2012). While proposing not to increase funding for federal discretionary programs for at least five years, the President has made education a priority that could be an exception to the rule.
The implications for summer learning remain to be seen. Both President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan have expressed strong support for summer learning in the past, but so far that has not translated into new federal investments. As a result, summer learning advocates across the country will need to bring the issue into the mainstream of the national education policy discussion.
Despite the lack of an explicit focus on the importance of summer learning, the President’s budget proposal does contain some good news for summer programs. The budget proposes an increase of $100 million dollars to the 21st Century Community Learning Centers Program (21st Century), raising its allocation from $1.17 billion to $1.27 billion. 21st Century funds both after-school and summer programs, and the official budget summary specifically mentions summer programs, stating:
“The Administration’s reauthorization proposal for 21st Century Community Learning Centers would support before- and after-school programs, summer enrichment programs, summer school programs, expanded-learning-time programs, and full-service
community schools. All local projects would provide additional time for students, including students with the greatest academic needs and those who are meeting State academic achievement standards, to participate in (1) academic activities
that are aligned with the instruction those students receive during the regular school day and are targeted to their academic needs; and (2) enrichment and other activities that complement the academic program. Projects could also provide teachers the time they need to collaborate, plan, and engage in professional development within and across grades and subjects. This enhanced flexibility would allow communities to determine the best strategies for enabling their students and teachers to get the time and support they need. The $100 million increase proposed for 2012 would support the broader range of programs and strategies proposed under reauthorization and enable grantees to provide higher-quality programming to students and their families.”
The National Summer Learning Association supports this proposal and is pleased that it recognizes the ability of summer programs to provide high quality academic AND enrichment programming for students. We also believe it provides an opportunity to make summer programs a more essential component of education reform by connecting summer learning to school year reforms, such as extension of the school year. Read more about the Association’s position on this issue.
The President’s budget also proposes funding other education programs that could have positive implications for summer learning, including:
· $150 million for the Promise Neighborhoods initiative;
· $900 million for the Race To The Top program (This time school districts would be able to apply for the grants directly.);
· $300 million for the Investing in Innovation Fund;
· $600 million for School Turnaround Grants (formerly called School Improvement Grants), an increase of $54 million over last year; and
· $365 million for the Successful, Safe, and Healthy Students Initiative, which consolidates several existing programs.
Again, this proposal represents the first step in a long budget process that Congress will soon consider. We will do our best to keep ou informed and to engage you in the policy process. If you have any questions or ideas, please contact the Association’s policy director, Bob Seidel, at bseidel@summerlearning.org.
Continue Reading February 18th, 2011
Bob Seidel
Excellence is a standard we all want to achieve in summer learning. It’s also a bar that can seem unattainable. But programs large and small, well-established or just starting out, have things about them that are excellent. Maybe it’s an inspiring, veteran teacher; a unique campus or curriculum; a fantastic assessment system; or a determined young student who returns summer after summer, encouraging other kids to do the same.
That’s why we’ve designated January as Excellence month at the Association, and launched the “What Makes You Excellent?” campaign on our Twitter and Facebook pages. As the Feb. 11 deadline for applications for the 2011 Excellence in Summer Learning Awards approaches, we want to know what makes your program excellent, and to help share your stories in Tweets, pictures, links, and videos.
Please share your examples of excellence with us. Send us a Tweet, write on our Facebook wall, or email videos, longer stories, or anything else you have that shows the excellent ways in which you serve disadvantaged youth, and the Association will be sure to share.
Don’t forget to download your Excellence in Summer Learning Award application now. In addition to selecting awardees this year, the Association plans to recognize models of excellence in STEM programs, school-community partnership programs, and transitions programs among the applicants.
Program quality manager Larry Smith is eager to hear from you and to help if you’re in the process of completing the application. Good luck!
January 14th, 2011
Kate Shatzkin
Do you utilize public programs to provide breakfast and lunch to young people attending your program? Now is the time to start planning and gather information about how to provide healthy nutrition this summer.
Each summer, a small fraction of children eligible to receive nutritious meals actually do. According to the most recent data, only one in six children from a low-income household who ate a school lunch during the year received meals during the summer. According to the Comprehensive Assessment of Summer Programs (CASP), the highest quality summer programs provide all meals (breakfast, lunch, snack) appropriate to the schedule for young people every day the program is in session.
There are many good reasons why summer meals are critical to children. Balanced nutrition supports healthy development. Some research suggests that younger children are disproportionally affected by the loss of nutrition because they cannot obtain food themselves through other means. And for families with already stretched food budgets, income does not increase with school dismissal. Summer meals bridge the gap.
The summer learning community can make a difference. If your summer program doesn’t take advantage of the federal Summer Nutrition programs now is the time to start planning. Here’s what you need to do:
- Visit the USDA’s list of state directors for the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP).
- Find your state.
- Call your state director office and tell them you are interested in being a sponsor of the Summer Food Service Program.
A phone call is a simple step towards supporting the healthy development of children and teens in the most basic way. If you already utilize public support for summer meals, that’s wonderful. Pass the link for this post on to others in your network who may not.
Earlier this week First Lady Michelle Obama launched a new facet of the Let’s Move! initiative, Let’s Move Faith and Communities. This newest endeavor will engage faith- and community-based leaders in efforts to address childhood obesity in their communities. One of the four goals set forth for this group in the coming year is hosting 1,000 new summer feeding sites at congregations or neighborhood organizations. Let’s join the First Lady in her effort to ensure that no child goes hungry this summer.
Do you utilize public programs to provide breakfast and lunch to young people attending your program? Now is the time to start planning and gather information about how to provide healthy nutrition this summer.
Each summer, a small fraction of children eligible to receive nutritious meals actually do. According to the most recent data, only one in six children from a low-income household [https://summerlearning.site-ym.com/resource/resmgr/wellness/wellness_resources_in_brief.pdf] who ate a school lunch during the year received meals during the summer.
There are many good reasons why summer meals are critical to children. Balanced nutrition supports healthy development. Some research suggests that younger children are disproportionally affected by the loss of nutrition because they cannot obtain food themselves through other means. And for families with already stretched food budgets, income does not increase with school dismissal. Summer meals bridge the gap.
The summer learning community can make a difference. If your summer program doesn’t take advantage of the federal Summer Nutrition programs now is the time to start planning. Here’s what you need to do:
1. Visit the USDA’s list of state directors [http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/Contacts/StateDirectory.htm] for the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP).
2. Find your state.
3. Call your state director office and tell them you are interested in being a sponsor of the Summer Food Service Program.
Earlier this week First Lady Michelle Obama launched a new facet of the Let’s Move! initiative, Let’s Move Faith and Communities [http://www.letsmove.gov/blog/2010/11/30/the-first-lady-launches-let%E2%80%99s-move-faith-and-communities/]. This newest endeavor will engage faith- and community-based leaders in efforts to address childhood obesity in their communities. One of the four goals set forth for this group in the coming year is hosting 1,000 new summer feeding sites at congregations or neighborhood organizations. Let’s join the First Lady in her effort to ensure that no child goes hungry this summe
December 2nd, 2010
Susanne Sparks
Last week my colleague Bob Seidel and I presented a pre-conference training about federal policy at the Association’s Summer Changes Everything™ national conference. We distributed a list of our go-to federal websites and favorite email newsletters to share with attendees. It was well-received, so I wanted to make it available in this space as well. (more…)
November 16th, 2010
Susanne Sparks
“The iPod came from two people, Steve and Jonathan. The Zune came from 250. Which product would you rather own?” – Seth Godin
I participated in NBC’s Education Nation this week, and was again reminded and impressed by the passion and creativity of educators, and the desire to do right by our kids. The need for more learning time was a consistent theme, and there are dozens of excellent examples of innovative, comprehensive summer programs that already deliver more learning time while offering kids options and fun outside the traditional school setting. Yet there is a dearth of large-scale implementation.
Am I alone in my impression that the public sector is behind the curve on innovation and speed to market? The public agency culture often ties our hands on innovation because of a pre-disposition for universal consensus, buy-in, and validation. There’s a tension inherent in the structure that we need to get past. Does the apparent need to be democratic and politically appropriate preclude the innovation and the autocracy it often requires? Are we missing the opportunity to innovate while we wait for consensus?
How can we recognize the compromise necessary in serving the public good, but still rapidly deliver desperately needed innovation in education?
September 30th, 2010
Ron Fairchild
I attended a terrific meeting at the White House yesterday about the role of community-based organizations in school turnaround efforts. There are literally billions of dollars available right now to the 5,000 lowest-performing schools in this country to support transforming, turning around, restarting, or closing those schools. There’s a huge potential role for summers and for nonprofits to play in this work. One strategy that’s explicitly embraced by the U.S. Dept of Education is for schools to launch summer transition programs for kids moving from 8th to 9th grade. Quality summer learning programs can help improve outcomes on student attendance, behavior, and course completion – the so-called ABCs that are critical for high school graduation. Summer is truly a time to solidify and build on school-year gains. Real school reform and transformation is a difficult enterprise – one that should involve a range of people including community and faith based organizations. We should also get serious about using all 12 months of the year to support this work. If we work hard for 180 days during the regular school year, why should we leave the other days to chance? Who’s involved in this work during the summer and what are you learning from your efforts?
September 21st, 2010
Ron Fairchild
The latest post from our Summer Changes Everything host committee features Gail Thomas Strong of WFYI in Indianapolis, who shares great insights about how to make summer learning stick — as well as a favorite place for you to visit while you’re in Indy.
Summer should be about memories. And as adults in summer programs, part of our work should be around creating those memories – new friends, new skills, new learning, and new sense of accomplishment.
I remember a summer camp where I learned to shoot a bow and arrow, and one where I finally managed to get the foil dinner cooked all the way through. There was the summer when I resolved to read an entire mystery series, so made daily trips to the library on my bike. Another summer I set up a candy store in my grandmother’s yard with a friend, and learned a lot about supply and demand – and about eating one’s profits!
As a youth leader, I made it my mission to make sure summers had learning moments every step of the way. The key word was “intentional.” How could we learn more about nature while walking to the pool? How could a field trip to the art museum reveal more than the lovely pieces in the building? How could the teen trip out of town be a prolonged experience in map-reading, budgeting, goal-setting, itinerary-planning, and reflecting? On good days, learning happens incidentally, but on great days, learning happens every minute by design. Camp is more fun, the experience is more meaningful, and the long-term outcomes stick more strongly.
See you at Summer Changes Everything in Indy in November. I’ll bet you have memories of a summer that changed your understanding of who you are and what you could do. At this conference, you’ll learn more about how to make that happen for your campers every day. And while you’re here, visit the new Rhythm Discovery Center museum downtown at Washington and Illinois. Awesome place!
September 20th, 2010
Kate Shatzkin
As our Summer Changes Everything™ national conference nears, we’re bringing you glimpses of our conference site, Indianapolis, from the people who know it best: our 2010 host committee. Here, Roderick Wheeler of the Central Indiana Community Foundation tells you about all the things you can do just within a short distance of the conference hotel, the Indianapolis Marriott Downtown:
Downtown Indianapolis is one of the most beautiful places you have probably never seen, and once you visit, you will not want to leave.
–Enjoy the innovative architecture of the elevated glass Artsgarden (hovering above the intersection of Washington Street and Illinois Street) and the unique amenities offered by White River State Park.
–Literally connected to the hotel is the Indiana Convention Center, soon to be the sixteenth largest convention center in the country.–Arrive on Sunday, Nov. 7, before the pre-conference workshops, and you can watch the 2006 NFL Champions and soon to be 2010 Super Bowl Champs, the Indianapolis Colts, play the Philadelphia Eagles at my favorite place, Scotty’s Brewhouse. On Monday, Scotty’s offers all-you-can-eat wing night.
–On the way back to the hotel, pass by the 63,000 seat Lucas Oil Stadium, home of the 2012 Super Bowl (and of our conference welcome reception Tuesday evening).
–Visit the Indiana Repertory Theatre (IRT) and see a love tale, Mary’s Wedding, just a block from the hotel.
–Circle Centre Mall is in the center of downtown, connected to your conference hotel, but you will never know it. The mall is actually hidden behind the facade of buildings that once graced our city’s skyline.
–Connected to the mall you will find some of the best fine-dining restaurants, including the Oceanaire Seafood Room (one of my favorite places to dine. We can argue all day about the best steakhouse, but St. Elmo, on nearby South Illinois Street, is easily a hometown favorite. But if you are anything like me, and on a budget, then there are more than 260 dining choices in the downtown area that will meet your needs.
–After your session on Tuesday, for as little as $10, come watch the Pacers destroy the Carmelo-led Denver Nuggets at one of the most intriguing stadiums in the NBA.
The Summer Youth Program Fund (SYPF) partners in Indianapolis focus on investing in world-class youth programs so that we may develop world-class citizens. We are especially proud that this great city consistently ranks high as one of the best places to live and to raise children. We are particularly honored that America’s Promise named Indianapolis as one of the top 100 Best Communities for Young People. We can’t wait to see you in Indy at the 2010 Summer Changes Everything™ conference!
September 7th, 2010
andrew
Picture is courtesy of the Sadie Nash Leadership Project.
Each year, the National Summer Learning Association brings all hands on deck for a nationwide search for the best summer learning programs. We solicit applications broadly and wait eagerly to read rich details of programs serving youth in different ways all over the country. Inevitably, we all find a bit of ourselves and our own childhoods in the applications. Programs focusing on the arts find a soft spot with me, and stories of leadership development, college and career preparation and service learning always inspire and remind us why our work is so important.
Every program that applies has something to teach the field, but to award the Excellence in Summer Learning Award, we are looking for a program that is exemplary in both its organizational infrastructure and its model at the point-of-service. The review process is rigorous; programs are first scored on their written applications, using a rubric that encompasses nine domains of program quality and that aligns with our Comprehensive Assessment of Summer Programs. We engage past Excellence Award winners and other experts in the field as application reviewers and always find their diversity of thought and experience to be an invaluable addition to the process.
After applications are scored, 10-12 programs are selected for phone interviews with Association staff and external experts. This year, for the first time, we also conducted site visits to five finalists. Site visits certainly added additional rigor to the process and made this year one of the toughest competitions yet.
We are so excited to award Horizons Colorado Academy/Horizons National and Sadie Nash Leadership Project with the 2010 Excellence in Summer Learning Award. While both programs are already leaders in the field of summer learning, we hope that this award will elevate and celebrate their work with youth to reach an even wider audience of practitioners, policymakers, families and researchers.
Sadie Nash Leadership Project is a program for high school women based in Brooklyn, New York. During the six-week summer program, young women look deeply at the role of women and examine how society’s traditional power structure impacts disenfranchised communities. Association staff members Jennifer Brady and Jody Libit visited the program this summer and reported back that the learning taking place in group discussions was “phenomenal” and reminded them of a college seminar on women’s studies. Sadie Nash is a fantastic example of a program that pushes youth to think, create and achieve beyond the typical boundaries of what’s expected of them in school or in life. We never know how deeply youth can understand and contribute to complex topics until we set the expectation that they can. I’m so glad that Sadie Nash has set the bar so high for the 100 young women it reaches each summer.
Association staff speak often about our vision for summer learning programs that integrate academic acceleration with a focus on social and developmental growth, and Horizons National and Horizons Colorado Academy truly exemplify that vision. By bringing public school children to private school campuses, Horizons program build confidence in youth in their ability to succeed in new settings. Horizons offers hands-on, project-based learning opportunities that integrate rigorous academic content into engaging, youth-driven experiences. Instead of losing reading skills in the summer, or even maintaining them, Horizons youth gain an average of four months of grade level equivalency in reading over the summer — something that is sure to help them enter school confident and prepared, year after year. Horizons also teaches all youth how to swim during the program, meeting a very real and specific need of its community of learners. Of course, the end of summer camping trip isn’t too shabby either!
It’s hard to believe that we’ll be releasing the 2011 Excellence Award application in just a few months at our November conference in Indianapolis. The Excellence Award process is one of the best tools we have to learn about programs all over the country, and there is nothing we love more than spreading the word about innovative, high-quality programming. So to all the programs out there — we want to hear from you! Look for the 2011 application to be posted on our web site in November. Or better yet, get it firsthand in Indianapolis!
August 10th, 2010
Sarah Pitcock
Last month, the Association awarded planning grants to three innovative school district and community partnerships to support a six-month planning process to enhance their summer programming for students transitioning from middle school to high school. The partnerships selected for this planning opportunity are the Philadelphia Youth Network (PYN) and the School District of Philadelphia (PA); Open Meadow Step Up and the Portland Schools Foundation’s Ninth Grade Counts Initiative (OR); and BELL (Building Educated Leaders for Life) and the Springfield Public Schools (MA).
The Association’s summer transition team is excited to kick off our work with the “pilot sites” with visits to their current programs this summer. We will use what we learn about the unique needs of each site to help guide the focus of a professional learning community, which will include planning meetings and field experiences that aim to expose pilot sites to expert knowledge and exemplary program models, in order to help them build knowledge in a collaborative manner to inform their enhanced program plans. We’re also looking forward to presenting with the pilot sites on this initiative at the Association’s national conference in Indianapolis this November.
The grants were made available through the Association’s ongoing field-building work with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which aims to use the summer time strategically to support the needs of youth entering high school to help keep them on track to graduate. The grantees were selected based on feedback from advisors and experts from the field on the key needs for supporting the bridge to high school during an event hosted by the Association this past march in Tampa, Florida.
If you would like to learn more about this work and contribute ideas about inventive ways to use educational technology and digital media to boost college readiness, please visit the Next Generation Learning Challenges website or visit the initiative’s page on Facebook or Twitter.
August 5th, 2010
Hillary Hardt
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