Unlike in school, in after-school programs,
skilled performance matters most—
not standardized test scores.
to their city. Mateo has placed charts
throughout the room with sentences
referring to each of the five senses: “In
my city, I hear…,” “In my city, I
smell…,” and so forth. Students divide
into groups to fill in different words for
each sense, coming together some 20
minutes later. Marcello reads his group’s
poem on smell:
In my city, I smell . . .
In my city, I smell burritos, plants, transmission smoke, chicken, Chinese food
In my city, I smell hard work, oil, garbage
In my city, I smell . . .
The children clap after each reading and
decide to create a class book, an ode to
the city they love.
A Program Comes Into Its Own
After-school programs like this one are
becoming an increasingly vital part of
the education landscape. Sometimes
referred to as supplemental learning
programs (Gordon, Bridglall, & Meroe,
2005); complementary learning (Noam,
Biancarosa, & Dechausay, 2003); and
out-of-school learning (Harvard Family
Research Project, 2006), they offer a
mixture of homework help, snacks, art
activities, sports, and field trips to children ages 6–14. Bridging formal and
informal learning through community-based organizations, museums, universities, and clinics, they’re designed to
mimic the weekly activity schedule of a
parent shuttling children from sports
practice to tutoring to music lessons,
with play dates in between.
The explosion in after-school programs
in the early 1990s occurred as communities increasingly recognized that many
children were unable to participate in
such activities. Stories of children in
self-care and of increases in young
people’s alcohol and drug use surfaced
in the media. Crime reportedly tripled
after 3:00 p.m. Too many children were
left on their own, both physically and
psychologically, filling hours of down-
© JOHN BOOZ
time watching TV and playing games in
video arcades, with few viable alterna-
tives available (Alter, 1998). Damaging
patterns, set in the early years, were
becoming ever more visible in middle
childhood and adolescence, often
leading to declining grades, increasing
truancy, and cycles of hopelessness.
After-school programs began to take
on a sense of urgency to keep children
safe and well cared for. Organizations
like Save the Children; Colin Powell’s
America’s Promise, an umbrella group
for hundreds of nonprofits and corpora-
tions; foundations including the Charles
Stewart Mott Foundation and Soros
Foundation; and the federal 21st
Century Community Learning Centers
program all worked toward securing
millions of dollars to create new safe
places for children.
It turns out that these programs not
only kept children safe—they also often
changed their lives. Today, more than 8
million U.S. children are in after-school
programs (Afterschool Alliance, n.d.),
and nearly one million school-age chil-
dren participate in after-school
academic enrichment under the
auspices of the federal 21st Century
Community Learning Centers program.
Schools are the largest providers of
these after-school programs, followed by
YMCAs, Boys and Girls Clubs, religious
organizations, and private schools.
Organizations such as The After-School
Corporation (TASC) in New York City
and L.A.’s Best in California have been at
the forefront of community-based efforts
to promote high-quality programs.
Good programs nurture children’s
talents, expose them to interesting
people, and set tough-love standards of
behavior. The interaction among play,
work, and intense study reinforces children’s growing self-efficacy, social development, and sense of commitment to
and place in their community. All these
skills are tied to students’ ability to
achieve, become successful in life, and
form stable relationships of their own.
