Articles

After School Programs: A Wise Public Investment
After school advocates and practitioners face a daily struggle for adequate funding. While there have been successes -- the federal 21st Century Community Learning Centers program grew from a small pilot to a billion-dollar funding stream in the No Child Left Behind Act. Budgets have since grown tighter at all levels of government, after school funding has leveled off and advocates must be prepared to respond to the question: Are after school programs a worthy investment? Fortunately, both research and personal stories reveal the answer to be a resounding YES!

Documenting Progress and Demonstrating Results
Evaluating Local Out-of-School Time Programs - This brief, Documenting Progress and Demonstrating Results: Evaluating Out-of-School Time Programs, is a collaborative publication between Harvard Family Research Project and The Finance Project. This brief is third in Harvard Family Research Project's (HFRP) series of briefs, entitled Issues and Opportunities in Out-of-School Time Evaluation, and part of The Finance Project's Out-of-School Time series. Through the publication of this brief, our organizations seek to provide out-of-school time programs with the evaluation resources necessary to improve their programs and to demonstrate results for sustainability.

Rethinking the High School Experience
What's After-School Got to do With it? Published by the Forum for Youth Involvement

The Impact of After School Programs and Social Skills
Joseph A. Durlak Loyola University Chicago; Roger P. Weissberg University of Illinois Chicago; Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) 2007; This report is based on a grant awarded to the authors by the William T. Grant Foundation.