Bell After School and Summer Education Program Battles Summer Learning Loss
Building Educated Leaders for Life, or BELL, operates in 11 cities. The average American student loses one month of math and reading skills per summer, according to a 2011 study by the RAND Corporation and for low-income the study finds skills are set back two months. reflectionfilmsonline.com BELL’s summer programs serve 10,000 children in kindergarten through eighth grade. And, by contrast, students participating in BELL’s summer program gain the equivalent of 1.7 months in reading skills and 1.4 months in math. Participating students can get up to 8 hours assistance, 5 days a week for up to six weeks. Students also participate in music, art and science activities and receive breakfast and lunch. The program was born in the 1990’s out of a discovery by black and Latino Harvard law students volunteering to mentor teenagers at public schools. They learned their students could read at only a second-grade level. As a result several volunteers led by Earl Martin Phalen ...
