Session 3: Outcomes

This plenary session addressed the question what outcomes can we expect to observe related to participation in after-school programs?

Robert Halpern shared a new paper he has written that offers a practical framework for after-school managers who want to conduct research to demonstrate the effects of their programs. Halpern recommends an approach that is both deductive and inductive, and encourages managers to conceptualize, search for and attempt to measure effects that flow directly from the actual experiences children are having in their after-school program. Halpern asks stakeholders to consider various dimensions of child development at play in after-school programs; to identify those dimensions and tasks; and with that orientation to then examine closely children's actual experiences in a particular program.

Robert Halpern, Confronting the Big Lie: The Need to Reframe Expectations of Afterschool Programs
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Robert Halpern, Conceptualizing and Measuring After-School Program Effects: A Deductive and Inductive Process
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Fred Doolittle discussed MDRC's ongoing Evaluation of Enhanced Academic Instruction in After-School Programs. This study tests the ability of after-school programs to implement instruction in mathematics and reading, using materials adapted from regular school settings, and to improve academic achievement for their participants. These academic enhancements are being compared to more typical after-school programs, where the academic support consists largely of homework help. Participants are in grades 2 through 5 and are drawn from 50 after-school centers dispersed throughout the United States. Researchers are nearing completion of a report on the first year and are now completing data collection on a second year of operations. A final report is expected in mid 2008.

Fred Doolittle, Evaluation of Enhanced Academic Instruction in After-School Programs
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Sam Piha raised several thought-provoking questions in discussing his work with The California Committee on Afterschool Accountability, a coalition of organizations working with California state leaders toward ensuring that afterschool programs are held accountable for appropriate outcomes. Those questions included:

• What intermediate outcomes can be measured to demonstrate progress toward promoting longer term outcomes such as academic achievement?
• How do we define after-school programs?
• How can the after-school field articulate the specific elements of program quality until we have achieved consensus on what our outcomes are?
• Is quality an appropriate program-level outcome in and of itself?

Sam Piha, Holding California Afterschool Programs Accountable
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Brenda McLaughlin discussed the some of the latest research on summer learning. McLaughlin highlighted numerous studies that have confirmed that children experience learning losses during the summer months without continued opportunities for regular practice and that disadvantaged youth are disproportionately impacted by those losses. McLaughlin also discussed the recent finding from Alexander et al. that two-thirds of the achievement gap in reading can be explained by unequal access to summer learning opportunities, contributing to fewer disadvantaged youth graduating from high school or entering college.

Brenda McLaughlin, The Promise of Summer: Deeper Learning, Expanded Opportunities?
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