Fresno exception to summer school cuts

08-24-2011

Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

Faced with budget cuts and given flexibility to shift money as they see fit, 25 of California’s 30 largest school districts have cut back summer school, many of them substantially, compared with three years ago, according to a survey by the nonpartisan research organization EdSource. Take Los Angeles Unified, the state’s largest district. In 2008, before substantial state budget cuts, it spent $51.4 million on summer school for 188,500 elementary, middle, and high school students. This year it spent just $3 million, and spent that on 22,000 high school students alone. But then there’s Fresno Unified, which, more than any large district, substantially increased summer school offerings over the past several years, proving that even in hard times, summer school can be made a priority. And it should be, based on June 2011 research by the Rand Corporation, quoted in the EdSource report, which concluded that “by the end of summer, students on average perform one month behind where they left off in the spring.” (more...)

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