Longitudinal Achievement Effects of Multiyear Summer School: Evidence From the Teach Baltimore Randomized Field Trial

Abstract

Employing a randomized field trial, this 3-year study explored the effects of a multiyear summer school program in preventing the cumulative effect of summer learning losses and promoting longitudinal achievement growth, for a total treatment group of 438 students from high-poverty schools. Longitudinal outcomes for the participants were contrasted to those for 248 children randomized into a no-treatment control condition. Multilevel growth models revealed no intention-to-treat effects of assignment to the multiyear summer school program. However, student attendance patterns at the voluntary program were variable across the 3 years that the intervention was offered. Maximum likelihood mixture models, which estimated the effects of the treatment for compliers, revealed statistically significant effects on learning across all three literacy domains tested for those students who attended the Summer Academy at an above average rate across two or more of the three summers that it was offered. Relative to their control-group counterparts, treatment compliers held advantages of 40% to 50% of one grade level on the final posttests.