What American kids need this summer

For kids across the country, the 2020-’21 school year has been difficult, to say the least.

Many have attended class from their bedrooms, seeing their friends and teachers only on Zoom. Others have been unable to access even that much instruction because they don’t have a computer, an internet connection, or a quiet place to study. Even those who have returned to in-person school have faced a host of new stressors, from distancing requirements to fears of getting Covid-19, that can make the classroom an anxiety-producing place. And experts are worried that some students — especially Black, Indigenous, and other students of color, and those from low-income families — have lost countless hours of instructional time, a loss that could worsen educational inequality and put them at a disadvantage down the road.

To help students catch up, many districts are planning for summer school — 47 of 100 urban districts surveyed in April by the Center on Reinventing Public Education had some form of summer program in place, up from 32 percent around this time last year. But summer school in America doesn’t exactly have a great reputation. Dan Weisberg, head of the education nonprofit TNTP, recently told the New York Times that a typical remedial summer program for fifth-graders gives them “third-grade math problems and has them sit in the corner.”

https://www.vox.com/22425250/summer-school-2021-covid-pandemic-kids-education