Afterschool, Summer, and Closing the Achievement Gap

About a year ago my then-seven year old daughter came home from school and declared that we shouldn’t vote for Obama because he wants kids to be in school during the summer. From her narrow perspective, school is fun but summer is more fun. That’s when she can dance, swim, and play with abandon. Who would want to mess with that? Similarly, I’ve been watching good thinkers, people who I consider to be like-minded, react with dismay to President Obama’s suggestion that in this less-agrarian era in which the economy demands educated, skilled workers, we might consider lengthening the school year and/or the school day. From a personal perspective I can relate to his critics. We just had a great, glorious summer. We spent time at the beach and the mountains. My kids had many sprawling, unstructured summer days. Summer is one of the reasons I enjoy having a flexible, work-at-home career. A good summer break is what kids who are over-stressed, over-protected, and deprived of nature need. Who would want to mess with that?

But here’s the reality of most families. In its new report, the Afterschool Alliance reports that 15 million U.S. children are alone and unsupervised after school. Their parents aren’t working at home – they’re working at grocery stores and hotels and in office buildings. And they keep working through the summer. The kids who aren’t in afterschool programs during the school year are also very likely not in summer camps during the summer. And while I wish they could all have the relatively carefree summers my children enjoy while I work in my guest room office, I know better. As a person who grew up with both parents working after school, I know those unsupervised afternoon hours can be liberating and empowering. They provide an opportunity to develop responsibility, maturity, and judgment, and to learn how to make your own mac and cheese. But they can also be long, lonely, and full of opportunities to make bad, even dangerous, choices.

But President Obama’s interests are less developmental than educational. After all, depending on whom you ask it’s not the mission of our public schools to provide a safe and developmentally appropriate place for kids while their parents work to pay the bills. They need to somehow close the achievement gap – the one among U.S. students, and the one between our students and those in other countries.

Through a combination of high quality after-school programs, extended learning opportunities through school, and school or community-based summer programs that prevent summer learning loss, we might be able to close that gap.

• In Massachusetts, some districts have been funded to try Expanded Learning Time, and teachers participating in the evaluation of the initiative have reported that it provides the time to complete their curricula and meet the needs of all students.
• Two 2007 studies (one by Dr. Karl Alexander at Johns Hopkins University, and one by Dr. Beth Miller for the Nellie Mae Education Foundation) looked at summer learning loss as a key to the achievement gap. Both found that a big contributor to the achievement gap may be the difference in the ways kids from different socio-economic groups spend their summers. Those who spend some of their summer in educational activities – which can include having fun at a summer camp with well-trained staff – lose less of what they’ve learned from one school year to the next.
• Finally, a variety of research suggests that high quality after-school settings – programs that have trained staff and offer children a variety of activities and learning opportunities – can lead to more school success for kids.
  

None of those options precludes kids playing or having the freedom to make choices. In fact, high quality educational experiences -- whether they're in the classroom, at camp, or in an afterschool program -- include letting kids play.

So, what’s the answer? Longer school years and school days may be the answer for some kids and for some communities. A lot depends on what other options those kids and their families have during their time outside of school – after school and during the summer. What seems clear is that policy makers, schools, and parents have to consider all of these strategies in their efforts to close the achievement gap and give kids the education they need to be happy and successful adults.