By Robert Nott, The New Mexican
More than 600 students in the district, including about 200 at Capital and 150 at Santa Fe High, enrolled in summer classes that began just after Memorial Day to get some extra learning time. A four-week program for some 260 students in grades K-8 at Gonzales Community School ended last week. Most experts agree that students can regress during the so-called summer learning slide, which can cost a month or so of classroom learning in the fall as teachers try to get students caught up. But whether summer school pays off in terms of accelerated academic achievement or graduation to the next grade level remains unclear, both locally and on the national level. Few studies have been conducted on the issue, and many states, including New Mexico, don’t track summer school data. Still, summer school attendance is growing nationwide. A 2011 Bureau of Labor Statistics report said, for instance, that 45.6 percent of the nation’s 16- to 19-year-olds attended summer school that year.
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