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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

“Smarter Summer” for Thousands of Detroit Middle Schoolers

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Thursday, July 21, 2011   

DETROIT - It's not the summer school of yesteryear. It's more like a swanky private camp.

Thousands of low- to middle-income Detroit students have been attending a Smarter Summers program designed to stop learning loss and provide fun at the same time with elective studies, music and field trips.

The focus, says Sarah Pitcock, director of the Smarter Summers Project at the National Summer Learning Association , is on children entering grades 6 through 9, a time she calls a unique window for learning opportunities.

"The habits and attitudes and abilities that young people have by ninth grade are highly indicative of the success that they'll have in college and careers."

Extensive research shows that unequal summer learning opportunities play a key role in the achievement gap between low- and middle-income children and those in families who can afford private programs, Pitcock says.

Dean Bradley works with BELL (Building Educated Leaders for Life), a Boston-based nonprofit which is running Summer Academies for some 1,400 youths in 18 of Detroit's persistently low-performing schools.

"We are giving these kids a blast of academics in the morning over the course of six weeks, followed by great opportunities, field trips and so forth on a Friday."

Classes in the Smarter Summers programs are also much smaller than those in the regular school year, Pitcock says, and each class has two teachers.

"We're hoping that we're going to not only stem that summer learning loss and stop it, but we're going to actually accelerate learning so that they get into the best high schools (and) know the opportunities that exist for them in college."

Smarter Summers programs are being run in a number of cities with a grant from the Walmart Foundation which provides more than 20,000 slots in high-quality summer learning programs.

Details about summer learning loss and tips for prevention are online at SmarterSummers.org.


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