Supporting Summer Programs Navigating Federal, State, and Local Program Support Opportunities
Published May 12, 2020
Summer is a time of enrichment, discovery, and fun for many students. But for others, especially those from low-income families, summer means time away from the support and resources that facilitate learning and social and emotional growth. Hundreds of school districts across the United States are committed to changing this opportunity gap. They strive to provide high-quality summer programs for students who might otherwise lack opportunities for learning and enriching activities, such as arts and exercise. RAND Corporation researchers have shown that high-quality summer learning programs can lead to positive academic, social, emotional, and career-related outcomes.
How are these programs supported? The quick answer is likely no surprise: It is complicated. There are numerous federal, state, and district funding opportunities to consider. Each opportunity offers pathways to sustain, scale, and improve the quality of summer learning programs. However, as program leaders know, each opportunity also presents roadblocks to navigate.
RAND researchers sought to better understand how summer learning program leaders can efficiently and effectively find their way through a complex policy landscape. This brief summarizes the results of the study and presents recommendations for summer program leaders to consider.
Three Ways That Local, State, and Federal Policies Can Affect Summer Learning Programs
Policies can affect summer learning programs in several important ways. The RAND study considered the following three factors:
sustainability (i.e., keeping programs up and running for more than one summer)
scale (i.e., increasing the number of program seats available to students)
quality (i.e., providing the features of high-quality programs, including five weeks or more of programming, consistent student attendance, small class sizes, and certified teachers with grade-level and subject-matter experience).
Main Findings
District-level decisionmakers and policy have the greatest impact on summer learning programs. Ultimately, summer program sustainability, scale, and quality are affected most at the district level. Superintendents and other district leaders are charged with various responsibilities, including the following:
considering the demands for various summer programs, including those from parents
setting policies that determine whether and how to establish summer programs
deciding which students will be served and what kinds of summer programs should be offered
balancing priorities for limited available funding (i.e., will the program compete with the regular school year for state or federal funds?)
seeking new funding.
Strong district capacity is needed. Because most decisions are made at the district level, summer program leaders need to convince district leaders that summer programming deserves funding. This might, in turn, require an investment in citing national studies, tracking attendance in summer programs, or conducting local program evaluation to help demonstrate value. Districts need to be set up to access, apply for, and administer grant money, and to combine money from various grants. Skilled grant writers are needed to apply for competitive grants.
The federal government offers the highest number of summer learning program funding opportunities. Formula grants distributed to states based on population data were the biggest funders of programs included in the study. Grants included those from the U.S. Department of Education that are associated with ESSA (Pub. L. 114-95). These include Improving Basic Programs Operated by Local Educational Agencies (Title I, Part A), which supports students from low-income families; the Migrant Education Program (Title I, Part C); and Improving Teacher Quality State Grants (Title II, Part A). Study participants also sought grants from other agencies, including the Corporation for National and Community Service and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Some programs also accessed other federal funds through a competitive application process. The main competitive federal grant sought was the ESSA 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC) grant (Title IV, Part B), which supports out-of-school-time activities.
State agencies interpret federal policy and how it relates to summer programming, and some provide direct funding for it. A few states have significant funding streams for summer learning programs. However, the interpretation, regulation, and administration of federal funding streams are the main ways in which most states affect summer programs. These actions can influence whether summer learning programs are funded. States can also affect summer program scale and sustainability through mandates encouraging or requiring summer programs. Some states have created councils or caucuses to support or explore summer programming options and to signal their support for out-of-school-time programming in general.
Some cities have established their own summer learning program funding streams. A few cities, such as Oakland, California, and Seattle, Washington, have used ballot initiatives, budget set-asides, and property tax levies to create pools of dollars that have been used to fund summer programs.
—— Continue to Full Research Brief——
Augustine, Catherine H. and Lindsey E. Thompson, Supporting Summer Programs: Navigating Federal, State, and Local Program Support Opportunities. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2020. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB10108.html.