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The “Promising Afterschool Programs Study” examined 35 programs serving 2,914 students in 14 communities, stretching from Bridgeport Connecticut to Seaside California.
The question was, do disadvantaged students who regularly attend top-notch after-school programs end up academically ahead of peers who spend more out-of-school time in unsupervised activities?
The answer was yes, in this eight state study. They were far ahead after two years.
These results offer a counterbalance to a previous controversial study by Princeton-based Mathematica Policy Research Inc. in 2005. In that research students in the federally funded “21st Century Learning Centers Program” were found to have received no special learning boost, and may even had a slight statistical increase in negative behaviors.
Jennifer Rinehart is the vice-president for policy and research for the Washington-based Afterschool Alliance, which is working to circulate the results.
“My hope is that this research can really put to rest the research by Mathematica and really show that after-school programs are making a difference for the children that are participating.”
Researchers divided students into three groups:
- a “program only” group of students who attended their after-school program two to three days a week and did nothing else outside of school.
- a “program plus” group who visited the after-school programs twoto three days a week and also took part in sports, church programs, music lessons, or other extrcurricular activities
- and a “low supervision” group who dropped in on a mix of after-school activities from one to three days a week
Over the course of the three-year project the researchers found that the more engaged students were in supervised after-school activities, the better they did on a range of academic, social, and behavioral outcomes.
For example, 3rd and 4th graders in the “program plus” group tallied gains on standardized mathematics tests that were 20 percentil points higher than those of the children who rarely went.
The frequent attenders also made more progress in developing sound work habits, task persistence, and better social skills, as well as in reducing negative behaviors such as skipping school or fighting.
The 6th and 7th grade pupils sho regularly attended after-school programs outpaced tha math learning gains their “low supervision” counterparts made by 12 percentile points by the end of the study period.
The “program” and “program-plus” groups also reported reduced rates of drug and alcohol use, compared with students with spottier attendance.
Lead author Deborah Lowe Vandell, chair of the education department at the University of Califorinia, Irvine, said, “What makes these findings interesting, and maybe surprising to some people, is that the math gains are occurring in programs that are not specifically targeted to academic skills. Children were developing persistence, focus, and engagement, and we believe those are the kinds of skills that maybe children take to school with them and that may contribute to their math gains.”
In designing the Promising Programs study, Ms. Vandell said, she set out to address some of what critics saw as shortcomings in the Mathematica report; for example, that the earlier study fell short because it involved programs that were young or varied in quality.
So these researchers zeroed in on the best programs. Not all the programs were funded under 21st Century Schools or based in schools.
The findings in the new study are in keeping with a growing body of research linking after-school programs to gains in social and emotional outcomes for students in organized activities after school.
A review of 73 studies published this year by the Chicago-based Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning looked specifically at programs aimed at developing youths’ personal and social skills. That review found that such programs could be linked to a wide range of improvement in students.
But the sizes of the effects in the Promising Practices study are especially dramatic. The 20-percentile-point gain of the “program-plus” students works out to an effect size of .73 — more than three times the learning boost that educators get by reducing an elementary school class by eight students.
The final report has not yet been published in an academic journal, although researchers visited Captiol Hill in October 2007 to share the data with lawmakers.
The spending measure for health and education programs that President Bush vetoed earlier this month included a $100 million increase for after-school programs. Researchers credit the results emerging from the new study for helping to turn the tide in funding srospects for the federal program.
source: article by Debra Valdero, 11/28/07, online at www.edweek.org , the Web version of Education Week.
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