Can large, urban school districts successfully run high-quality summer learning programs? If so, how can they do it? And what impact can these programs have on students?

These are three of the questions the Wallace Foundation, the RAND Corporation and five urban school districts explored as part of the National Summer Learning Project, a six-year effort to provide voluntary, district-led summer programs that offer a mix of academic instruction and enrichment-and test whether they help boost students’ success in school. To find out the answers, RAND conducted a randomized controlled trial (RCT), the largest of its kind.

In this thought leader session, Karen Pittman sat down with Catherine Augustine from the RAND Corporation and Melanie Claxton with Pittsburgh Public Schools, one of the five communities involved in the project, to explore their engagement with the study and the results and lessons learned. Pittsburgh Public Schools shared lessons that you can apply to help think outside the box of traditional summer school and begin the planning process early.