Summer has a very different meaning for middle-and upper-income students than it does for low-income students.

I remember my childhood summers as carefree. I spent endless hours at the pool, learning to swim. I devoured books from the library. My parents sometimes enrolled me in summer camps, some of which I liked. I don't remember studying, exactly, but my mother was at home, and she was a sneaky teacher. I suspect I was learning without noticing.

Summer is unequal

For many families, summers are far from carefree. During the academic year, school is a safe place for kids to be five days a week. When school is out, families have to figure out where their kids can go, how to get them there, and how to feed them without the help of the school lunch program. Academic advancement isn't necessarily at the top of the list of priorities during the summer.

Summers probably make achievement gaps worse

Learning is a cumulative process, like a rolling, growing snowball. Under the right conditions, learning sticks and kids grow academically. What they already understand serves as a base for what they learn next. Early learning sets the stage for kindergarten. Knowing letters sets the stage for reading words, then books. Learning English in school sets the stage for using it.

Decades ago, education researchers made the case that summers melt the snowball effect of learning. When students stop learning for the summer, they start forgetting. It makes sense that this summer learning loss effect is uneven, of course — some families can afford enriching opportunities for their children in the summer, but others can't. Summers contribute to the achievement gap between students from higher-wealth and lower-wealth families.

The theory of summer learning loss is tidy and logical, but it's important to acknowledge that the research base for it isn't actually all that strong. Some researchers, looking to quantify the amount of learning lost during summer breaks, have questioned the scope of academic harm caused. Maybe the summer is more of a skid than a slide, they suggest.

Regardless, it's useful to think of summers as a time of opportunity, when something different can happen. Achievement gaps that are present in early childhood tend to be durable, and summers don't generally seem to make them better. But they could. No rule says that summer has to be a time of drift. Summer can also be a time of reinvention and inquiry.

Why is summer a time for vacation?

Many suppose that the long summer break in the school calendar is somehow connected to America's agricultural past. This is probably a myth.

Many suppose the long summer break is somehow connected to America’s agricultural past. This is probably a myth.

The complicated history of summer vacation probably has more to do with the sweltering discomfort of a stuffy classroom than with the needs of the fields.

Should school calendars be year-round?

From time to time, school districts consider shifting to a year-round schedule in which breaks are shorter and more evenly spaced through the school year. These conversations tend to emerge as a cheaper alternative to raising taxes for a school construction bond — using school facilities more evenly throughout the year allows them to be used more efficiently. Few districts have gone for it, but some have studied the idea.

Summer school costs money

There are many summer programs for children, but few are free, and not all are academically focused. School districts have substantial control over how they use funds. Could they use funds to run academically-focused summer programs? Absolutely, and some have done so, for example, as a way of catching up students that have fallen far behind. The state and federal government have sometimes provided funds for after school and summer programs, too. For example, in 2021 California authorized the Expanded Learning Opportunities Program (ELO-P) to help fund after school and summer school programs for K-6 students.

Public funding for after school and summer programs is always at risk. When an economic downturn shrinks the economy, tax receipts wither and leaders hard tradeoffs. For example, in 2008 state many districts cut summer programs in order to sustain core school day services. One dedicated source of funding that remained for summer programs was through state and federal “extended learning” grants. Partly driven by matching grant challenges, some philanthropic and community organizations became interested in helping provide more summer learning opportunities and schools turned to them for help.

For a few years, summer education programs in California received some supportive advocacy under the name Summer Matters. After the group's final report, energy dissipated to push specifically for summer learning.

The legend of the summer job

For some teens, a "summer job" is literally a job, complete with pay. But teen summer jobs are actually much less common than you might think. According to Pew Research Center, "The long-term decline in teens working during the summer is a specific instance of a broader long-term decline in overall youth employment."

All over the world, teen employment has been on a long, steady slide for decades. In America, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that teen employment rates have fallen by nearly half in the last 20 years.

Less than a third of teens are employed in the peak month of July. White teens are employed in the summer at dramatically higher rates than nonwhite teens.

Over half of summer jobs for teens are in food service or retail. Getting a job is hard for teens, who must compete with more experienced workers for minimum wage positions.

For most students, working for pay in the summer isn't an option. Most are too young, and the summer "job" for many older students is to look after their younger siblings while their parents are at work. For students living in poverty, summer can make their conditions worse. Their parents may find it harder to care for them while finding ways to earn money and keep food on the table.

Of course, summer is not the only time when students might be learning outside of school hours. The next lesson examines what we know about the use of after-school time.

This lesson was updated January 2024.