Improving the Time after School (2000)

FOR MUCH of public, some notion of the good old is used to set standard for schools. Children should be learning basics in a well-ordered environment (e.g., in rows of desks with a teacher at front of room), show their work on blackboard, be respectful (e.g., volunteer to clean erasers), and appreciate everything that adults are doing for them. This perception also extends beyond school day. Children must be eagerly running home, where cookies, a sandlot baseball game, and child-centered television programs await them. Perhaps they could attend a Boy Scout meeting or a piano lesson. The old standard lingers on in many schools (though altered somewhat by presence of computers and by some sassy independent thinking by students). The after-school picture, however, is almost extinct. If children go home, more often than not it is to an empty place or, as a counselor in an elementary school in Missouri that enrolls mostly poor children told me last year, Even if a parent is there, children go home to empty lives. The problem in communities and for families is that many students don't go home. Most of violent or risky behavior that children and young people engage in occurs during four hours immediately after school is out. The same phenomenon does not happen on nonschool days or in summer, which leads to some interesting speculations. Do children need to rebel against hours they've just spent in school? Or do they stick together as a peer after school and fall naturally into various kinds of unsupervised group think? Youth crime happens when it can happen, Howard Snyder, head of National Center on Juvenile Justice, told a recent seminar sponsored by Education Writers Association and Casey Journalism Center for Children and Families. Young people do not sit in back of class smoking cigars and planning a crime. This understanding of ways many youngsters, especially those in inner cities, fill empty hours after school has led to much greater public investment at all levels in after-school programs. Add to this concern goal of using after-school time to boost student achievement. The result is biggest movement in education since Title I was launched more than three decades ago. The growth in funding proves point. Four years ago, 21st Century Community Learning Centers, a federal program, started with an appropriation of $750,000. This year, appropriation is more than $450 million. State and local officials also realized that regulations for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program - substitute for welfare program - allow money to be spent for initiatives that could be part of after-school programs. These initiatives would be designed to prevent teen pregnancy, keep young people in school, or improve young people's academic performance and self-esteem. School officials are eligible to apply for a portion of unspent TANF funds, which amounted to a national total of $7.6 billion in last fiscal year. (States have received even more TANF funds in current fiscal year). However, even before these resources were available, foundations had been supporting youth development through school-based programs for a long time. According to Baltimore Sun, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation and DeWitt Wallace/Reader's Digest Fund have contributed $180 million to developing high-quality after-school programs in recent years. Many other foundations are also involved in effort, no doubt attracted to field because it embodies partnerships between public, private, and nonprofit sectors and because these efforts are often based in communities rather than directly run by schools. Another recent story on after-school movement - this one appearing on front page of New York Times - estimates that public and private funding for such programs now totals $5 billion annually. …