New State Education Standard Explores Ways to Expand Access to Summer Learning

Alexandria, VA – The National Association of State Boards of Education today released the new issue of its journal, The State Education Standard, themed “Summer Learning: Engaging All Students.” The issue focuses on how and why state boards of education should increase the breadth and depth of students’ summer learning opportunities.

Children lose ground in learning if they have do not build skills over the summer months—teachers on average spend a month of the new school year re-teaching old material. Summer learning loss is most acute for low-income youth. For this reason, addressing summer learning policies offers a one-two punch: State policymakers who increase the quality of summer programs and the number of students they serve can make headway on narrowing the achievement gap in their states.

And the time to plan is now, argue Standard authors—well before the last bell of the school year rings.

In the cover story “Accelerating Student Success,” Sarah Pitcock and Bob Seidel of the National Summer Learning Association highlight the important role state policymakers play in developing a vision for summer learning, funding it, and making sure summer programs align with other education objectives.

Another article by RAND’s Catherine H. Augustine and Jennifer Sloan McCombs look at initiatives in six urban districts that yield lessons on how a state’s districts can get a handle on planning, curriculum, teacher selection and training, and funding. And Learning Forward’s Fred Brown offers a straightforward recounting of all the reasons a focus on summer learning is good for students and teachers.

“We have known for a long time that students’ lack of access to summer learning costs in terms of time spent relearning material taught in the previous school year,” says NASBE Executive Director Kristen Amundson. “Now more states are realizing they cannot make headway on bridging the achievement gap if they do not first focus on making engaging learning opportunities available to all students in the summer months.”

Featured

  • Texas A&M Adds ALPR Technology to Parking Solutions

    Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas, recently integrated automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) technology into its parking services and enforcement strategies, according to a news release. The university’s Transportation Services division deployed Genetec AutoVu ALPR to manage the campus’ 36,000+ parking spaces.

  • Lewis C. Cassidy Elementary School

    Established in 1999, the Education Design Showcase is a vehicle for showing off innovative — yet practical — solutions in planning, design, architecture, and construction. Lewis C. Cassidy Elementary School has been recognized with an EDS 2025 Grand Prize award in the category of New Construction.

  • Minnesota District Partners with Kraus-Anderson on Four Construction Projects

    Stillwater Area Schools in Lake Elmo, Minn., recently announced a partnership with Kraus-Anderson for construction projects at four schools in the district, according to a news release. The projects’ funding comes from a $175-million referendum passed in November 2023.

  • ClassVR Wins Tech & Learning Best of Show at ISTELive 25

    Avantis Education recently announced that its flagship product, ClassVR, won the Tech & Learning Best of Show Award at ISTELive 25 in San Antonio, Texas, according to a news release. The program is designed to celebrate products that are “transforming education in schools around the world and that show the greatest promise for the industry,” and this is the fourth consecutive year that Avantis has claimed the award.

Digital Edition