Summer Credit Recovery Impact on Newcomer English Learners

Prior research shows that English learners (ELs) lag behind their peers in academic achievement and education attainment. The persisting gap is partly attributed to ELs’ limited exposure to academic content.

This article investigates the efficacy of a summer credit recovery program aimed at expanding high school newcomer ELs’ access to academic subjects. Leveraging student-level data from a large urban district in California, the author uses a difference-in-differences-in-differences approach to estimate the program’s impact on high school course taking, English proficiency, and graduation.

Credit recovery increased the number of math, English Language Arts, science, and social science classes taken by newcomer EL students. Effects on 4- and 5-year graduation rates are imprecisely estimated. The author finds suggestive evidence for positive effects on English proficiency.