Posted on: Thursday, November 13, 2003

EDITORIAL
Afterschool programs no magic bullet

There is no doubt that Hawai'i's popular A-Plus afterschool program has been a hit with hard-working parents who otherwise would not have known what to do with their children when the regular school day was over.

And anecdotally, there are reports that children who participate in the program gain both educationally and socially from their participation.

But a massive ongoing study conducted for the federal government suggests that there is no automatic magic in these after-school programs. It suggests that far more attention will have to be paid by policymakers, educators and others if such programs are to live up to their potential.

The study, conducted by Mathematica Policy Research of Princeton, N.J., was commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education.

It took a rigorous and scientific look at the results and experiences of a sampling of some 7,500 afterschool centers operated under the 21st Century Community Learning Centers. This $1 billion-a-year program began as an effort to open up schools to broader use by their communities and developed into a program focused on after-school programs for elementary and middle school students.

Organizers of the study —and it is ongoing — compared students who participated in the afterschool program with those who did not. The assumption going in was that placing children under the supervision of adults for those last few hours of the day would positively impact both their academic performance and their social skills.

The results of the Mathematica study were sobering.

"While the 21st Century afterschool centers changed where and with whom students spent some of their afterschool time and increased parental involvement," the study said, "they had limited influence on academic performance, no influence on feelings of safety or on the number of latchkey children and some negative influences on behavior."

The study suggests these findings are not the result of a fundamental flaw in the idea of afterschool care, but in how that care is designed and what is offered to youngsters.

To its credit, the Education Department did not react defensively to the study as one might have suspected. Rather, it commissioned a $9.6 million study to help centers improve their performance and boost the academic performance of children who take part. The study will focus on well-functioning centers to identify what makes them tick.

If successful, this should work out as a model for other centers, whether federal or local, to follow.

President Bush originally sought to cut the 21st Century program by 40 percent, citing the Mathematica study as justification. Congress properly rejected that proposal.

The way is now clear to move forward on afterschool programs that go beyond "feel-good" popularity to ones that actually work.