Brandon Brown and Ann D. Murtlow
As central Indiana students, parents and educators brace for what’s already proving to be another uncertain school year, one thing is clear: we must do everything we can to keep our city’s students on track academically while supporting their social and emotional health and development. In the last several months, our community has made tremendous progress in helping our students accelerate their learning so they can start this school year ready to hit the ground running.
In Marion County, close to 3,000 students attended the Indy Summer Learning Labs, a free summer learning and enrichment program offered at 39 schools and community centers across the city. For five weeks, students in grades 1 through 9 focused on catching up on lost learning opportunities as the result of COVID-19. In addition to providing high-quality curriculum and instruction from dedicated teachers and coaches, the Indy Summer Learning Labs also sought to provide students with plenty of outlets for play and extracurricular exploration – from science and art to physical education and community-based projects.
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The results of the five-week program are impressive: students who attended the Indy Summer Learning Labs saw a 20 percentage point increase in basic and proficient scores in English and language arts and a 27 percentage point increase in the same scores in math, based on post-program assessments aligned with Indiana’s state standards. What’s more, parents – many of whom were able to focus on their education or work as the result of the program – ranked the program highly.
Behind this data are thousands of students – many of whom are from historically marginalized communities across Marion County – who began this school year in a much better position than they would have been had it not been for the leadership of Gov. Eric Holcomb, Secretary of Education Katie Jenner and members of the Indiana General Assembly, who set aside politics to significantly invest in educational recovery efforts across the state. We’ll need their continued support and leadership to help our students continue to accelerate their path to academic success.
We applaud our state leaders for taking aggressive action to prevent Indiana’s students from falling behind, and we commend the efforts of our central Indiana partners who led the implementation of Marion County’s program – from school and district leaders to community organizations and undaunted teachers. Together, we’ve demonstrated what’s possible when a state and community comes together to solve complex challenges – even those brought about by a global health crisis.
The work is not done. While we’re encouraged to see the growth from this year’s Indy Summer Learning Labs, we know that the educational effects of the pandemic will take months, if not years, to remedy.
To prevent existing achievement gaps from widening, to stop the high school dropout rate from climbing, and to recover the billions of dollars that researchers estimate the U.S. stands to lose by unchecked learning loss, we can’t take a one-and-done approach.
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This program has shown what we need to do, as a community, to meet the needs of our students.
To begin, we must commit dedicated funding to proven learning acceleration strategies like Indy Summer Learning Labs. High-quality summer learning programs should continue to come at no or low cost to families, with breakfast and lunch included, so that barriers are removed for low-income families. We also know that community organizations must play a major role alongside schools if we are to truly take an all-hands-on-deck approach to accelerate student learning. And educators – who would be working outside the scope of their contracts – must be compensated generously as they go above and beyond what’s already asked of them.
Investing in strategies that help our most vulnerable students get and remain on track for academic success should always be a priority – even after we turn the page on this stressful and unprecedented time in our world’s history. Our county – and our state – stands primed to reap the economic and social benefits that a long-term approach would yield.
We have momentum and – importantly – hope on our side as we work to build on this summer’s success for the benefit of Marion County’s students, parents and economy.
Brandon Brown is CEO of The Mind Trust. Ann D. Murtlow is president and CEO of United Way of Central Indiana.
