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The school year in the U.S. is, on average, 180 days long. The South Korean school year is 220 days long. The Japanese school year is 243 days long. ...America doesn’t have a school problem. ...It has a summer vacation problem.-Malcolm Gladwell from Outliers

Research Regarding Children’s Learning from Summer Learning Loss Researchers

1. 50% of the achievement gap is due to summer learning loss.
2. Summer learning loss is the loss of academic skills and knowledge over summer vacation.  Learning loss varies across grade level, subject matter, and family income.
3. On average, students score lower on standardized tests at the end of the summer than they do at the beginning of summer (on the same test). Summer loss for all students is estimated to be equal to about 1 month (Cooper 1996), but this varies across subject matter.
4. Mathematics - 2.6 months of grade-level equivalency loss for math computation.
5. Reading- Low income students generally lose about 2 months of reading achievement. Middle income students experience slight gains in reading performances.
6. Low-income students slip as much as three months in reading comprehension, compared with middle-income students.
7. Loss is more pronounced for math and spelling skills  than for other tested skills because, without practice, these skills are most susceptible to being  forgotten.  (e.g., Cooper & Sweller, 1987).
8. All students are impacted, regardless of home resources.  All students lose math skills but reading skills loss differs. Middle-income children showed gains but low-income children showed losses.
9. Substantial economic differences were found in reading skills. By some measures, middle-income children showed gains in reading achievement over summer with more books and reading opportunities available. (See also Alexander, Entwisle, & Olson, in press).
10. Regardless of family income, students made  similar progress during the school year,  but the economically advantaged kids held steady or progressed during the summer and disadvantaged students fell back.

• Read more at:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_learning_loss
• Read more at: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2005863,00.html

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Summer Learning Loss in Detail

The Global Challenge Makes Summer Learning Loss a Problem That Can Affect Future Earnings

(Comments about Tom Friedman’s The World Is Flat)

“Friedman has some interesting points I think are worthy of consideration. For example, he states that thirty-five years ago, if you had the choice between being born a B+ student in Brooklyn or a genius in Bangalore, India, you'd rather be born the B+ student in Brooklyn, because your life opportunities would be so much greater in Brooklyn, even as a B+ student. Today, you'd much rather be born a genius in Bangalore, because when the world is flat, and you can plug and play, collaborate and connect, just like you can from Brooklyn, your life chances and opportunities hold more potential than ever before.”

-Chris O’Neal

Read more at : http://www.edutopia.org/what-does-world-flat-mean-education

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