BALTIMORE

MOST CHILDREN welcome summer as three months of freedom from school. For parents and teachers, however, that summer “vacation” can be a mixed blessing.

For parents, it means that their children need a constant menu of activities to keep them from being bored, watching lots of television and perhaps finding ways to get into trouble. For teachers, it means students are forgetting much of what they learned in the previous nine months.

There’s nothing wrong with giving students some relaxation time. In fact, they need it. But a three-month holiday from all learning undermines academic progress. Study after study confirms it. Students on average lose the equivalent of more than two months of math skills over the summer. For young people in low-income communities, the risks are greater; they fall behind in reading an average of two months, while their middle-income peers make slight gains. A recent study found that the as much as two-thirds of the ninth-grade achievement gap between children in lower and higher income households can be explained by what happens over the summer in the elementary-school years. We also know that kids gain weight two to three times faster during the summer, gaining as much over summer as they do during the entire school year.

High-quality summer learning opportunities provide kids with fun, engaging learning activities, physical activity, adult supervision and nutritious snacks or meals. Compared with many other states, Rhode Island is taking the right steps toward providing these opportunities, such as summer, after-school, extended-learning and extended year programs, for more students, especially those from disadvantaged families. Last year, Rhode Island was one of only six states awarded funding for an initiative called Supporting Student Success, a partnership of the Council of Chief State School Officers, the National Governors Association and the National Conference of State Legislators. The initiative is supported by a competitive national grant from the C.S. Mott Foundation.

Through that initiative, the Rhode Island Afterschool Plus Alliance, an advocacy group for summer and after-school programs, is spearheading efforts to develop state policies that integrate expanded learning opportunities into the state education system. The state leadership team reflects a commitment at the highest levels, including the state education commissioner, the Providence mayor, the House and Senate majority leaders and a representative from the governor’s office. Advising them are representatives from state agencies, the lieutenant governor’s office, funders, and advocates. The initiative has two long-term goals: improving student performance in high-poverty urban areas, and increasing high-school graduation rates by keeping students at-risk of dropping out engaged in school.

In addition, this summer, the Nellie Mae Education Foundation will support two summer learning programs, selected competitively, that can serve as models for high-quality programs that can augment and strengthen what children learn in school. Beginning in July, the pilot programs will serve middle-school students in Pawtucket and Central Falls.

What distinguishes Rhode Island from some other states is that the state political leaders recognize the importance of after-school and summer learning. While adequate funding is still a challenge because of the tight state budget, having public officials who understand what is at stake is a significant advantage.

These actions are a welcome start, but there is much more Rhode Island can do to make sure its students have opportunities to engage their minds throughout the year. Legislators should consider incorporating summer and after-school program funding into the state education aid formula bill, the Education Equity and Property Tax Relief Act, currently before the General Assembly. Rhode Island currently has no education-aid formula, and including after-school and summer from the start would be progressive and forward-thinking.

This year, Congress will have a chance to consider funding for the first federal program to exclusively target summer as a strategy for closing the achievement gap. Congress created the Summer Term Education Program for Upward Performance (STEP UP) program last year but didn’t fund it. This year, if lawmakers fund the pilot program, it would provide five weeks of summer programs for more than 30,000 elementary- and middle-school students in high-poverty communities in at least five states. We urge the Rhode Island delegation to support this measure.

For young people and their families living in poverty, high-quality summer learning programs provide children a safe place with adult supervision, a source of healthy meals, and educational and developmental opportunities that are otherwise difficult for them to obtain. Given the complex problems confronting children in poverty, we cannot afford to allow summers to go by filled with nothing. For all Rhode Island citizens, summer learning offers a smart way to halt a needless waste of good minds, make greater educational achievement a possibility for all students, and make good on the promise of equal opportunity for all.

Ron Fairchild is executive director of the Center for Summer Learning at Johns Hopkins University.