Summary Of The Outliers By Malcolm Gladwell

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Malcolm Gladwell uses the ninth chapter of his book The Outliers to discuss summer vacation and how education can be improved. He cites Karl Alexander a sociologist at Johns Hopkins to show the test scores of children grades 1-5 between the last day of school and the first day of the next school year (Gladwell, 2008, p. 255). He notes that at reading test scores taken after summer break during grades 1-5 students in the lower class only went up .26 points after the end of summer break versus the 52.49 the upper class students did (Gladwell, 2008, p. 257). This change is caused by the activities the students can do during the summer. A upper class student has the ability to buy a new book or read one of their parents over summer whereas lower