of summer loss has major implications for measurement of Adequate Yearly Progress that is required of states accepting federal money through reauthorized Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), otherwise known as No Child Left Behind Act. (In my opinion, states ought to decline funds, allowing them to ignore ESEA's outrageous requirements.) Most states and districts do not test twice yearly, but without twice-a-year testing, differential summer loss cannot be detected. Schools whose poor children are learning over year will suffer because summer loss will cause them to fall farther and farther behind their middle-class peers and to fail to show much growth in reading and math. It will thus appear that schools are failing, and they will be blamed for what is happening - or, more accurately, is not happening - in family and community. That said, I must also immediately add that there is a lot more to schools than test scores (hard as that might be to believe these days). In May 2001 Research column, I reported on a study that showed enormous differences in beginning reading instruction in wealthy and poor classrooms. Freelance writer Michael Sokolove has now captured essential differences nicely in 24 February 2002 issue of Washington Post Sunday Magazine. As I observed them [poor students receiving Direct Instruction], it occurred to me that high-stakes tests are imposing a kind of instructional divide. The wealthy kids get full package - instruction that is not rote, books that are rich in content. And poor kids get stripped-down model - only what they are perceived to need. I think operative word in preceding sentence is perceived. In a review of research on summer loss, Richard Allington and Anne McGill-Franzen of University of Florida take note of a meta- analysis of research conducted on 13 studies. The report of meta- analysis also provided a narrative analysis of 24 other studies that were available but failed to provide sufficient data for meta- analytic procedures. The conclusion of meta-analysis is stark: one summer equals a three-month loss. Over course of grades 1 through 6, this adds up to 11/2 years. A study that did not directly examine summer loss found that, in I programs, gains measured by spring-to-spring testing were much smaller than those measured by fall-to-spring testing. This finding implies summer loss and led researchers to conclude: Title I interventions during regular school year alone may not sustain their relatively large Fall/Spring achievement improvements. …