Feb 01, 2008

James Irvine Foundation; Public/Private Ventures;

This brief provides highlights from "Advancing Achievement: Findings from an Independent Evaluation of a Major After-School Initiative." The brief underscores the potential of after-school programs in the ongoing drive to advance children's academic achievement. It shines a light on some of the issues that matter most for programs striving to promote academic success -- namely, program quality and youth engagement. The brief also suggests what works by linking these program attributes to academic benefits. Like the report on which it is based, the brief draws lessons from the Communities Organizing Resources to Advance Learning (CORAL) initiative of The James Irvine Foundation.

Feb 01, 2008

Public/Private Ventures;

This brief presents findings that demonstrate a relationship between key approaches in CORAL, an eight-year, $58 million after-school initiative of The James Irvine Foundation, and the academic progress of English learners. In addition to presenting findings, the brief suggests important considerations for any policymaker and funder interested in the success of English learners as a growing student population.

Sep 01, 2005

Public/Private Ventures;

P/PV recently launched a multiyear study to understand the role that Boys & Girls Clubsplay in the lives of early adolescents. Beyond Safe Havens, a prelude to the larger study, reviews the range of evaluations that have been conducted on Boys & Girls Clubs over the past 20 years. The report identifies the potential benefits of the many discrete programs provided by Clubs and discusses three additional studies that examined the broader club experience. It also outlines the strategies that seem to have contributed to the Clubs' successes, as well as any challenges that may have impeded more positive results. The report concludes with a brief description of a planned longitudinal evaluation of Club members as they transition to high school -- an evaluation meant to provide documentation of the effect of teens' broad Club experiences on a wide range of outcomes.

Jan 01, 2003

Public/Private Ventures;

Few after-school programs have developed strategies for attracting large numbers of teens, especially older and harder-to-serve youth. In response to this need, Madison Square Boys & Girls Club in New York City and Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston participated in a three-year initiative to enhance services to underserved teens. This report documents the successes and challenges the Clubs experienced as the initiative unfolded. They recruited large numbers of teens, involved them in a variety of activities, and provided them with emotional support, leadership opportunities, and programming in two critical areas: academics and job training.

May 01, 2007

Public/Private Ventures;

This report draws lessons from the reorientation of the Communities Organizing Resources to Advance Learning (CORAL) initiative. CORAL is a $58 million initiative aimed at improving education achievement in low-performing schools in five California cities. The report outlines the inherent challenges to making midcourse corrections to major initiatives. It also reveals lessons that foundations and nonprofits can learn from the CORAL experience, including the importance of midcourse reviews for multiyear initiatives and the value of setting clear and measurable interim outcomes.

Jun 01, 2002

Public/Private Ventures;

In the summer of 2002, every state became eligible to receive federal funds for after-school programs. With this opportunity came the need to make decisions about the goals, design and content of after-school programming -- decisions that will influence which youth participate, what they experience and how they may benefit. This report aims to put policymakers and program operators on firmer ground as they grapple with these decisions; it shares lessons from existing school-based after-school programs.

Sep 01, 2005

Public/Private Ventures;

This report synthesizes the last 10 years of findings from P/PV's and other researchers' work to address one of the most demanding challenges facing today's after-school programs -- how to create and manage programs that stand the best chance of producing specific, policy-relevant outcomes. It examines recruitment strategies that attract young people to activities, the qualities that make activities engaging and motivate participants to attend regularly, and the infrastructure -- staffing, management and monitoring -- needed to support such activities. The report's final chapter explores the fiscal realities of after-school programming, considering how administrators might stretch existing dollars to enhance services.

May 01, 2006

Public/Private Ventures;

Commissioned by The Wallace Foundation and written in collaboration with The Finance Project, this report reviews a variety of studies conducted since 1993 in an attempt to gain a broad sense of what it costs to run out-of-school-time programs. Among the report's findings: there is a lack of up-to-date information about program costs; researchers and practitioners do not have a standard methodology for estimating costs; selected cost studies suggest wide variation across programs -- from $449 to $7160 per child per year; much of this variation is attributable to differences in sample size, how costs are calculated and whether in-kind resources are taken into account; and not much is known about the cost implications of investments to improve the quality of out-of-school-time programs. This report is part of a larger study being conducted by P/PV and The Finance Project (with support from The Wallace Foundation) to asses the costs of out-of-school-time programs. A second report, including a comprehensive guide to the costs of various types of programs, will be published in 2007.