The field is generally aware of the summer learning loss (SLL) phenomenon. However key characteristics of SLL are not broadly established. What proportion of students’ school-year gains are lost in the subsequent summer? Is the magnitude of SLL generally similar across students or across grades? We describe the role summers play in the end-of-schooling achievement disparities using a unique dataset that spans eight grades, 200 million test scores, 18 million students, 50 states, and school-years 2008-2016. On average, 19% of students’ pathways from their 1st to 8th grade test-score occur during summers. We show that—even if all inequality in school-year learning rates could be eliminated, students would still end school with very different achievement due to SLL alone.
Keywords
summer learning loss, achievement inequality
Education level
Download 06/2019767.54 KB
Document Object Identifier (DOI)
10.26300/2mam-bp02