worked at Chinese restaurants during high school/college... the only thing I learned was that working for min wage sucks. (and I learned that after the first week)

I kept doing it because I thought I needed the money. I didn't. I should have spent my time differently and graduated from college with a few bucks of debt.

It's not obvious to me that every kid benefits from summer jobs more than they would benefit from the other ways they could spend their time during the summer.

In other words. I'm unpersuaded that summer jobs are the highest and best use of a kid's summer.