We are more than halfway into July, and that means kids will be going back to school soon. At the beginning of every academic year, many Black boys and girls will walk into classrooms across the country having spent all summer doing what most of them likely want to be doing: Anything that’s the opposite of academic learning.

While it is understandable why kids do that, it results in what researchers call summer learning loss. Or, to put it plainly, kids forget much of what they learned the year before. Ask any teacher, and they spend the first two weeks of every school year just getting their students out of ‘summer mode.’

Well, this learning loss hits our kids harder. On every academic metric, Black students lag behind their white and Asian classmates. And it’s clear why.

Before the integration of public schools, activists fought hard to change things because yes, it was morally wrong to have segregated schools, but they had practical things in mind as well.

There were glaring problems with our schools. The educational institutions we were forced to attend were underfunded and the textbooks they gave us were often outdated.

As a result of integration, some Black kids were able to go to school with white students and take advantage of the quality education they were getting. But guess what happened to most of those kids?

They continued to attend schools that were underfunded. And those textbooks? They remained outdated. In other words, not much changed.

That is how we got where we are, with Black students having lower test scores than their white counterparts. But things are not helped when these kids, already at a disadvantage, turn their brains off for the summer.

This is not to say that all Black kids are guilty of this. (Really, it is their parents who should be taken to task for this. Kids are going to be kids. Parents must take responsibility for their children’s education.) There are many summer programs that try to combat the learning loss that happens during the summer, but there are not nearly enough of them. So, what to do?

Well, we need create more summer programs for Black kids to attend. These programs should teach reading and math, but they must also emphasize a bit of our history and culture.  However, it will be impossible to create enough of these programs to make sure every kid who needs it can attend. So, that still will not solve the problem. This leads us into the uncomfortable part of this discussion. It is time for straight talk.

Black parents, it’s on us. (I’m a father, so I am including myself in this.) We must keep track of what our kids are learning in school, and during the summer months ensure that they keep up with it. That means making little people who would rather be playing video games or running around outside, read when the warmer months arrive.

This is not to say that our kids cannot have fun from mid-May to August. Nor does it mean they cannot go on vacation. But it does mean that when you pack for that vacation, a book will be in the suitcase along with their clothes.

Our ancestors fought for us to get a quality education. All we must do is not let the summer rob them of what they have learned. That a way to honor our ancestor’s sacrifice.