Brown University

School's Out: The Role of Summers in Understanding Achievement Disparities

Description

Abstract:
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.

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In Copyright

Citation

Allison Atteberry, and Andrew McEachin, "School's Out: The Role of Summers in Understanding Achievement Disparities" (2019). EdWorkingPapers.com Archive. Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library. https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:956624/

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  • EdWorkingPapers.com Archive

    The Annenberg Institute at Brown University has developed this national working paper series to provide public access to high-quality papers from multiple disciplines on a wide variety of topics related to education. EdWorkingPapers focuses particularly on research with strong implications …
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