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              An Analysis of the Effects of an Academic Summer Program for Middle School Students
      Back
                BELL’s middle school program serves rising sixth- through eighth-grade students who are performing one to two years below grade level. The goals of the program are to increase student’s literacy and math skills and to enhance their social development. BELL provides students with 6.5 hours of daily programming for approximately five weeks, five days per week.

Evaluation of the Middle School Summer Program found that the program:

showed suggestive evidence of having had a **positive impact on students’ math achievement**(although the effects were statistically inconclusive),
	showed **no effects****in terms of higher reading scores**for BELL students compared to non-BELL students, and
	was **implemented with fidelity**in the study districts, relative to the intended BELL middle school model and relative to national standards for summer learning programs.One of the limitations of this study is that the margin of error around the impact findings is large, due to challenges with recruiting enough students for the evaluation. Small sample sizes in a study make it difficult to statistically detect the effects of a program, unless the effects are exceptionally large (in this instance, larger than what would be typically expected of a summer academic program). For this reason, the impact findings from the study are considered suggestive and should be used to generate hypotheses that could be more definitively tested in a future evaluation.

The BELL study produced many other useful insights and recommendations for improving this and similar programs. Many such insights have already been adopted by BELL, which is now evaluating the program refinements they have implemented.

      Full report
      

      Full Report
            FR_EMCF_BELL_MiddleSchoolSummerProgram.pdf
                  RB_BELL_MiddleSchoolSummerProgram.pdf
        Further information
    



      Program/Intervention
                        Middle School Summer Program
  

      Implementing Organization
                        Building Educated Leaders for Life (BELL)
  

      Intermediary(s)
                        Edna McConnell Clark Foundation
  

      AmeriCorps Program(s)
            Social Innovation Fund
  

      Age(s) Studied
            6-12 (Childhood)
                  13-17 (Adolescent)
  

      Focus Population(s)/Community(s)
            Opportunity Youth
  

      Outcome Category
            K-12 success
  

      Study Type(s)
            Outcomes
                  Impact
                  Implementation
  

      Study Design(s)
            Experimental (RCT)
  

      Level of Evidence
            Moderate
  

      Researcher/Evaluator
                        MDRC
  

      Published Year
                        2015
  

      Report Citation
                        Somers, M. A., Welbeck, R., Grossman, J. B., Gooden, S. (2015). An Analysis of the Effects of an Academic Summer Program for Middle School Students.  New York: MDRC. Back to main content Sign up to hear about our latest news, events, and opportunities.
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