For some families, June, July, and August are carefree months filled with summer camps and vacations. For others, it’s a period of stress and desperation as lower income families search for affordable child care or resort to leaving them home alone. On June 4, The New York Times published The Families That Can’t Afford Summer, a pertinent article that powerfully underscores the importance of summer learning and its impact on the achievement gap, particularly among low-income students.

Tolanda Barnette is hoping for “a miracle” for her 6-year-old son: The 41-year-old day care worker can’t afford to enroll him at the center where she works, and she’s just saved enough to move her family out of the shelter where they’ve been living for the past year into an apartment in Durham, N.C. There’s no money for even the least expensive camp.KJ Dell’Antonia

In the article, columnist KJ Dell’Antonia exposes a harsher reality of summer and its longterm effects. She writes, “The lack of affordable child care and the achievement gap collide for lower income families. Most kids lose math skills over the summer, but low income children also lose, on average, more than two months of reading skills — and they don’t gain them back.” Continue reading The Families That Can’t Afford Summer on The New York Times website for a poignant reminder why summer matters.