rebecca's pocket

» A $50-a-year program that works as well as summer school? Just wow. Combine this with a lunch program and you would have a low-cost and effective program that nearly any school district could afford.

In a study that compares students who received free books over the summer with students who didn't, Richard Allington, an education professor at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, found encouraging results. He tracked low-income first- and second-graders in Florida who chose a dozen free books at their reading level for three summers in a row.

"The effect was equal to the effect of summer school," Professor Allington says. "Spending roughly $40 to $50 a year on free books for [each kid] began to alleviate the achievement gap that occurs in the summer."

(via bp)