Education Next – Kim Bohling, Todd Rogers and Matthew A. Kraft
“Looking back, most people remember the end of the school year as a time of joy, freedom, and excitement. But for hundreds of thousands of students, warmer weather brings summer school instead of summer break. Whether as remediation or to make up for a credit-hour shortfall, summer school is a critical part of staying on track for on-time promotion and graduation for many students. For districts, however, summer school is often an under-resourced afterthought, and little data is collected on the effectiveness of summer school programs. Our research shows, however, that there is an extremely low-cost means of making summer school more effective: teachers providing parents with simple, weekly feedback on student performance. In recent years, numerous experimental studies have found that empowering parents can lead to meaningful benefits for students. Frequent teacher-parent phone calls about students’ performance, behavior, and upcoming assignments immediately decreased misbehavior in class and increased homework completion and in-class participation during a summer academy. Texting parents about students’ missing assignments produces similar achievement gains on test scores as those produced by high-performing charter schools. Providing parents of high school students with information about the value of taking courses in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) increased the number of STEM classes their students took.”(more)