According to one blog, a potential factor to learning reformation remains largely untouched – summer school.

With research suggesting many students lose up to two months’ grade-level knowledge in math and reading skills over summer break, are we putting enough importance on summer learning?  What’s called the “summer slide”, a widening achievement gap occurs when students lose some of the knowledge retained during the previous school year.  One solution to this is summer school.

But with many schools and districts facing shrinking budgets, is summer school even feasible?  Many have stressed its importance despite budget problems, signifying that summer school is crucial to student success.

Accordingly, recent research from the RAND Corporation indicated enriching summer programs help narrow achievement gaps and loss of knowledge retention.  The most crucial factors to an enriching summer program were identified as parental involvement and the personal attention brought by smaller class sizes.

Click here to read more of the supporting evidence of the summer school effect.