SAIL’s community approach to summer learning an easy home run for math, reading gains
By David Osinski | Executive director of the American Baseball Foundation
This is a guest opinion column.
State lawmakers are soon expected to consider legislation authorizing new resources to improve the state’s math proficiency scores. One proposal is similar to the reading initiative lawmakers approved a few years ago. If approved, schools would receive more funding and targeted resources. But, like the reading bill’s third grade retention requirement, the proposed math legislation requires students to repeat the fifth grade if they continue to struggle.
The state’s recent focus on reading and math intervention is long overdue. It is no secret that Alabama ranks near the bottom of most academic assessments. However, there are pockets of progress throughout the state that are worthy of a closer look before any new policies are enacted.
Numerous local communities, led by the Birmingham-based Summer Adventures in Learning, have organized summer learning programs to reinforce outside of the classroom what students are learning in school. And these high-quality programs are finding success.
One such Birmingham-based program, the American Baseball Foundation’s BASIC program, was adopted last summer by the Kansas City Royals Baseball Club in Kansas City, Missouri. BASIC is a six-week summer learning program that teaches students reading and math while rotating between academic and sports instruction. The program focuses on determination, cooperation, and perseverance as students run,
throw, and kick their way through the day. Over the duration of the program, students receive 40 hours of instruction in reading and 35 in math.
The Royals incorporated the BASIC program into its ten-week Urban Youth Academy. Their success with BASIC was one of the reasons why Major League Baseball awarded K.C. its Allan H. “Bud’ Selig Award for Philanthropic Excellence.
It is not surprising that BASIC would find success in Kansas City. Elementary and middle school students in Alabama have thrived in this program for years. In fact, over the last eight years, the average gains for BASIC students have been 2.5 months in reading and 4.0 months in math.
Searching for best practices in summer learning, the ABF partnered with the Curriculum and Learning Department of the University of Alabama at Birmingham nearly ten years ago to rewrite the BASIC curriculum. New books and new applications of math comprised the five-to six-week curriculum that spans grades one through eight. BASIC expanded to at least twenty days of 6.5 hours of instruction. New sports were added to make the program more attractive.
While BASIC was making these upgrades, several Alabama-based philanthropies came together to build support for rigorous summer learning across the state. They formed SAIL to ensure high-quality summer learning programs thrive across the state. Since then, SAIL has led the expansion of high-quality, community-based summer learning
in Alabama. It offers funding for programs, facilitates assessments, and brings together the programs to exchange best practices across the SAIL umbrella.
SAIL supported 35 independent, community-based summer learning programs in 13 Alabama counties this past summer, including the Birmingham, Black Belt, Tuscaloosa, and Huntsville/Madison County areas. Every SAIL-supported program uses its own curriculum and is given the flexibility to design a program that interests students. Some SAIL programs, like BASIC, incorporate sports. Others might rely on
STEM lessons to meet students where they are academically. Some are located at YMCA’s and community centers. Others are in churches. The commonality of SAIL’s diverse delivery model is its grantees’ commitment to quality and focus on developing the whole child.
Under SAIL’s leadership, the ABF has developed a program that produces documented results and has proven to be replicable in several parts of the United States and at home in Alabama.
Governor Ivey’s new budget includes funding to support the expansion of community-based summer learning programs. These programs are seeing success improving reading and math scores and are worthy of legislative support. We encourage lawmakers to approve Governor’s Ivey’s proposal.
David Osinski is the founder and executive director of the American Baseball Foundation. Learn more at https://americanbaseballfoundation.com/
Published: Jan. 14, 2022, 11:39 a.m on AL.com link