About ten years ago when I was in high school, summer school meant one of two things. Either, you paid to take non-honors classes so you could load up with AP classes during the year (meant more for GPA) or you failed a course and had to retake it, but with both groups, none wanted to go. With the group I taught last year, the story seemed very different.
They assumed summer school would be a part of their academic year. Failure didn't concern them. They'd just take it in summer school. I'm not sure if they felt this way because of how often they had retaken courses in the summer before 11th grade or because of what summer means to them.
For me, summer was Heaven. Wet n' Wild, video games, volleyball tournaments, camps, reading, and usually at least one trip out of town. Why would I want to miss out on that while retaking a class? Well, for many urban students, summer means, no air conditioner, double the hours of baby sitting, empty refrigerators, a shared television, and the despair that they're missing out on what everyone else is doing. Summer school allows some to avoid this situation.
I'm all for that, but this would be my twist. Kids that had to retake a class would have to pay for summer school. Currently, I believe it's free where I work. And then I would take all of the money we currently spend on providing kids a summer vacation, and really give them one by offering classes or camps in areas that they would really enjoy. I would love to work with a group of students interested in creating websites or short films. Shop and art classes that have been cut out could be brought back as summer camps. Sports that kids cannot participate in during the school year because of the extracurricular time requirements could be on a team for the first time in their lives. Summer is a time to subsidize education by providing new learning opportunities, no to provide subsidies for what should have already been accomplished. Would it mean that a few more kids fall behind grade level because they do not attend summer school to regain credits. Maybe, but if they new that summer school would cost them money and an opportunity to really have some fun, I bet we'd see increased effort in the fall and spring.
