Effects of Expanding Summer Credit Recovery in Algebra

In Chicago, over a quarter of students fail at least one semester of algebra in their ninth grade year, and only 13% of students who fail both semesters of Algebra I in ninth grade graduate in 4 years. Offering credit recovery options is one strategy to deal with high failure rates. The primary goal of credit recovery programs is to give students an opportunity to retake classes that they failed in an effort to get them back on track and keep them in school (Watson & Gemin, 2008). While it seems like a good idea, the pay-off may not actually be large for a number of reasons: few students who failed in the prior year may show up in the summer for credit recovery; few students may pass even if they do show up; and the gains of attending summer school for learning and for credit accumulation may be very small compared to students' initial deficits in skills or the number of total credits they eventually need to recover. This study examines the benefits of offering expanded credit recovery options for ninth grade algebra, relative to business as usual (i.e., the summer programming schools would offer in the absence of efforts to expand credit recovery). The study incorporates all regular neighborhood high schools in Chicago (76) and all first-time ninth grade students who entered these schools (about 4,000 students in each cohort) between fall 2009 and fall 2011 who failed second semester algebra (Algebra IB). Tables and figures are appended.