Policy Research
America After 3PM Special Report on Summer: Missed Opportunities, Unmet Demand
For millions of children in America, when schools close for the summer, safe and enriching learning environments are out of reach, replaced by boredom, lost opportunities and risk. New analysis of data from the America After 3PM study measures the extent of this problem, concluding that three-quarters of America's schoolchildren do not participate in summer learning programs.
America After 3PM
Each afternoon across the U.S., 15 million children--more than a quarter of our children--are alone and unsupervised after school. The parents of 18 million would enroll their children in an afterschool program, if one were available. These are some of the key findings from the nation’s most in-depth study of how America’s children spend their afternoons.
Follow the Money: A Tool for Mapping Funds for Out-of-School-Time Initiatives (November 2009)
This tool draws upon selected examples of fiscal mapping research by statewide afterschool networks that track funding for out-of-school time programs. The tool provides an overview of fiscal mapping - a research approach that identifies the current expenditures for services for children and youth and their families. Organized into three parts, the tool provides an overview of the six steps in completing a fiscal mapping process, considerations and strategies for data collection, and worksheets to help readers collect the data itself.
Summer Programs for Youth: Opportunities, Challenges and Innovations
This issue brief summarizes findings from a review of programs intended to identify challenges and innovations of 26 linked summer programs across the United States. Linked summer programs connect what happens in school, afterschool, and summer settings. The brief identifies opportunities programs pursue, summarizing the range of goals and breadth or scope of programming at the sites reviewed; discusses three areas of challenge identified by a range of programs; and presents sites’ innovations in response to these challenges.
California Leads the Nation in After-School Investment
This report, recently released by Fight Crime: Invest in Kids California outlines California’s groundbreaking commitment to after school programs. It outlines that California’s investment in after school programs is concentrated in low-income, high-need neighborhoods. The report outlines the investment that has been made in after school programs by county and legislative district. The report also documents that while California is making a considerable investment in after school programs, there is still a large unmet need for after school programs in California.
2010 California Report Card: Setting the Agenda for Children
This report, recently released by Children Now, identifies many critical issues affecting children's well being and threatening to compromise public health and the economy. The report assigns letter grades to individual issues. This year, California received a "B+" in afterschool programs. This letter grade reflects the state's national leadership in providing extended learning opportunities. Overall, California received the worst grade point average the state has received in the 20-year history of the Report Card.
Children Now
Children now is a national organization for people who care about children and want to ensure that they are the top public policy priority.
The Food Research and Action Center
The Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) is the leading national nonprofit organization working to improve public policies and public-private partnerships to eradicate hunger and undernutrition in the United States. FRAC works with hundreds of national, state and local nonprofit organizations, public agencies, and corporations to address hunger and its root cause, poverty.
2009 California Report Card: Setting the Agenda for Children
Children Now recently released The California Report Card 2009: Setting the Agenda for Children. The Report Card provides an overview of key 2008 public policy and budgetary developments that affect children; defines policy objectives for improving children’s well-being; and lays out immediate actions for California’s leadership to pursue. To learn more about the Report Card, click here
Research Brief Highlights Summer Learning Research
This Research Brief entitled More Than a Hunch: Kids Lose Learning Skills Over the Summer Months was recently released by the Center for Summer Learning. The brief summarizes research on summer learning loss and provides recommendations for policy makers and tips for program providers. The two-page brief can be accessed by clicking here.
