Comments on: There’s Gonna Be A Fight After School…But What About Striking A Deal Instead?

By: Bob Stonehill

Bob Stonehill — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 22:40:00 +0000

I was surprised by how unimpressed you were with the gains that Vandell, Reisner and Pierce reported in their study of high-quality afterschool programs – as if we really know that good programs necessarily show good results. For the past 10 years, there have been lively disagreements among afterschool, child care, and youth development leaders about whether afterschool programs should even try to address academic goals, and if they did, whether they are likely to have any effects other than to drive kids out of the programs. So when the Mathematica study showed that mediocre programs don’t have effects, the question still remained about whether well-designed and implemented programs could. Two things happened then. First, the Department of Education started to stress the importance of program quality, and started offering training and online resources to that end. Second, evaluations started to shift to a “proof of concept” model, most notably very expensive RCT study that MDRC is doing for the Institute of Education Sciences. That study is examining whether carefully developed and implemented mathematics and reading afterschool programs can have measurable effects. (Apparently an interim report from that study will be released soon.) Similarly, Vandell et al focused on mature, well-implemented projects, and children who participated for at least two years, and they found large gains on a variety of outcomes – but not reading. It will be interesting to see whether the MDRC study also shows math, but not reading, effects.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 21:46:00 +0000

Back when Matt Miller made his liberal voucher proposal, and even before, I looked at the issue from every angle hoping I could find a vouchers proposal that made sense, but I couldn't.

But I'm still intrigued about a vouchers/coupon program for after-school or summer school, or even in pre-school.

I'm still reading the study but two patterns emerge, programs for younger students are easier and that we have better success with the less difficult problems because it is much easier to help kids who are helping themselves. We're still stumped by the harder challenges.

On one extreme, simplistic SES efforts and enthusiatic supporters of after-school prgrams can do a serious mis-servie by trying to de-professionalize teaching. The idea that you can chop knowledge up into measurable pieces and buy some teacher-proof system to replace classroom instruction is absurd. On the other hand, we need after-school programs that emphasize enrichment and travel, and the entire human mind and spirit.

To create an effective system of after-school and summer school programs that wrap around students - as is necessary - would be nearly as much of a challenge as reforming the education we provide during the school day. It can't be done on the cheap, and it can't be done in bits and pieces.

That's why I'm open to your coupon suggestion. We need the incentives that would be required by someone, and I don't care who, to build a system, and to coordinate that system with our current system. I don't know how you do so much system building without an architect of some sort who has the capacity to lay a proper foundation and to create communication systems. Its an absolutely huge task, and educators clearly can't do that in our spare time.

But its a challenge we need to tackle. I hope I'm not being naive in hoping that the private sector, or more likely the Not for Profit sectors could help.

John Thompson

By: Sherman Dorn

Sherman Dorn — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 16:54:00 +0000

In referring to after-school funding streams, do you mean the set-aside money in Title I for SES?