Where Can You Go for Help on Afterschool Issues? (page 5)

AASA is a valuable source of information on current issues in afterschool and how it relates to school leaders. In addition to our research and collaboration with the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, we have a wealth of resources and links to websites to share. Additionally, this document is part of a toolkit to help school leaders address some of the barriers associated with this issue. Please feel free to contact AASA with questions or for more information on this important issue. Rebecca Nelson, AASA project director, can be reached at rnelson@aasa.org.

Funding and Sustainability

The ability of school districts to develop funding sources to initiate and sustain afterschool programs is, as became clear in the AASA study, perhaps the biggest barrier to their development and institutionalization. Even if districts secure outside resources to initiate programs, those funds eventually expire.

In reviewing 13 different federal funding streams, as well as various state, local and private sources, child development researcher and professor Robert Halpern and colleagues found a system that is “fragmented and categorical, unpredictable and often unreliable and that places programs that should complement each other in competition for scarce resources." Public funding for afterschool efforts is consistently described in this manner. Public resources are not only seen as inadequate to the need, but they bring with them a tangle of bureaucratic requirements that often are at odds with one another. Constant staff time and resources (both in short supply in afterschool programs) must consequently be directed towards fundraising, noted Beth Miller in Critical Hours: Afterschool Programs and Educational Success (2003).

While Title I Supplemental Educational Services (SES) funds, part of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation of 2001, offer possible funding for afterschool services, experts predict that there will be many challenges. These include the required approval process at the state level, uncertainty of duration of funding and the strict accountability requirements.

The Finance Project, created in 1994, offers a broad range of services to a variety of public- and private-sector clients and provides expertise in developing short- and long-term financing strategies. The Finance Project disseminates an array of published resources, including papers related to financing, governance and management in education. The project will analyze the development of statewide afterschool networks focused on furthering sustainability policies.

Websites and Resources

Bowman, Darcia Harris. “Afterschool Programs Proliferate; Funding, Staffing Seen as Problems.” Education Week 21, 3 (September 19, 2001): 6.

Flynn, Margaret. Title I Supplemental Educational Services and Afterschool Programs: Opportunities and Challenges, The Finance Project, August 2002. www.financeprojectinfo.org/ Publications/suppsvc.pdf

Halpern, Robert. “A Different Kind of Child Development Institution: The History of Afterschool Programs for Low Income Children,” Teachers College Record, Vol. 104, No. 2, March 2002. pp. 178-211. www.tcrecord.org/ExecSummary. asp?ContentID=10823

No Child Left Behind. www.ed.gov/nclb/ landing.jhtml?src=pb.

The Costs and Benefits of Afterschool Programs: The Estimated Effects of the Afterschool Education and Safety Act of 2002. Rose Institute of State and Local Government at Claremont McKenna College, 2002. http://rose.claremontmckenna.edu/ publications/pdf/after_school.pdf

The Finance Project offers technical assistance on financing and sustaining out-of-school time initiatives. www.financeproject.org

The Afterschool Alliance also offers funding information on its website. www.afterschoolalliance.org/ funding_main.cfm

The Harvard Family Research Project provides a listing of web documents that detail federal funding streams for afterschool programs and related programming alongside their accountability requirements and evaluations. Funding streams are classified as major or minor depending on the amount of money they make available for afterschool efforts. www.gse.harvard.edu/hfrp/projects/ afterschool/resources/ fundingdescrip.html

Title I Supplemental Educational Services and Afterschool Programs. www.ed.gov/policy/ elsec/guid/ suppsvcsguid.doc. 21st Century Community Learning Centers, U.S. Department of Education. www.ed.gov/pubs.

Program Quality

Another major barrier to afterschool programs involves the issue of program quality and poses questions that have not yet been adequately answered by research. What characteristics are part of a strong program? What are appropriate outcomes? How can they be measured? Is it appropriate for academic outcomes to take priority? What connections should exist between in-school programs and afterschool activities? Desired outcomes vary dramatically across programs, notes Beth Miller in her 2003 report Critical Hours: Afterschool Programs and Educational Success, and so do the approaches taken to reach various goals. There is little clarity about what afterschool programming should look like, although Miller notes that “there is a general consensus that afterschool programs shouldn’t look like more school.”

Superintendents of successful afterschool programs understand that students want something markedly different from their afterschool program, even when such programs are academically focused. Without it they simply won’t come.

At the same time choosing and delivering program content that enhances engagement in learning and improves academic achievement in the short term is still an area that requires much research.

While that research is under way, however, many school districts are developing thematic and projectbased strategies to combine academics and other developmental skill and knowledge sets.

Websites and Resources

Afterschool Programs in Cities Across the United States Survey Report, The United States Conference of Mayors, January 2003. www.usmayors.org

Bagby, Janet, and DeAngelis, Tori. Resource Guide for Planning and Operating Afterschool Programs (2nd Edition), Southwest Educational Development Laboratory, 2004. www.sedl.org/pubs/index. cgi?l=item&id=fam95

“What Makes a Good Afterschool Program?” Monitor on Psychology 32, 3 (March 2001). www.apa.org/monitor/ mar01/afterschool.html

Eaton, Newell, and Quinn, Jane. “Afterschool Enrichment: Policy and Practice Strategies for Promoting Children’s Learning and Development.” Presented at the Leave No Child Behind: Improving Under-performing Urban Schools conference, SUNY Albany, March 2002. www.albany.edu/aire/ urban/eaton-quinn.html

Lauer, P., Akiba, M., Wilkerson, S., Apthorp, H., Snow, D., Martin-Glenn, M. The Effectiveness of Out-of-School- Time Strategies in Assisting Low- Achieving Students in Reading and Mathematics: A Research Synthesis, prepared for the Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL) under contract to the Institute for Educational Sciences, Department of Education, Washington, D.C., October 2003. http://www.mcrel.org/ topics/productDetail. asp?productID=151

Miller, Beth. Critical Hours: Afterschool Programs and Educational Success, Nellie Mae Education Foundation, May 2003. www.nmefdn.org/uimages/ documents/Critical_Hours(4).pdf

Pittman, Karen. Out-of-School Time Policy Commentary #5, "Inside the Black Box: Exploring the ‘Content’ of Afterschool, Forum for Youth Investment," November 2003, www.forumfyi. org/Files//ostpc5.pdf

Roth, Jodie, and Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne. “What Do Adolescents Need for Healthy Development? Implications for Youth Policy.” Social Policy Report XIV, 1 (2000). 20 pages.

Resources for Afterschool Programing (including Beyond the Bell Toolkit), North Central Regional Educational Laboratory. www.ncrel.org/after/

21st Century Community Learning Centers: Providing Quality Afterschool Learning Opportunities for America’s Families, U.S. Department of Education, September 2000. www.ed.gov/pubs

Walker, K. E., Grossman, J. B., and Raley, R. Extended-Service Schools: Putting Programming in Place. Philadelphia: Public/Private Ventures, 2000. 83 pages.

Staffing

School administrators and education experts agree that staffing can be a real challenge for afterschool programs. Often staff is part time or volunteer; there may be difficulties coordinating afterschool programs with the regular school day. Without really strong staff, administrators point out, the students won’t come, especially those in middle and high school who have other demands on their time.

During a focus group of superintendents held during AASA’s 2004 National Conference on EducationTM, the discussion turned to how to address staffing issues.

“We made sure we had some pretty dynamic teachers who were well liked by the students. We went after the very best teachers and through them we got the kids to come,” Philomena Pezzano, superintendent in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., points out.

For Bexley, Ohio, superintendent Michael Johnson, ongoing staff development proves essential. Site coordinators often receive little guidance and must rely on their own experience and expertise in designing programs. Since these positions are usually a low salary level, and not fulltime, the responsibilities of site coordinators can be overwhelming. Researcher and afterschool pioneer Michelle Seligson agrees that staff development is important, but the kind of staff training that she believes is necessary is a step beyond what many districts provide.

Unfortunately, she says, much staff training doesn’t address the core issue of how students learn. “There is a body of knowledge on how kids learn that is not informing policy decisions in education."

Teachers need to understand social/ emotional development if they are to teach young people successfully, she continues. “What is so often lost is the humanistic approach, and this is even more important in afterschool programs.” Researcher J.B. Grossman would agree that “having a high-quality staff is a key — perhaps the key — to success.” In one study that looked at four indicators of program quality, “relationships between adults and youth was consistently the strongest” indicator. In high-quality programs, “staff worked hard to make time with youth both fun and meaningful” and exuded a natural fondness for young people (Walker et al).

Websites and Resources

Le Menestrel, S., and Dennehy, J., Building a Skilled and Stable Workforce: Results of an Online Survey of Out-of- School Time Professionals, Academy of Educational Development Center for Youth Development and Policy Research and the National Institute on Out-of- School Time. http://niost.skeeydev.net/clearinghouse/ execsumbsw.asp

Bowman, Darcia Harris. “Afterschool Programs Proliferate; Funding, Staffing Seen as Problems.” Education Week 21, 3 (September 19, 2001): 6.

National Institute on Out-of-School Time. “Building a Skilled and Stable Workforce for After School Programs.” www.wcwonline.org/archive/niostbuild. html

Walker, K. E., Grossman, J. B., and Raley, R. Extended-Service Schools: Putting Programming in Place. Philadelphia: Public/Private Ventures, 2000. 83 pages.

Evaluation

As the numbers of afterschool programs have expanded and more and more districts turn to the federal government or other outside sources for funding streams, the need for evaluation of program outcomes has become critical. Funders and policymakers don’t wish to waste valuable resources on programs that aren’t working; neither, for that matter, do school leaders! In fact, school districts that are current or potential grantees of the 21st Century Community Learning Centers already know that the evaluation process is mandated for those resources.

But evaluating the outcomes of afterschool programs is markedly different than evaluating the outcomes of the normal school day. Perhaps because of the newness of the field, there is still much to learn about afterschool best practices, program implementation, cost effectiveness and program impact.

The Harvard Family Research Project’s (HFRP) Issues and Opportunities in Out-of- School Time Evaluation briefs are short, user-friendly documents that highlight current research and evaluation work in the out-of-school time field. These documents draw on HFRP’s research work in out-of-school time in order to provide practitioners, funders, evaluators and policymakers with information to help inform their work. In addition to these briefs, HFRP has launched a set of short, user-friendly “snapshots” of methods, evaluation approaches, indicators and findings.

The Project’s evaluation periodical, The Evaluation Exchange, addresses current issues facing program evaluators of all levels. Designed as an ongoing discussion among evaluators, program practitioners, funders, and policymakers, The Evaluation Exchange highlights innovative methods and approaches to evaluation, emerging trends in evaluation practice, and practical applications of evaluation theory. The periodical is free of charge to subscribers.

An-Me Chung and Eugene Hillsman of the C.S. Mott Foundation pointed out in an article in the May 2005 edition of The School Administrator that much research remains to be done in supporting continuous improvement and identifying effective afterschool practices and programs. Examples of future research include:

• What are the processes behind how activity participation and student outcomes influence each other? Given the increasing interest and time devoted to academic activities, what is the magnitude of impact that might be reasonable to expect?
• How much program participation is enough to produce beneficial outcomes for participants?
• What program qualities are associated with student outcomes? How do we measure, assess, and develop programs to improve a range of outcomes for participants?
• Many of the existing studies are examining one program at one point in time. More rigorous research designs such as experimental, quasi-experimental, and longitudinal studies are needed to truly understand the impact of afterschool programs. Measuring impacts should be considered only after programs have had an opportunity to appropriately implement activities.