March 2011 Archives

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and both houses of the state legislature are in the process of passing a new $132.5 billion budget for next fiscal year, which would mean reductions to after-school funding and some significant cuts for youth-services programs. The budget agreement, reached this past weekend, would reduce one of the state's after-school funding streams by roughly $4.5 million, which is estimated to result in the loss of about 5,000 slots for students and 500 jobs in the state's after-school programs. This would also mean many after-school program grants would not be renewed and no ...

Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, a nonprofit organization of law-enforcement authorities that works to curb youth violence, reports that 3 to 6 p.m. is the peak time for juvenile crime. Studies by independent research groups and organizations like the Afterschool Alliance have shown that good quality after-school programs can often lower the rates of youth crime and delinquency. Today, NPR's Morning Edition released another story on youth crime in Chicago, part of a report on the Chicago district's efforts to make schools safer in the third-largest district in the country. In today's piece, "Chicago's Silent Watchmen Guard School Route," ...

Hello all. Today, I take over full responsibility for the Beyond School blog here at Education Week. Even though I've been contributing entries on this blog since December, I haven't formally introduced myself. I come from a family with many members who are involved or have been involved in some facet of education—from state department of education employees to principals to teachers to special education instructors. I myself spent some time working in out-of-school-time programs, as well as serving as a counselor in a school in Los Angeles through AmeriCorps, but most of my work experience and education background...

Nora Fleming, who's been blogging here in recent months and has contributed some great stories including this one on L.A.'s BEST, will be the new full-time proprietor of this blog.

Much of the work at this charter school Lego program takes place outside the traditional school day.

In "10 Years of Changing the Face of Science: A Retrospective Evaluation," researchers report that Project Exploration—which targets students who have not been academically successful—has had a positive and significant impact on the 1,000 students the researchers tracked.

The statement also addresses extended learning time. NAA writes that it supports federal efforts to expand on the traditional school day and year, but that such efforts can raise concerns about the diversity and value of after-school programs and community collaboration, among other things.

Holding after-school programs accountable can be a challenge, according to some after-school leaders. Difficulties retaining staff and a lack of concrete assessment objectives have left many programs without the tools to evaluate themselves. Programs receiving grants from California's After School and Education Safety Program (ASES) are held to some accountability measures that can factor into whether their grants are renewed. The ASES program, which spends $550 million annually supporting after school at 4,000 schools in the state, requires sites to submit the attendance records of participants and some method to evaluate student outcomes, either standardized-test scores or a measure ...

I was recently out in Los Angeles pursuing the after-school beat for a story on LA's BEST, the largest after-school organization partnered with a school district in the country. The news feature is running in the print edition of EdWeek that's being delivered to mailboxes this week. You can also check out the full story online. LA's BEST, in its 23rd year of operation, runs after-school programs at 180 sites that serve 28,000 students in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest school district in the country. The program and the leadership of its president, Carla Sanger, ...

The big story on after-school programs right now is the federal budget, and all indications are that it's going to be tough sledding on Capitol Hill.