Brain-Drain: How Summer Impacts Academic Progress

For parents whose kids go to school in what are often high-achieving districts—municipalities across much of Westchester, Fairfield and New Haven counties, for example—“summer” often means putting learning into a lower gear, and no one would disagree.

For some it may mean completely shutting down.

Here’s a very real question that many families are facing now with the spring (finally) arriving in earnest, as kids take to baseball and softball diamonds, and high-schoolers head off to prom: What, if anything, should I do to keep my children’s minds occupied during the summer? 

Subscribe to S4’s “Thursday Tips” for a quick list of bite-sized answers.

Consider this: A summer of absolutely nothing can impact some of the ways that our children’s academic progress and achievement are measured. For example, studies have shown that kids score lower on standardized tests at the end of the summer, compared with scores received for the same test taken at the beginning of the summer.

And—though we know the tests themselves are now changing with the advent of Common Core and its attendant SBAC—it’s worth understanding how well your own district has fared on standardized tests. Here’s some information for parents in Connecticut and Westchester.

For the New York State Department of Education, the “report card” for each public school is used by the Board of Regents and others as a measure of school and district performance.

Here’s a sampling from Westchester (more info here). We’re looking at district-wide grade 4 English Language Arts and grade 8 Mathematics proficiency level percentages—meaning what percentage of students tested across the sample level achieved proficiency. Data is from the most recent reportable year (2012-13):

District                        Percentage Proficient

                                    Grade 4 English            Grade 8 Math 

Bedford                       48                                  47

Briarcliff Manor          65                                  68

Chappaqua                 67                                  75 

Katonah-Lewisboro   64                                  67

Mamaroneck              52                                  55

Pleasantville              61                                  59

Rye City                     64                                  59

Port Chester-Rye      15                                  15

Scarsdale                  66                                   61

Yorktown                  52                                  67

Again: Subscribe to S4’s free“Thursday Tips” to read the full story this week. Contact S4 at 203-307-5455 or info@S4StudySkills.com  for more information and study tips.