September 2, 2000 CONTACT: Leslie Rice (410) 516-7160 [email protected]
MEDIA ADVISORY
TO: EDUCATION REPORTERS
View talks on the Web by Hopkins education experts about summer school, summer learning loss, and year-round schools.
Streaming video of presentations by Johns Hopkins University researchers Geoffrey D. Borman and Karl Alexander, recorded during a recent national conference on summer learning held at Hopkins, are now available on the World Wide Web.
Borman's talk offers an overview of what research has been conducted nationally on summer school and summer learning loss.
Alexander gives an in-depth talk about his 28-year study on summer learning loss and its effect on the achievement gap between poor and well-off students.
View the talks here.
About the speakers:
Geoffrey D. Borman, associate research scientist at Johns Hopkins' Center for Social Organization of Schools. He is currently conducting a three-year longitudinal study that tracks the impact of an academically intensive summer program for low-income Baltimore City elementary students. The study involves about 450 elementary school children from high-poverty areas of the city at five different sites.
Karl L. Alexander, the John Dewey Professor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins. His "Beginning School Study" is one of the longest-running education studies in the country. His data confirms the existence of what is called the "summer slide," or the fact that urban poor children fall behind academically during the summer months while more affluent kids make academic gains. His studies have often been cited by policy makers who make a case for year-round schooling, summer school and quality summer camp programs for low-income kids beginning as early as first grade.
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