Sometimes new policy ideas are not a matter of creating new public institutions. They instead involve modernizing existing institutions for a new mission reflecting new circumstances. That's the case with the venerable institution of summer school.

In recent years, summer school has mostly served as a sleepy redoubt for kids whose parents want them to get extra education, either to catch up with or move ahead of their peers. But with the semi-universal adoption of "social promotion" policies, few students are required to go to summer school, because few are denied promotion to the next grade so long as they attend school regularly (a sad example of Woody Allen's adage that "90 percent of life is just showing up").

But with parents and taxpayers increasingly demanding an end to social promotion--a trend endorsed by President Clinton in his 1998 State of the Union Address--summer school suddenly has a powerful new purpose: to help kids who cannot meet new and higher standards for promotion to the next grade level to "catch up" before September.

Chicago showed the way last year in its pioneering "no social promotion" initiative. Eighth graders who did not score better than the seventh-grade level on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills were required to go to summer school and try again, only repeating the grade if the extra schooling did not get them over the bar. Now, according to The New York Times, New York City Schools Chancellor Rudy Crew is proposing that elementary school students must pass reading tests to be promoted to the next grade. But he has linked this proposal, which would be implemented after an intensive two-year remedial education effort, with an expansion of summer school programs to accommodate an estimated 220,000 students rather than last year's 54,000. This will cost some serious money about $100 million a year, according to Dr. Crew.

At a time when politicians in both parties are talking about increased spending on education for purposes ranging from private school vouchers, scholarships or tax-preferred savings accounts, to hiring more teachers to reduce class sizes, expanding summer schools should draw much more attention. After all, it's the key to a hugely important performance-based education reform: instituting higher standards with real consequences. It's also a good example of an initiative that links the responsibility to do more with the opportunity to do well.

As Rudy Crew told the Times, "This is not about being punitive with kids and playing gotcha. This is about caring so much about children that you will not let them fail."