Evaluating Summer School Programs and the Effect on Student Achievement: The Correlation Between Stanford-10 Standardized Test Scores and Two Different Summer Programs

School districts looking for ways to minimize summer learning loss have implemented a variety of programs to combat this problem. Since No Child Left Behind and the need for school districts to meet the goals of Adequate Yearly Progress, it is no longer enough to limit summer learning loss. Now school leaders find it necessary to use the summer months to increase student achievement and prepare students for rigorous learning in the coming school year. This collaborative, quantitative study is an examination of one district’s attempt to improve summer programming in order to meet the need for increased student achievement. The district studied offered a four-week remedial summer program for many years. In response to the need to meet AYP goals, the district committee studied the summer school question and developed revised programming, such as meal times and an added enrichment class. The purpose of this study is to examine and compare achievement data from the four-week remedial summer program and the newly revised six-week summer program. For the purpose of this study, the program format was the independent variable, and the dependent variable was SAT 10 scores for students participating in both of the summer programs. A z-test to find the difference in means was used to determine if 30 random students in the six-week program demonstrated a statistically significant increase in SAT 10 scores compared to 30 random students in the four-week program. Analysis of the data comparing achievement scores from the district’s two summer programs suggest that student’s mathematics scores can significantly be increased by participating in the six-week summer program. The district will need to explore other ways to improve Reading Comprehension and Complete Battery scores. Additional data was collected from surveys designed and conducted by the studied district. Students, parents, and teachers associated with the six-week summer program were surveyed. Survey results strongly indicate all three groups believe the six-week summer program met their needs and support the growth of learning. A future study could compare students who did not participate in either of the summer programs to those participating in the six-week program