Summer School: Can Credit Recovery Also Be Real Learning?

If you’re a high school student, the last place you want to be on a beautiful summer day is a classroom with 36 other kids, doing schoolwork.

Youth Radio spent a morning in a packed summer school class in San Francisco, California, where 10th, 11th, and 12th graders — some with learning disabilities — were all making up their math credits together.

It’s a challenging environment, with only five weeks to teach an entire course. While students seem to be getting what they came for, teacher Marlies Lewis has some reservations about how success is defined in summer school.