It's not all that surprising that a new report shows the nonprofit Freedom School Partners, which provides summer learning for low-income children, helps students retain and build on what they learned in school during the regular school year. For years, research has shown that low-income students often slide backward educationally in the summer when they're out of school.

But the report done by The Center for Adolescent Literacies at UNC Charlotte underscores the value of Freedom Schools and other summer literacy programs, especially as Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools and others face devastating funding cuts. Programs that help students retain what they learn and build on that learning are even more valuable.

The Freedom Schools, created by the Children's Defense Fund in 1995, have always had as a central focus preventing the learning loss that students typically experience over the summer. It served 550 kindergarten through eighth grade students for six to seven weeks last summer in Charlotte. Charlotte was one of 84 cities that participated in the program, which served 9,600 students in 2010.

Charlotte's Freedom School Partners, which also has afterschool programs, was founded in 1999. The study showed its summer program maintained or improved the reading abilities of about 90 percent of its participants last year. That's a phenomenal finding, especially the gains shown by at least half those tested.

This is even more impressive: The students (or scholars, as they are called) learned to value reading, and said they actually liked reading. Since reading is a fundamental building block for learning, students will reap benefits in other classes and throughout their lives.

Students pay nothing to participate in the program so the number of students who can attend depends on donations. We're glad that new sponsors are stepping up to expand the number of program sites. About 1,000 students will be served this year with that expansion, said executive director Mary Nell McPherson.

Supporting this program and others like it is critical as this community tackles a reduction in education funding. Students are getting what they need to succeed, and this community is getting what it needs to keep prospering.