Chicago Public Schools Summer Bridge program¶

Element · All elements
Evidence · 11 claims (3 for, 5 mixed, 3 against) · 2 studies (1 causal, 1 associational), q3 · 0 of 2 report an effect size · 11 claims rest on one study

Description¶

Summer Bridge is a large mandatory summer school program required for Chicago third, sixth, and eighth graders who fail ITBS promotional test-score cutoffs, with over 21,000 students required to attend each year from 1997 to 2000. Third and sixth graders attended "three hours per day for six weeks—a total of 90 hours of instruction," and eighth graders attended four hours daily for seven weeks (140 hours). It is distinguished by small classes of about 16 students, a prescribed centrally developed curriculum aligned to the ITBS with daily lesson plans and materials provided, and a mandatory high-stakes design with retesting at summer's end.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Students must have failed to meet the promotional test-score cutoffs on the ITBS in reading or mathematics in spring

Constraints¶

• The policy excludes students in special education and students who have been in bilingual education four years or fewer

Target Learners¶

• Low-achieving third, sixth, and eighth graders in the Chicago Public Schools who failed promotional test-score cutoffs

Target Learning Goals¶

• Remediation of reading and mathematics skills measured by the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills and meeting promotion cutoffs

Claims¶

• Students in higher-achieving schools had larger Summer Bridge gains, so the program did not ameliorate quality differences across schools [-M]
• Summer Bridge produced short-term test-score gains and allowed more students to meet promotion cutoffs, particularly among sixth and eighth graders [+M]
• Summer Bridge produced only small sustained effects: slightly larger two-year gains than comparable non-attendees, without changing learning trajectories [~M]
• Students were significantly more positive about classroom academic environments and teacher attention in Summer Bridge than in the school year [+M]
• Summer Bridge gains were relatively uniform across demographic and achievement groups, with highest-risk third graders benefiting most [+M]
• Mandatory summer curricula are not teacher proof: individualizing instruction and quality of teacher-student interactions were associated with larger gains [~M]
• Fewer than 60 percent of retained third and sixth graders in 1998 and 1999 raised their test scores to the promotional cutoff even with an extra January chance to pass [~M]
• Mid-year promotions after retention neither helped nor harmed students' tested achievement in basic skills [~W]
• Whether teachers knew their students before Summer Bridge predicted test-score increases and teacher practice, most strongly for older students [~M]
• Retained sixth graders had lower achievement growth than promoted low-achieving counterparts [-M]
• Neither promotion nor retention significantly closed the achievement gap of low-achieving students close to the cutoff, and the lowest achievers deteriorated further [-M]

Related Elements¶

• Summer bridge program (Challenge Program at Georgia Tech)

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Melissa Roderick, Mimi Engel, Jenny Nagaoka, with Brian A. Jacob, Sophie Degener, Alex Orfei, Susan Stone, Jen Bacon. (2003). Ending Social Promotion: Results From Summer Bridge. Consortium on Chicago School Research. https://consortium.uchicago.edu/publications/ending-social-promotion-results-summer-bridge