Best Practice Research and Evaluation

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America After 3PM
This updated America After 3PM study offers the most comprehensive and accurate picture in five years of what this nation’s children are doing each day after school. It provides detailed information about parent attitudes toward after school care and satisfaction with afterschool programs, and data about demand for afterschool, including the likelihood that non-participating children would join afterschool programs if they were available.

America After 3PM Special Report on Summer: Missed Opportunities, Unmet Demand
The report examines data from the 2009 America After 3PM study, sponsored by JCPenney Afterschool, and focuses specifically on summer learning program participation and its key role in keeping children engaged in learning throughout the summer months.

Partnerships for Learning: Promising Practices in Integrating School and Out-of-School Time Program supports
This report aims is to share with out of school time program leaders, decision-makers, funders, and schools lessons from successful efforts to forge partnerships between schools and out of school time programs to support children’s learning and development.

Engaging Older Youth: Program and City Level Strategies to Support Sustained Participation in Out of School Time
This study, commissioned by the Wallace Foundation, examined the program characteristics—both program practices and structural features—associated with high participation and retention that were employed by OST programs, primarily serving disadvantaged youth, in six cities that have worked toward building OST initiatives.

Structuring Out-of-School Time to Improve Academic Achievement
This guide is intended to help educators, out-of-school time (OST) program providers, and school and district administrators structure academically focused out-of-school time programs.

Supporting Student Outcomes Through Expanded Learning Opportunities
This new paper looks at the role of after school and summer learning programs in supporting student success. The paper provides information on the benefits of expanded learning, why and how schools should partner, and a warrant for future research on expanded learning and education reform.

Implementing School-Based Health and Extended Learning Services
Practitioners and policy makers from throughout New Mexico convened in Albuquerque in May 2008 for three Roundtable discussions on implementing school-based health services and extended learning opportunities in the state.

After-School Programs in Public Elementary Schools
The National Center for Education Statistics within the Institute of Education Sciences has released the report "After-School Programs in Public Elementary Schools." This study provides a national profile of various types of formal after-school programs physically located at public elementary schools in 2008.

Outcomes Linked to High-Quality Afterschool Programs: Longitudinal Findings from the Study of Promising Afterschool Programs
A new study finds that regular participation in high-quality afterschool programs is linked to significant gains in standardized test scores and work habits as well as reductions in behavior problems among disadvantages students.

After-School Programs and Academics: Implication for Policy, Practice, and Research
After-school programs are often expected to incorporate academic achievement as an important goal. This focus on acadamic achievement is producing heated debates. This report focuses on the debate using program-evaluation literature, observational studies, and commentaries.

Study on Parental After-School Stress
This report presents the findings from a study of stress among working parents of school-age children.