Photo by erin_m.

On the day that the District’s 2010 Summer Youth Employment Program kicks off, Jay Mathews proffers this question in a Washington Post op-ed: why aren’t more students in the District taking summer school classes?

Mathews asserts that the achievement gap between students from different income classes could be reduced with summer education:

Summer learning loss has been shown to be a likely cause of low achievement in cities such as Washington. Karl L. Alexander of Johns Hopkins University found that by ninth grade, accumulated learning loss for low-income children accounted for two-thirds of the achievement gap between them and higher-income children who had summer learning opportunities, such as trips to the library and museums.

Yeah, more summer school probably wouldn’t hurt for most students, sure. But isn’t Mathews missing the point here? I’d argue that the lack of summer school participation has little to do with it being an “uncomfortable” idea — I’m sure there are plenty of parents who would be downright thrilled to send their kids to school during the summer months. The real issue is how much more money it actually costs to run a successful summer school program. According to DCist education contributor Rachael Brown, out-of-school labor rates for DCPS teachers hover around $30 a hour. Consider that, along with the costs involved in developing a curriculum, operating facilities and other indirect costs — and suddenly, operating summer school gets rather pricey, rather quickly.