The American Summer Learning Gap From an International Perspective

The policy debate following Barbara Heyns’s (1978) groundbreaking analysis of summer learning focused on two issues: (a) the loss of knowledge and skills during extended breaks in schooling, such as summer vacation; and (b) how this loss contributes to an educational gap between the haves and have-nots in American society (e.g., Poe & Cohen, 1998). As the other chapters in this volume show, this topic addresses more than just the summer learning gap, and it raises the issue of how much time in school is useful and how the school year should be organized to be most effective (Huyvaert, 1998; Shields & Oberg, 2000).