Because of its growth potential and consistent impact across local educational agencies, a recent NWEA brief, “School’s in for summer: A scalable and effective post-pandemic academic intervention,” concluded that summer school is “a reliable intervention for supporting district-wide math recovery.”
Published by NWEA, the brief draws on studies of summer school programs that took place in 10 large school districts in 2022 and 2023. The districts were part of the Road to Recovery study conducted by NWEA, Harvard University and CALDER at the American Institutes of Research.
Summer learning programs have been a popular option for LEAs looking to help students recover academically from disruptions caused by the pandemic. In fact, more than 80 percent of LEAs offered summer programming in 2023, according to the brief.
Compared to another prominent learning recovery strategy, high-dosage tutoring, NWEA determined that “summer school was generally larger and more likely to produce significant positive impacts when delivered at scale.” The brief notes that they may work well as complementary programs, serving distinct purposes as tutoring can be a targeted intervention for small groups and summer school can support district-wide gains for a larger population of students.
Based on NWEA’s analysis, summer school was associated with persistent, modest gains in students’ math achievement equivalent to roughly two or three weeks of learning during the regular year. No measurable improvements were observed regarding reading.
“We lack a clear explanation for why summer school improved math but not reading — a finding that contradicts research showing large positive effects … from classroom-based summer reading interventions,” the brief explains. “However, this pattern is consistent with pre-pandemic evidence suggesting summer school and other school-based instruction can have stronger effects on math than reading.”
Additionally, the brief notes that “districts offered optional programs that generally fell short of best-practice recommendations for duration and intensity.” Pre-pandemic recommendations called for a program length of at least four weeks that included 90 minutes of math and 120 minutes of reading instruction per day. If students attended 75 percent of days, they’d hit the suggested amount of instruction.
Consistent with national trends, the programs NWEA considered had a shorter duration. They often fell short on attendance and academic intensity as well. Past research has found that program design and implementation heavily influence effectiveness.
Recommendations
“Taken together, these findings position summer school as a viable, reliable, and scalable intervention for supporting math recovery in the post-pandemic context. While academic recovery looms large, summer school is one of the few strategies that has delivered measurable district-wide gains and is reliably comparable in terms of district-wide impacts to best-case scenario pandemic-era tutoring programs,” the brief states. “With stronger program design and sustained investment, it could play an even greater role in boosting student achievement.”
Recommendations for stronger programs and results, which are detailed in the brief, include sustaining and expanding summer school to support math recovery; aligning program design and implementation with best practices; encouraging multi-year participation; strengthening approaches to summer literacy; and leveraging complementary interventions (like tutoring).
