Summer programs have historically been a staple in public school districts' arsenals to help students keep up academically and recover from summer break-related academic setbacks. In addition to academic support, summer programs may have a positive impact on students' physical and mental health, development of interests, and development of social…

Summer programming is one of the main ways school districts have sought to help students recover academically from COVID-19 pandemic-related setbacks. Authors use a survey administered to a nationally representative sample of kindergarten through grade 12 public school districts to investigate the prevalence and structure of districts' programming…

Since its launch in the midst of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the American School District Panel (ASDP) has been used to monitor timely topics in kindergarten through grade 12 (K-12) public education. Over time, ASDP surveys have coalesced around four key challenges that U.S. public school districts face today: school…

Summer is a time of enrichment, discovery, and fun for many students. But for others, especially those from low-income families, summer means time away from the support and resources that facilitate learning and social and emotional growth. Hundreds of school districts across the United States are committed to changing this opportunity gap. RAND…

In 2011, The Wallace Foundation launched the National Summer Learning Project (NSLP) to expand summer program opportunities for students in urban districts and to study the effectiveness of district-led summer programs and how they could be well implemented. Through the NSLP, The Wallace Foundation has provided support to public school districts…

During the summer, children from low-income families typically have fewer opportunities than their peers from more-affluent families for academic, cultural, athletic, and other activities. Such differences in opportunity can lead low-income students to fall behind their higher-income peers during summer. Free summer learning programs offering…

The Big Lift™ (Big Lift) is a preschool to third-grade initiative designed to boost literacy skills and ensure that children are reading proficiently by the third grade. First launched in 2012 by the County of San Mateo, the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, and the San Mateo County Office of Education, Big Lift comprises more than 300…

School districts in the United States are responding to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in significantly different ways. The authors of this report fielded the third American School District Panel (ASDP) survey in June 2021 to discover what changes districts are making to their academic and nonacademic offerings for the upcoming…

Expanded learning intermediaries are nonprofit organizations dedicated to making after-school and summer programs better and more accessible for children and youth. They do this by coordinating efforts and resources in a given community, knitting programs together into a cohesive system, helping individual programs function at a high level, and…

This appendix augments a report that updates 2013 guidance to school district leaders and their partners across the country who are interested in launching summer learning programs or improving established ones. In that report, the authors present recommendations based on evaluations, conducted between 2011 and 2016, of summer programs in five…

This appendix provides additional details on the underlying data, statistical models, and results presented in "The Big Lift Descriptive Analyses: Progress across Three Kindergarten Classes." First the authors describe how they created each control and outcome variable and its source (e.g., parent report), followed by an overview of the…

The Big Lift™ (Big Lift), a collective impact initiative extending from preschool through third grade in San Mateo County, California, aims to boost reading proficiency and kindergarten readiness through four programmatic pillars: High-Quality Preschool, Summer Learning, Attendance, and Family Engagement. In this report, the authors present…

The Big Lift™ (Big Lift) is a preschool-third-grade collective impact initiative in San Mateo County, California. The initiative is a partnership of the County of San Mateo, the San Mateo County Office of Education, and the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. Launched in 2012, the initiative aims to boost children's reading proficiency by third…

The Big Lift™ (Big Lift) is a preschool-third-grade collective impact initiative in San Mateo County, California. The initiative is a partnership of the County of San Mateo, the San Mateo County Office of Education, and the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. Launched in 2012, the initiative aims to boost children's reading proficiency by third…

The Big Lift is a collective impact initiative extending from preschool to third grade in San Mateo County, California. The collective impact effort consists of people and organizations from various sectors uniting to tackle a single, complicated societal problem -- in this case, third grade reading achievement. The initiative is a partnership of…