Summer School Works Even When Districts Cut Corners

After years of disappointing results from pandemic recovery programs, researchers finally have good news: summer school is working, even when it's not perfect.

A major new study across 10 large school districts found that students who attended summer programs made 2-3 weeks more progress in math than peers who didn't attend. That might sound small, but when you're reaching hundreds of thousands of students at once, those gains add up fast.

Here's what makes this discovery especially encouraging: most of these programs didn't follow the research-backed best practices. Pre-pandemic studies recommended 4-6 weeks of summer school with 90 minutes of daily math instruction. These districts ran 3-4 week programs with just 45 minutes to two hours of combined academic time.

They worked anyway.

"It's easy to write off this type of summer school impact as inconsequential," said Emily Morton, a lead research scientist at NWEA who authored the report. But summer school's ability to "raise the tide" for entire districts makes even modest improvements meaningful.

The contrast with other recovery efforts is striking. Several large-scale tutoring programs showed zero impact on student outcomes, derailed by logistical challenges that prevented the promised one-on-one instruction from happening. Summer school appears more "forgiving" of real-world implementation struggles.

The research comes from the Road to Recovery partnership, analyzing programs across districts that collectively serve close to 450,000 students. While reading scores didn't show the same gains, the math improvements remained statistically significant across different types of communities.

Why This Inspires

This research matters because it shows that perfect doesn't have to be the enemy of good. School districts everywhere are stretched thin, trying to help students recover while facing budget cuts and staffing shortages.

Knowing that summer programs can still move the needle, even when they're shorter or less intensive than ideal, means more districts can realistically offer them. Nearly three-quarters of superintendents already run summer programs, and most plan to continue despite the end of federal pandemic relief funding.

Morton suggests the most effective approach combines summer school's broad reach with targeted interventions like tutoring for students who need extra support. "We had these huge, systematic drops in achievement, and the response probably needs to have two pieces: some supports that are targeted to those most in need, and some that are designed to boost everyone," she said.

Six years after the pandemic disrupted education, student achievement remains lower than before. But this study proves that accessible, imperfect solutions can still create real progress for real kids.