| How Seven Foundations Bolstered Afterschool, Summer Programming as COVID Raged | 42467 | GP0|#ff9563e3-b973-45a7-8ac3-c9f4122f9a13;L0|#0ff9563e3-b973-45a7-8ac3-c9f4122f9a13|Summer Learning;GTSet|#a1e8653d-64cb-48e0-8015-b5826f8c5b61 |
<p>In the frantic early days of the pandemic, afterschool program providers went into overdrive. While schools shut, many programs stayed open, delivering meals, helping families meet basic needs, moving youth programs online, or launching all-day learning centers for the children of essential workers.<br></p><p>
<img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/how-seven-foundations-bolstered-afterschool-summer-programming-as-covid-raged/Cover_EmergingVoicesSeries_Brief.png" alt="Cover_EmergingVoicesSeries_Brief.png" class="wf-Image-Left" style="margin:5px;width:212px;height:275px;" />For seven philanthropies, the heavy load shouldered by youth programs was a crisis to address. It also presented an opportunity—to heighten awareness among policymakers and others of the importance of the out-of-school-time (OST) sector, which includes afterschool, summer and other beyond-the-school-bell programs. Their response, organized through Grantmakers for Education, was to pool $1.5 million to invest in a range of projects to help national organizations both advocate for OST programs
<em>and</em> provide guidance to their members and affiliates scrambling to meet pandemic-created needs. </p><p>
<img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/how-seven-foundations-bolstered-afterschool-summer-programming-as-covid-raged/jodi-grant.jpg" alt="jodi-grant.jpg" class="wf-Image-Right" style="margin:5px;width:161px;height:201px;" />It was a move perhaps unprecedented for OST donors. “In 18 years, this is the first time I’ve seen this kind of collaboration with funders,” said Jodi Grant, executive director of the Afterschool Alliance, one of the first four of the eight Afterschool and Summer Recovery and Opportunity Fund grantees in 2020 and 2021.</p><p>Personal stories can be influential with policymakers, Grant noted, and so her group used a portion of its grant to fund its Afterschool Ambassadors and Youth Ambassadors programs, which train providers and young people to speak publicly about their experiences with afterschool programs. Ambassadors are of diverse races and ethnicities and represent all regions of the country and communities in urban, rural, and suburban areas, Grant said. “Getting all those people to be seen and heard is key.”</p><p>She thinks similar communications efforts by a number of grantees helped lay the groundwork for the approval in federal pandemic relief packages of significant funding to bolster out-of-school-time efforts. “To date, we believe about $5 billion in federal COVID dollars have been used to support afterschool and summer learning programs,” she said. “Normally the federal budget is $1.3 billion for afterschool, so we’re talking about more than tripling that.”</p><p>
<img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/how-seven-foundations-bolstered-afterschool-summer-programming-as-covid-raged/GinaWarner.jpg" alt="GinaWarner.jpg" class="wf-Image-Left" style="margin:5px;width:125px;height:167px;" />Amid the protests surrounding George Floyd’s murder in May 2020, social justice became a focus for the fund. The National AfterSchool Association, for one, used its grant in part to develop the <a href="https://naaweb.org/all-documents/41-the-ost-leaders-guide-to-equitable-hiring-and-staff-development-practices/file"><em>OST Leader’s Guide to Equitable Hiring and Staff Development</em></a>, a resource to help its 32,000 members establish more equitable workplace practices. While many nonprofits post equity statements and have good intentions, they often lack needed plans of action, such as strategies for attracting a more diverse applicant pool and reducing bias in interviews, according to Gina Warner, the association’s president and CEO. “I don’t think it’s a lack of interest,” she said. “It’s a lack of awareness and understanding, and access to resources for how to do it.” </p><p>In partnership with another grantee—Every Hour Counts, a coalition of organizations that coordinate communitywide out-of-school-time efforts—the group also led “equity strategy sessions” for more than 500 afterschool leaders, including those heading statewide or citywide program networks.</p><h3 class="wf-Element-H3">More Diverse Perspectives Needed</h3><p>The first four grantees, which included the National Summer Learning Association, met through video conferences with the philanthropies to share information from the sector and discuss how funders could most effectively respond, especially in communities of color hardest hit by the pandemic. Yet it was evident that more diverse perspectives were needed, recalled Grant. “We were all very aware that we were four organizations led by white people even though the communities we serve are much more diverse.”</p><p>The second group of grantees—the National Urban League, the National Indian Education Association, UnidosUS, and the Coalition for Community Schools—had deep expertise with K-12 education in communities of color as well as experience supporting OST initiatives.<br></p><p>
<img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/how-seven-foundations-bolstered-afterschool-summer-programming-as-covid-raged/EmergingVoicesBrief_Graphic3.png" alt="EmergingVoicesBrief_Graphic3.png" style="color:#555555;font-size:14px;margin:5px;" /><br><br></p><p>
<img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/how-seven-foundations-bolstered-afterschool-summer-programming-as-covid-raged/Claudia-DeMegret.jpg" alt="Claudia-DeMegret.jpg" class="wf-Image-Right" style="margin:5px;width:194px;height:217px;" />“The idea was to diversify and strengthen the national out-of-school-time community,” said Claudia DeMegret, a senior program officer at Wallace, one of the funders. “We laid the groundwork for that to happen.”</p><p>Like the first four grantees, the members of the next cohort were given flexibility to spend their grant dollars on projects they believed would have the most impact.</p><p>The National Urban League wanted to spotlight a problem raised by its local affiliates—the number of young people who pulled back from school during the pandemic. In a powerful series of 13 short films titled <a href="https://nul.org/event/emerging-voices-pandemic-students-speak-out" target="_blank">Emerging Voices from the Pandemic: Students Speak Out</a>, teens interviewed peers about the circumstances that had led to their disengagement and solicited ideas for improving learning and student well-being in schools. The need for more emotional support emerged as a theme.<br></p><p>
<img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/how-seven-foundations-bolstered-afterschool-summer-programming-as-covid-raged/EmergingVoicesBrief_Graphic4.png" alt="EmergingVoicesBrief_Graphic4.png" style="margin:5px;" />
<br>
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</p><p>
<img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/how-seven-foundations-bolstered-afterschool-summer-programming-as-covid-raged/Horatio-Blackmanv1-Headshot.png" alt="Horatio-Blackmanv1-Headshot.png" class="wf-Image-Left" style="margin:5px;width:200px;height:200px;" />“In our conversations with national policy tables, staffers on the Hill, and local advocates and our affiliates, people have told us that they’ve seen those videos and that they impacted their thinking on how to support youth,” said Horatio Blackman, vice president of education policy, advocacy, and engagement at the National Urban League. “I think it helped push the national conversation on social-emotional learning and whole child support.”</p><p>
<img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/how-seven-foundations-bolstered-afterschool-summer-programming-as-covid-raged/Diana-Cournoyer.jpg" alt="Diana-Cournoyer.jpg" class="wf-Image-Right" style="margin:5px;width:175px;height:175px;" />The National Indian Education Association used its grant to conduct a study of the characteristics and availability of afterschool programs in Native American communities nationwide. “I wanted to shine a light on these issues that don’t always get talked about in afterschool learning,” said Executive Director Diana Cournoyer.</p><p>Among other findings, nearly 36 percent of native parents surveyed did not enroll their child in an afterschool program because of lack of program availability or accessibility. For many Native American students in rural communities, commuting to and from school can take 90 minutes to four hours a day, Cournoyer explained. Running extra buses for afterschool programs, she said, is an expense rural school districts often can’t afford and grantmakers typically don’t cover.</p><h3 class="wf-Element-H3">A New Direction for Wallace</h3><p>
<img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/how-seven-foundations-bolstered-afterschool-summer-programming-as-covid-raged/GrantmakingPracticesOSTRecoveryOpportunityFund10-7-22-1.jpg" alt="GrantmakingPracticesOSTRecoveryOpportunityFund10-7-22-1.jpg" class="wf-Image-Left" style="margin:5px;width:195px;height:252px;" />As a culminating activity, the eight grantees <a href="https://www.edfunders.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/GrantmakingPracticesOSTRecoveryOpportunityFund10-7-22.pdf" target="_blank">wrote a report</a> with recommendations to out-of-school-time funders. Suggestions included allowing nonprofits more flexibility in defining grant outcomes that meet their own priorities, getting community input into foundation initiatives, and putting longer grant cycles into place.</p><p>Gigi Antoni, director of learning and enrichment at Wallace, said that the foundation is using what it learned from the grantees’ feedback and its experience with the pooled fund to rethink its approach to out-of-school-time grant making.</p><p>For example, instead of soliciting grant proposals only from selected national nonprofits, which is typical for a national foundation, she said, Wallace recently put out a broad call for first-round applicants to a forthcoming, one-year venture. The hope is that this will lead to a more diverse applicant pool from which to draw finalists.</p><p>
<img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/how-seven-foundations-bolstered-afterschool-summer-programming-as-covid-raged/Gigi-Antoni.jpg" alt="Gigi-Antoni.jpg" class="wf-Image-Right" style="margin:5px;width:158px;height:167px;" />“We’ve talked to hundreds of communities in the last couple of months,” Antoni said, “and now have 1,700 applications from rural, suburban, and urban communities in every state in the country.”</p><p>The other contributors to the Afterschool and Summer Recovery and Opportunity Fund were the Bezos Family Foundation, S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, New York Life Foundation, Overdeck Family Foundation, and Susan Crown Exchange.<br><br><br></p> | Elizabeth Duffrin | 97 | | 2023-01-24T05:00:00Z | Novel fund supported pandemic guidance for youth programs and efforts to raise awareness of their importance | | 1/26/2023 5:04:11 PM | The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / How Seven Foundations Bolstered Afterschool, Summer Programming as COVID Raged Novel fund supported pandemic guidance for | 841 | https://www.wallacefoundation.org/News-and-Media/Blog/Pages/Forms/AllItems.aspx | html | False | aspx | |
| Resources to Help Guide Your Summer Learning Program | 42540 | GP0|#ff9563e3-b973-45a7-8ac3-c9f4122f9a13;L0|#0ff9563e3-b973-45a7-8ac3-c9f4122f9a13|Summer Learning;GTSet|#a1e8653d-64cb-48e0-8015-b5826f8c5b61 | <p>The school bell may have stopped ringing, but summer is a great time for all kinds of learning opportunities for kids. In honor of this year’s National Summer Learning Week, here are some helpful reports, tools and articles to guide your summer program. And don’t forget to check out the
<a href="https://www.summerlearning.org/summer-learning-week/" target="_blank">National Summer Learning Association</a> to discover summer programs, additional resources and more during this week-long celebration.<br><br> </p><p>
<a href="/knowledge-center/pages/supporting-quality-in-summer-learning-how-districts-plan-develop-and-implement-programs.aspx?_ga=2.130479439.1378018415.1657643438-504352793.1654185536">
<strong>
<img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/resources-to-help-guide-your-summer-learning-program/supporting-quality-in-summer-learning-full-report-a.jpg" alt="supporting-quality-in-summer-learning-full-report-a.jpg" class="wf-Image-Left" style="margin:5px;width:146px;height:188px;" />Supporting Quality in Summer Learning: How Districts Plan, Develop, and Implement Programs</strong></a><strong> </strong>School district-led summer programs play a critical role in supporting students academically and providing them with enriching experiences. Drawing on existing research and the perspectives of policymakers and field professionals, this recently released report looks at the policies, practices and resources that go into the planning, development and operation of these programs.<br><br></p><p>
<a href="/knowledge-center/pages/summer-for-all-building-coordinated-networks-promote-access-to-quality-summer-learning-enrichment.aspx?_ga=2.130479439.1378018415.1657643438-504352793.1654185536"><strong><img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/resources-to-help-guide-your-summer-learning-program/summer-for-all-building-coordinated-networks-promote-summer-learning-a.jpg" alt="summer-for-all-building-coordinated-networks-promote-summer-learning-a.jpg" class="wf-Image-Left" style="margin:5px;width:145px;height:207px;" />Summer for All: Building Coordinated Networks to Promote Access to Quality Summer Learning and Enrichment Opportunities Across a Community</strong></a><strong> </strong>This report looks at how schools, community-based organizations and other civic organizations in four cities formed coordinated networks to increase access to high-quality summer programming for young people.<br><br></p><p>
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</p><p>
<a href="/News-and-Media/Blog/pages/two-summer-programs-inch-towards-normal-as-covid-subsides.aspx"><strong><img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/blog-pandemic-summer-post-lg-feature.jpg" alt="blog-pandemic-summer-post-lg-feature.jpg" class="wf-Image-Left" style="margin:5px;width:274px;height:117px;" />Two Summer Programs Inch Towards Normal as Covid Subsides</strong></a> Summer programs could be a key to addressing lost instructional and extracurricular time from COVID-19, and summer program leaders can learn a lot from the past two summers. Read about how two programs in New York and New Jersey have adapted to help young people through the pandemic, and how they’ve been preparing for this unpredictable summer.<br><br></p><p>
<a href="/knowledge-center/pages/getting-to-work-on-summer-learning-2nd-ed.aspx"><strong><img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/resources-to-help-guide-your-summer-learning-program/Getting-to-Work-on-Summer-Learning-2nd-ed-a.jpg" alt="Getting-to-Work-on-Summer-Learning-2nd-ed-a.jpg" class="wf-Image-Left" style="margin:5px;width:144px;height:206px;" />Getting to Work on Summer Learning: Recommended Practices for Success, 2nd ed.</strong></a> This report addresses questions about how to implement a high-quality summer learning program and offers evidence-based recommendations on such topics as timing, hiring and training, and how to recruit students. It also discusses the costs associated with offering a voluntary summer program and provides suggestions for lowering them, such as working with community-based organizations and consolidating program sites into as few buildings as possible.<br><br></p><p>
<a href="/knowledge-center/summer-learning/toolkit/pages/default.aspx"><strong><img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/resources-to-help-guide-your-summer-learning-program/blog-summer-learning-toolkit.jpg" alt="blog-summer-learning-toolkit.jpg" class="wf-Image-Left" style="margin:5px;width:180px;height:110px;" />Summer Learning Toolkit</strong></a><strong> </strong>One of our most popular resources, the Summer Learning Toolkit consists of more than 50, evidence-based tools and resources drawn from the work of five urban school districts and their partners, and aligned with research from RAND. It might be a bit late to start planning this year, but it’s never too early to start the pre-planning for next summer!</p><br> | Jenna Doleh | 91 | | 2022-07-13T04:00:00Z | From research reports and our popular hands-on toolkit to interviews with program staff and parents, these materials can help you plan a high-quality summer program. | | 7/13/2022 1:00:21 PM | The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / Resources to Help Guide Your Summer Learning Program From research reports and case studies to our popular hands-on toolkit | 854 | https://www.wallacefoundation.org/News-and-Media/Blog/Pages/Forms/AllItems.aspx | html | False | aspx | |
| Creating a “Web of Support” for Children | 23741 | GP0|#890cbc1f-f78a-45e7-9bf2-a5986c564667;L0|#0890cbc1f-f78a-45e7-9bf2-a5986c564667|Social and Emotional Learning;GTSet|#a1e8653d-64cb-48e0-8015-b5826f8c5b61 | <p>What value do parents, teachers and out-of-school-time (OST) staff place on OST programs? And what role do these programs play in young people’s learning and development beyond simply filling in the time when children are not in school?  <br></p><p><img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/Creating-a-Web-of-Support-for-Children/PARK_5088copy.jpg" alt="PARK_5088copy.jpg" class="wf-Image-Left" style="margin:5px;width:160px;height:213px;" />Recently released <a href="/knowledge-center/pages/out-of-school-time-programs-this-summer.aspx">research</a> from Learning Heroes—a national organization that seeks to inform parents and equip them with the means to best support their children’s academic and developmental success—delves into these questions and much more. We spoke to David Park, senior vice president for communications and strategy at Learning Heroes, to find out more about the research and a playbook for the field that the organization developed based on the findings. </p><p><strong>The Wallace Foundation: Why did Learning Heroes conduct this research?</strong></p><p><strong></strong><strong>David Park: </strong>We know that learning happens everywhere—in the classroom for sure, but also at home and in the community. And wherever learning takes place, it’s important that it’s connected, and that families can team up not only with their child’s teacher but with out-of-school-time providers as well. It’s also critical that schools and OST providers are connected in service of a child’s learning and development. We like to think of this as a web of support. </p><p>By listening to parents, teachers and OST providers, we can better understand how these audiences perceive the role of OST programs in children’s social, emotional and academic development and ultimately strengthen this web of support through enhanced communications, programs and policies. </p><p><strong>WF: Can you give an overview of your survey findings? What are some of the key conclusions from your research? </strong></p><p><strong></strong><strong>DP:</strong> The survey found that parents, teachers and providers all view OST programs as offering a child-centered experience that is highly valuable and differentiated from classroom learning. We see this in the reasons parents say they enroll their child in these programs: to expose them to new ideas, experiences and perspectives, and help them find their passion, purpose and voice. Practitioners can use this information to help shape their programs and communicate about them in a way that resonates with families. </p><p>We also found that while there is tremendous demand for OST programs, participation in high-quality opportunities is not always equitably distributed, primarily due to considerations including cost, transportation and time. We believe district administrators can use this research, particularly data on the value parents see in OST programs, to address issues of access and secure funding for high-quality programs that reach all families. </p><p>While there are many more interesting findings and insights, one thing I thought was particularly compelling is the language parents use to describe OST programs. An example is the term I’m using now—“out-of-school-time” or “OST”. While we use this term in the field, parents are unfamiliar with it, and certainly don’t use it to describe the programs their children are engaged in. “Extracurricular” is the term parents use most often. </p><p><strong>WF: What survey answers surprised you the most? </strong></p><p><strong></strong><strong>DP:</strong> There were several surprises. One thing that stood out to me was how valuable educators found OST programs. More than 7 in 10 teachers (72 percent) agreed that these programs exposed children to new experiences, ideas and perspectives beyond their everyday home and school lives, and nearly 7 in 10 (69 percent) agreed these programs motivated children to get excited about learning, even those who aren’t doing particularly well in school.  </p><p>Given educators’ views on OST programs, coupled with the fact that families often get information about OST programs from schools, program providers may want to consider connecting with teachers to help promote the value of OST programs. </p><p><strong>WF: Can you describe some of the afterschool activities included in the survey?  And how do parents assess quality?</strong></p><p><strong></strong><strong>DP:</strong> The survey found that 65 percent of parents have children in an OST program, enrolling their children in an average of two programs per family. The most popular category is Sports/Arts/Interest, followed by School/Academic, Youth Development and Opportunity Centered. As parents assess quality, they look at indicators including their child’s happiness (83 percent), their child gaining confidence (79 percent) and their child developing social and emotional skills (77 percent). </p><p><strong>WF: How did the Covid 19 pandemic affect your research?  During lockdown, what were parents’ main concerns for their children?</strong></p><p><strong></strong><strong>DP:</strong> As we all know, the pandemic took a huge toll on families. The survey was fielded a year into the pandemic (in February/March 2021), and perhaps not surprising, children missing out on social connections and friendships topped the list of parent concerns, followed by kids having too much screen time, and losing motivation and interest to learn (which was particularly concerning to African American parents). </p><p><strong>WF: Learning Heroes has produced a </strong><strong>playbook for OST providers, teachers and others, based on the survey results.  Why do you think the playbook is needed?</strong></p><p><strong></strong><strong>DP:</strong> We always try to make our research as actionable as possible, and that’s why we created the <a href="http://www.bealearninghero.org/OST-research">p</a><a href="http://www.bealearninghero.org/OST-research" target="_blank">laybook</a>. It can help educators, providers and advocates communicate the value of OST programs, inform the design of high-quality programs and shape policies that make these opportunities equitably accessible to all children. The playbook provides several specific ways the research can be used and includes tools and resources such as the research deck, a messaging guidance document, an animated video, social media infographics and more. </p><p><strong>WF: Do you think this research and </strong><strong>playbook will help make the case for more funding for OST programs? </strong></p><p><strong></strong><strong>DP:</strong> The research clearly highlights the value of OST programs, and underscores the need for families, schools and OST programs to partner in support of children’s learning and development. With ESSER [the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund, which is part of the federal American Rescue Plan Act] funding available, we believe there is a unique opportunity to secure resources for ongoing partnerships between schools and OST providers and more equitable access to high-quality programs. </p> | Wallace editorial team | 79 | | 2021-11-22T05:00:00Z | How parents, teachers and program leaders view the time kids spend outside the classroom—and why this matters | | 11/22/2021 12:11:13 PM | The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / Creating a “Web of Support” for Children How parents, teachers and program leaders view the time kids spend outside the | 1580 | https://www.wallacefoundation.org/News-and-Media/Blog/Pages/Forms/AllItems.aspx | html | False | aspx | |
| Students Around the Country Offer Advice for Re-Opening Schools | 42556 | GP0|#ff9563e3-b973-45a7-8ac3-c9f4122f9a13;L0|#0ff9563e3-b973-45a7-8ac3-c9f4122f9a13|Summer Learning;GTSet|#a1e8653d-64cb-48e0-8015-b5826f8c5b61 | <p>“While last year was the most difficult year we’ve probably had as educators, this upcoming year is the most important year,” said Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona in an opening statement during the U.S. Department of Education’s final <a href="https://compcenternetwork.org/national-center/6827/summer-learning-enrichment-collaborative-events" target="_blank">Summer Learning & Enrichment Collaborative Virtual Session</a> last month.</p><p>Earlier conversations in the seven-part series focused on such topics as forming state-level coalitions, using evidence to inform summer programs, tapping federal funds to promote equity through summer enrichment opportunities. This last session, however, addressed perhaps the country’s most important stakeholders: students. </p><p>“We know students have a voice, and they have a lot to say. We have to make sure we’re designed to listen,” Cardona said.</p><p>Cardona kicked off the convening in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgICxaHfdIw" target="_blank">conversation</a> with a panel of students from around the country, who discussed what they’d gained from their various summer programs. </p><p>“We had different things for everybody, and I really enjoyed how inclusive and how much of a family my summer program is,” said Noah Shaw of his experience at the Miller Boys and Girls Club in Murray, Utah. </p><p>Mkayla Rowell, a freshman at Cleveland School of Architecture and Design at the John Hay Campus who participated in the Cleveland Metro School District Summer Learning Experience as a teacher, said the aspect she liked most about the program was being able to help kids who are younger than she is. <br></p><p>“I really enjoyed just connecting with a younger generation and teaching them things that would’ve helped me when I was their age growing up in the city,” she said. </p><p>The students and young educators also offered their advice to education leaders for how to reimagine, redesign and rebuild engaging learning and enrichment opportunities throughout the year. </p><p>“Because most of us are transitioning from a school year that was mainly virtual, it’s going to be difficult for students to go back to in-person school,” said Kwynsky Miguel, a Lehigh University freshman, who worked over the summer at a program he attended in the past, the Aim High Summer Program in San Francisco. “I recommend teachers be very patient with their students rather than rushing them, because everyone will have a different pace going back into school. I really think being patient will help your students see that you want them to succeed and you really care about their mental well-being.”  </p><p>In fact, a common theme throughout the conversation was the importance of creating a safe space, not just physically but mentally as well.</p><p>“I think the best advice I can give is just to be persistent with students,” Noah Shaw said. “Because I know some students have stuff going on at home, and that makes them want to give up and be antisocial, and their grades can fail. A great thing is to be persistent in making sure they’re okay...make sure you stick with them, never give up.”</p><p>Representatives from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also participated in the meetings that followed the roundtable with the youth leaders to provide updates on guidance and resources for a healthy and safe return to school. Their recommendations for schools included promoting vaccines to those who are eligible, wearing masks indoors, maintaining three feet of distance between others, washing hands, improving ventilation systems and staying home when sick.  </p><p>“Transitioning in times of physical distancing, masks and extra stress is extra hard,” said Lara Robinson, a behavioral scientist with the Child Development Studies Team at the National Center for Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities. “Teachers, parents and programs can help children by planning the transition, making strong connections and establishing new routines. With the right support, children can adjust to their new program, make new friends, learn new things and strive.”</p><p>Attendees of the virtual meeting also had the opportunity to join tabletop discussions. One of them, <em>Engaging Educators, Families, Students in Planning Summer and the Return to School,</em> examined innovations employed by the Cleveland Metropolitan School District and district partners for a “whole child, whole community” recovery from the pandemic. </p><p>Representatives from the district showed how they developed a vision for post-pandemic learning that includes competency-based education, anytime/anywhere and whole human learning, along with personalized learner pathways. This summer, Cleveland had the opportunity to implement some of these principles during their Summer Learning Experience. Teachers submitted creative ideas for projects to implement during two separate four-week summer sessions, which more than 8,000 students participated in. </p><p>“We saw our kids do amazing work,” said Shari Obrenski, president of the Cleveland Teachers Union. “Our educators came away invigorated with the different things they had done; our students were excited to share what they learned. And now the task for us is to build upon what we have been doing over the summer and start bringing this to scale during the course of the normal school year with a larger number of our students and educators.” </p><p>Schools in Cleveland will return to in-person instruction in the fall, with a new remote school option. The district is working diligently to create an experience that aimed at making students want to be in school. Educators and administrators are implementing a more inclusive dress code and offering expanded enrichment and extracurricular activities such as band, choir, fitness and pottery classes, along with the supports to make them accessible for students.   </p><p>In addition, this fall, on October 28, the <a href="http://www.afterschoolalliance.org/loa.cfm" target="_blank">22nd annual Lights On Afterschool</a> will take place. In a typical year, more than 8,000 afterschool programs around the country hold events to showcase their programs. According to Tiyana Glenn, a project associate at the Afterschool Alliance, this event is a chance for afterschool programs to celebrate and showcase exactly what they do everyday, as well as make their case to their community, to parents, to policymakers and to the media that afterschool programs are essential for students and their families. </p><p>Kwynsky Miguel, the teacher-assistant at Aim High Summer Program, made the case for summer and out of school time programs and how they can both help students and adults adapt to new situations that might come up in the school year.</p><p>“I knew this was a safe space for me to be who I am as well as to learn from others,” she said. “The whole experience of meeting new people and learning about their story was such a surreal moment that I really appreciate Aim High for—for showing me that it’s okay to be new to a whole new environment as well as knowing when it’s right to let yourself be comfortable with new people.”  </p><p>In his roundtable with the students, Cardona also stressed that schools and afterschool programs can help provide a much-needed sense of community for kids this fall. </p>
“Schools, school communities, and good summer programs are like second families,” he said. “There’s a sense of community there that, I think, sometimes we overlook. We don’t talk about that as educators as much. Schools are communities for our students."<p></p> | Jenna Doleh | 91 | | 2021-09-16T04:00:00Z | Students, educators and others at U.S. Department of Education convening encourage patience, safe spaces, increased support as students return this fall. | | 9/16/2021 3:13:46 PM | The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / Students Around the Country Offer Advice for Re-Opening Schools Students, educators and others at U.S. Department of | 1102 | https://www.wallacefoundation.org/News-and-Media/Blog/Pages/Forms/AllItems.aspx | html | False | aspx | |
| Think States Play No Role in Shaping Effective Principals? Think Again. | 42579 | GP0|#330c9173-9d0f-423a-b58d-f88b8fb02708;L0|#0330c9173-9d0f-423a-b58d-f88b8fb02708|School Leadership;GTSet|#a1e8653d-64cb-48e0-8015-b5826f8c5b61 |
<p>States often tread lightly when it comes to assuming a full role in improving principal quality. They are concerned, among other things, about overreach into an area—public education—where local authority is prized. But that doesn’t mean states have to be bystanders as interest in cultivating effective school leadership grows. Indeed, according to a RAND report published by Wallace last fall, states have seven key policy levers to consider pulling:<br></p><div class="wf-Element-BlueBullet">Setting principal standards<br></div><div class="wf-Element-BlueBullet">Recruiting promising candidates into the profession</div><div class="wf-Element-BlueBullet">Licensing new and veteran principals<br></div><div class="wf-Element-BlueBullet">Approving and overseeing principal preparation programs</div><div class="wf-Element-BlueBullet">Supporting principals’ growth with professional development</div><div class="wf-Element-BlueBullet">Evaluating principals</div><div class="wf-Element-BlueBullet">Supporting “leader tracking systems,” online systems to collect and analyze data on aspiring and established school leaders.</div><p>The report,<a href="/knowledge-center/pages/using-state-level-policy-levers-to-promote-principal-quality.aspx"><em>Using State-level Policy Levers to Promote Principal Quality</em></a>, examines how seven states have pulled these levers, or not, as well as what helps and hinders effective use of the levers.  A <a href="/knowledge-center/Documents/Infographic-Policies-Seven-States-Enacted-to-Promote-the-Quality-of-Principal-Preparation.pdf">new infographic</a> also details what pulling the levers can entail as well as the degree to which the seven states have used each one. The states—California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina and Virginia—are part of Wallace’s <a href="/knowledge-center/pages/launching-redesign-university-principal-preparation-programs.aspx">University Principal Preparation Initiative</a>, an effort bringing together university-based preservice school leadership programs, school districts and states to improve principal training.  </p><p>We spoke via email with Susan Gates, a senior researcher at RAND and the lead author of the report, to find out more about using state policy levers for better school leadership. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.</p><p><strong>What’s the main lesson of your study for states that may be eyeing the principalship and considering what steps to take to improve it?</strong></p><p>When setting policy priorities related to the principalship, states need to consider the mix of policy levers they are currently using compared with the full range of options we outline in the report. What are you doing that is working well? What is not working so well? Think about how your successes could be leveraged to improve upon the gap areas. For example, all of the University Principal Preparation Initiative states have leader standards and are using them to promote principal quality to some degree, but not consistently across all levers. Extending the use of leader standards to levers where they are not currently used—such as evaluation—to create coherence across the entire pathway is a good option for states to consider.</p><p>Another key insight is that the pathway to the principalship is more complicated than most people think, and it differs state to state. The seven levers our report highlights typically target specific stages of the pathway. The best levers for one state to focus on may be different from those for another because the two states may have dissimilar pathways.    </p><p><strong>What else did you find out about the varying routes to becoming a principal among the states you examined?  </strong></p><p>When people think about the pathway to the principalship, they often have something simple in mind. A teacher attends a graduate program, gets a license and becomes a principal. We found that the pathway to the principalship is much more complex than that. It is common for there to be multiple stages in the licensure process. In addition, some states have alternative pathways that allow candidates to bypass state-approved preparation programs. This was true in three of the seven initiative states—California, Kentucky and Virginia. These alternative pathways are really interesting. If used with restraint, they can allow states to increase the stringency of program regulation and oversight without unduly burdening specific districts—because there is a work-around districts can pursue when they want to hire a compelling candidate who did not attend a state-approved program. But if used excessively, these alternative pathways can render state-approved programs irrelevant. These alternative pathways have potentially important implications for the use of other levers, and states should gather and examine data about the prevalence and implications of their use.</p><p><strong>You emphasize that a change in one area of state principal policy can trigger changes in others. Why does that matter?</strong></p><p>Our study highlights that the seven policy levers are highly interconnected. By reinforcing the ties between and among levers, states can amplify their effectiveness. We saw numerous examples of this. For example, program approval requirements in most states include that programs engage in effective candidate recruitment practices such as getting input from districts. Another example is that principal licensure, as I suggested earlier, typically requires completion of a state-approved principal preparation program. As a result, licensure requirements drive aspiring principals into programs that are in turn shaped by state policy. This interconnectedness means that when new policies are implemented that target one lever, they can have downstream or upstream implications for other levers. For example, when states change the assessment they use for state licensure, state-approved principal preparation programs modify their programs to support the success of their students on these assessments—even when the state’s program approval requirements do not explicitly change.  </p><p><strong>Of the various key levers states can pull to improve school leadership, one stands out for having received nearly universal agreement in the seven states that it was effective in promoting principal quality: leader standards. Why are standards so powerful?</strong></p><p>Leader standards are important because they provide a way of communicating priorities and objectives about the principalship that is relevant to all stakeholder groups (aspiring and current leaders, principal preparation programs and districts) and across all stages of the pathway to the principalship. Standards help states reinforce the ties between and among levers. For example, stakeholders we interviewed reported that program approval and licensure requirements were viewed as more effective when clearly aligned with standards.<br>
<br>
<strong>On the other hand, few of the people you interviewed for the report thought the recruitment lever was being used effectively. What do you think might be keeping states from pressing this lever more forcefully?</strong></p><p>Recruitment is a particularly complex one for states because using it effectively involves influencing the behavior of all three groups of policy targets: aspiring leaders, programs and districts. Aspiring leaders must be encouraged to enroll in a state-approved principal preparation program, programs must be encouraged to accept high-potential candidates and districts must encourage those with potential to pursue the pathway to the principalship. The decision to enroll in a particular program requires the aspiring leader to make a financial commitment to the principal pathway in general and to a particular program. That can be a dealbreaker even in situations where all three groups agree that a particular candidate would be a good leader and that a particular institution is a good fit for that candidate.</p><p>All of the states in our study establish pre-requisites for admission to state-approved principal preparation programs and most encourage these programs to collaborate with districts in the candidate admission process. But only one of the states has a state-funded effort that provides financial resources to promising candidates to attend designated preparation programs. I think this approach is not used more widely because of the costs associated with it and the political difficulty associated with allocating state funds to support an aspiring principal’s pre-service preparation at some but not all state-approved programs.    </p><p><strong>The report describes a number of ways to encourage change—coupling mandates with support, for example, or engaging early on with the variety of people and institutions that have a stake in the policy at hand. But you note that “among the most significant” policy changes you saw were those that emerged from efforts that had piggybacked on earlier K-12 education reforms. What’s an example? Why does this approach work?</strong></p><p>There’s a lot going on at the state level when it comes to education policy, and the principalship is often what is called a “low agenda status” topic in this space. It’s just not on the radar of a lot of people. This can make it difficult for principal quality to bubble up to the top of the priority list for policy change. One way to get principal quality initiatives on the agenda and successfully implemented is to link them clearly to a broader state education priority. Even better is to craft principal quality initiatives that piggyback on prior initiatives targeting teachers. For example, if the state revamps the teacher evaluation system or assessment for aspiring teachers, it can leverage that work and advance related efforts to revise principal evaluation systems or assessments for aspiring leaders. By leveraging the prior efforts, the costs of developing the system or assessment itself may be lower and some of the political legwork needed to achieve buy-in will have already been done. <br>
<br>
<strong>State policymakers—like their counterparts on the federal, local and school-district level—find themselves in an unprecedented moment. They are facing not only the pandemic’s dire effects on education but also the nation’s long overdue reckoning with racial justice. Is there a way in which state school leadership policy can help provide a beneficial response to these developments?</strong></p><p>The challenges facing our nation’s schools and school districts as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and reckoning with racial justice pose deep questions for state policymakers that go well beyond school leadership policy. Within the school leadership space, the base of evidence about how to effectively address these challenges is relatively thin. Our study found that policy lever use is perceived as effective when it is grounded in evidenced-based, rigorous requirements. We also found that stakeholder engagement allows states to leverage expertise from across the state and expand and or supplement state capacity in order to push forward on a change agenda.</p><p>So as a first step, states could support knowledge-building about equity-centered and crisis-oriented school leadership, tapping a wide range of stakeholders to inform next steps.  This could take the form of support for learning communities, or the development of templates for districts or preparation programs to use as they engage with community groups on these complex issues.</p><p>Another idea would be for states to orient their support for principal professional development toward these issues. Our study found that PD was being <em>used </em>by all states, but stakeholders in only three states felt that it was being  <em>used effectively</em> to promote principal quality. Professional development was a real focus of new state activity during the study time frame, with most states launching efforts to expand PD support. Orienting these efforts toward these pressing concerns is something states could consider.<br><br></p> | Wallace editorial team | 79 | | 2021-07-22T04:00:00Z | Researcher discusses seven policy levers states can pull to improve school leadership | | 7/22/2021 5:00:29 AM | The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / Think States Play No Role in Shaping Effective Principals Researcher discusses seven policy levers states can pull to | 1173 | https://www.wallacefoundation.org/News-and-Media/Blog/Pages/Forms/AllItems.aspx | html | False | aspx | |
| Take a Minute (or Three) for Summer Learning | 42566 | GP0|#ff9563e3-b973-45a7-8ac3-c9f4122f9a13;L0|#0ff9563e3-b973-45a7-8ac3-c9f4122f9a13|Summer Learning;GTSet|#a1e8653d-64cb-48e0-8015-b5826f8c5b61 | <div class="ms-rtestate-read ms-rte-embedcode ms-rte-embedil ms-rtestate-notify s4-wpActive" style="margin-bottom:500px;">
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<br> | Wallace editorial team | 79 | | 2021-04-06T04:00:00Z | Co-author of latest RAND report on summer learning discusses key findings, including benefits for kids who attend frequently | | 4/6/2021 2:51:29 PM | The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / Take a Minute (or Three) for Summer Learning Co-author of latest RAND report on summer learning discusses key findings | 1207 | https://www.wallacefoundation.org/News-and-Media/Blog/Pages/Forms/AllItems.aspx | html | False | aspx | |
| How Can Research Help Design More Effective Youth Programs? | 42456 | GP0|#ff9563e3-b973-45a7-8ac3-c9f4122f9a13;L0|#0ff9563e3-b973-45a7-8ac3-c9f4122f9a13|Summer Learning;GTSet|#a1e8653d-64cb-48e0-8015-b5826f8c5b61;GP0|#b804f37e-c5dd-4433-a644-37b51bb2e211;L0|#0b804f37e-c5dd-4433-a644-37b51bb2e211|Afterschool | <p>Nonprofits that work with young people are always looking for ways to assess their effectiveness, and randomized controlled trials—which
<em>randomly</em> place eligible young people into “treatment” and “control” groups to draw comparisons between them—are generally considered the most rigorous approach. Implementation studies, by contrast, examine how an effort is carried out, pinpointing strengths and weaknesses in operations. </p><p>In tandem, randomized controlled trials, or RCTs, and implementation studies can help organizations answer two major questions: What is the impact of our work? What can we do to improve?   </p><p>As informative as such studies can be, they are also challenging to pull off and act on. Just ask Lynsey Wood Jeffries, CEO of Washington, D.C.-based
<a href="https://higherachievement.org/">Higher Achievement</a>, one of the organizations that took part in Wallace’s now-concluded
<a href="/knowledge-center/after-school/pages/expanded-learning.aspx">expanded learning effort</a>. Higher Achievement, which provides academically focused afterschool programs for more than 1,000 middle schoolers in the D.C. metro area, Baltimore and Richmond, Va., has participated in two RCTs, the most recent one accompanied by an implementation study.</p><p>The first RCT, which was partially funded by Wallace and ran from 2006 to 2013, showed statistically significant effects for Higher Achievement students—known as “scholars” within the program—on math and reading test scores and in high school placement and family engagement. The second, completed last year (also with some Wallace support), found positive results, too, with the implementation study revealing some program delivery issues to be addressed in order for Higher Achievement to reach its full potential. (Readers can find the research and more information
<a href="https://higherachievement.org/impact/">here</a>.) The organization was in the process of making changes when COVID-19 hit and turned everything upside down, but as the pandemic eases, the hope is to use the findings to help pave the path forward. </p><p>This is part two of our interview with Jeffries. See the first post on
<a href="/News-and-Media/Blog/pages/creating-safe-spaces-for-young-people-during-the-pandemic.aspx">running an afterschool program during a pandemic</a>. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.</p><p>
<strong>Why did you decide to participate in the second RCT, especially having already done one? </strong></p><p>There were two main reasons. One is that the first study only focused on what has been our home base in the D.C. metro area. So, it showed statistically significant positive impacts on academics for D.C. and also Alexandria, Virginia. But since that study was conducted, we have expanded to other locations, and our effectiveness hadn't been empirically proven in those places. That was important to understand. A number of programs may be able to show impacts in their home base, but replicating that through all the complications that come with expansion is a next level of efficacy. </p><p>Second, it was suggested to us that the way to be most competitive for the major federal
<a href="https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/us-department-education-announces-inaugural-education-innovation-and-research-competition">i3 grant</a> we ultimately won was to offer an RCT. It's the highest level of evidence and worth the most points on the application.</p><p>
<strong>Were there risks versus rewards that you had to weigh in making the decision to go ahead with the second RCT?</strong></p><p>We very carefully considered it because we knew from past experience the strains an RCT puts on the community and the organization.</p><p>The reward is that if you win the dollars you can learn a lot and serve more students. Our grant application was about adapting our academic mentoring to help accelerate learning towards Common Core standards. That's something we wouldn’t have been able to do, at least not at the intensity we wanted, without a multi-million-dollar investment.</p><p>
<strong>Were there any results of either the RCT or the implementation study that caught you by surprise?</strong></p><p>The positive effect size for report card grades was greater in this second study than it was for test scores in a previous study. And that level of confidence did surprise me frankly, because I’ve lived and breathed Higher Achievement every day for many years now, and it's been messy. It hasn't just been a simple expansion process. There have been lots of questions along the way, adaptations to local communities, staffing changes, and more. So, to see that positive effect size for our scholars was encouraging.</p><p>
<strong>You mentioned the strain an RCT can put on community relationships and the organization itself. What does that look like?</strong></p><p>Only accepting 50 percent of the students you recruit strains community relationships; it strains relationships with families and scholars most importantly but also with schools. It also fatigues the staff, who have to interview twice as many students as we can serve. They get to know the students and their families, knowing that we have to turn away half of them.</p><p>Here’s are example of how an RCT can distort perceptions in the community: I'll never forget talking to a middle schooler who had applied for our program but was assigned to the control group. She said, "Oh, yeah, I know Higher Achievement. It's that group that pays you $100 to take a test on a Saturday." [As part of the first RCT] we did pay students to take this test, and so that’s what we were to her.</p><p>Additionally, when you’re recruiting for an RCT, you have to cast twice as wide a net [because you need a sufficient number of students in both the treatment and control groups]. Because there was such a push for a larger sample, the interview process for Higher Achievement became pro forma, and our retention rate ended up dipping because the overall level of commitment of the scholars and families recruited for the RCT was lower than it would be otherwise. And both studies showed that we don't have statistically significant effects until scholars get through the second year. So, when scholar retention dips, you're distorting the program.</p><p>
<strong>Did you approach the second RCT differently in terms of recruitment or communications to try to avoid or address that potential for strain?</strong></p><p>We were very cognizant of our school relationships the second time. Principals really value the service we provide, which makes it quite hard for them to agree to a study, knowing half the students won’t actually get the benefit of that service. So, we gave each of our principals three to five wild cards for particular students they wanted to be exempt from the lottery process in order to make sure that they got into the program. That hurt our sample size because those students couldn’t be part of the study, but it helped preserve the school relationships. We also deepened training for the staff interviewing potential scholars, which helped a bit with retention. </p><p>
<strong>How did Higher Achievement go about putting the research findings into practice? In order to make changes at the program level, were there also changes that had to be made at the administrative level? </strong></p><p>The implementation study was really helpful, and I'm so grateful we were able to bring in $300,000 in additional support from Venture Philanthropy Partners [a D.C.-based philanthropy] to support it. One of the things we took away from the implementation study was that there was more heterogeneity in our program delivery than we desired. We knew that internally, but to read it from these external researchers made us pause, consider the implications, and develop a new approach—Higher Achievement 2.0. </p><p>Higher Achievement 2.0 consisted of a refined program model and staffing structure to support it. We shifted our organizational chart pretty dramatically. Previously, program implementation was managed by the local executive directors [with a program director for each city and directors of individual centers within each city reporting to the executive director]. Program research, evaluation and design were under a chief strategy officer, who was not in a direct reporting line with the program implementation. It wasn't seamless, and it led to inconsistencies in program delivery. </p><p>The big change we made was to create a new position, a central chief program officer who manages both the R&D department, which we now call the center support team, and the local program directors, with the center directors reporting to those program directors. What that does functionally is lift the local center directors a full step or two or three, depending on the city, up in the organization chart and in the decision-making process [because they no longer report to a local executive director or deputy director]. Everything we're doing as an organization is much closer to the ground.</p><p>
<strong>What were the main changes at the program level as a result of the implementation study?</strong></p><p>One of the key takeaways from the implementation research was that our Summer Academy, which was a six-week, 40-hours-a-week program, was important for culture building but the academic instruction wasn’t consistently high quality or driving scholar retention or academic outcomes. That prompted us to take a very different approach to summer and to make afterschool the centerpiece of what we do. The plan was to focus on college-preparatory high school placement and to expand afterschool by seven weeks and go from three to four days a week. That’s a big change in how we operate, which we were just beginning to actualize in January 2020. Then COVID hit, and we had to pivot to a virtual, streamlined program, but now we’re exploring how to go back to a version of Higher Achievement 2.0 post-COVID.</p><p>High school placement has always been part of Higher Achievement’s model, but we elevated it to be our anchor indicator, so all the other performance indicators need to lead back to high school readiness and placement. While our direct service ends in eighth grade, we have long-term intended impacts of 100 percent on-time high school graduation and 65 percent post-secondary credential attainment. [Therefore], the biggest lever we can pull is helping our scholars choose a great fit for high school and making sure they’re prepared to get into those schools. Instead of running programs in the summer, we are referring scholars to other strong programs and spending much more time on family engagement in the summer to support high school placement. This starts in fifth grade, with increasingly robust conversations year after year about report cards and test scores and what different high school options can mean for career paths and post-secondary goals. We are building our scholars’ and families’ navigational capital. That discipline is being more uniformly implemented across our sites; it had been very scattered in the past. </p><p>The other thing we set out to do, which has been delayed because all our design capacity has been re-routed to virtual learning, is to build out a ninth-grade transition program. We know how important ninth grade is; the research is undeniable. The individual data from our scholars says sometimes it goes smoothly and in other cases it's really rocky. Students who’ve been placed in a competitive high school may shift later because they didn't feel welcome or supported in that school.</p><p>
<strong>What challenges have you faced as you’ve gone about making these big changes? Were there any obstacles in translating the decisions of your leadership team into action?</strong></p><p>The biggest obstacle is COVID. We haven't been able to put much of our plan into action in the way intended. The other obstacle we’ve faced is what any change faces: emotional and intellectual ties to the way things have always been done. I was one of the staff members who had a great emotional attachment to our Summer Academy.</p><p>There are rituals that have been a part of our Summer Academy that are beloved rites of passage for young people.
We are building these rites of passage, college trips and other culture-building aspects of Summer Academy into our Afterschool Academy. That way, we can focus in the summer on intentionally engaging our scholars and families to prepare them for college-preparatory high schools and increase our overall organizational sustainability and effectiveness.</p><p>
<strong>What advice would you give to an organization that’s considering participating in an RCT and implementation study or other major research of this kind?</strong></p><p>Proceed with caution. Before undertaking an RCT, review the studies that already exist in the field and learn from those to increase the effectiveness of your program. Let’s not reinvent the wheel here. If you do decide to proceed with an RCT, be really clear on what your model is and is not. And then be prepared to add temporary capacity during the study, particularly for recruitment, program observation and support. It takes a lot of internal and external communication to preserve relationships while also having a valid RCT. </p><p>There's a larger field question about equity—who is able to raise the money to actually conduct these very extensive and expensive studies? It tends to be white-led organizations and philanthropic dollars tend to consolidate to support those proven programs. Too few nonprofits have been proven effective with RCTs—for a host of reasons, including that these studies are cost-prohibitive for most organizations and that they strain community relations. And most RCT-proven models are difficult and expensive to scale.</p><p>However, just because an organization has not been proven effective with an RCT should not mean that it is prohibited from attracting game-changing investment.  If there were a more rigorous way for organizations to truly demonstrate being evidenced-based (not just a well-written and research-cited proposal paragraph), perhaps there would be a way to bring more community-based solutions to scale. With that approach, we could begin to solve challenges at the magnitude that they exist.<br></p> | Wallace editorial team | 79 | | 2021-03-31T04:00:00Z | An afterschool program CEO reflects on the risks and rewards of intensive program evaluations | | 4/5/2021 8:18:58 PM | The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / How Can Research Help Design More Effective Youth Programs An afterschool program CEO reflects on the risks and rewards of | 768 | https://www.wallacefoundation.org/News-and-Media/Blog/Pages/Forms/AllItems.aspx | html | False | aspx | |
| Why should school districts invest in principals? | 42610 | GP0|#330c9173-9d0f-423a-b58d-f88b8fb02708;L0|#0330c9173-9d0f-423a-b58d-f88b8fb02708|School Leadership;GTSet|#a1e8653d-64cb-48e0-8015-b5826f8c5b61 | <p>They are items on every school district’s to-do list: Reduce chronic absenteeism. Improve teacher satisfaction and retention. Bolster student learning. Now a major new research review points to the person who can have a positive impact on all of these priorities—the school principal. The groundbreaking study,
<a href="/knowledge-center/pages/how-principals-affect-students-and-schools-a-systematic-synthesis-of-two-decades-of-research.aspx">
<em>How Principals Affect Students and Schools: A Systematic Synthesis of Two Decades of Research</em></a>, finds that replacing a below-average principal at the 25th percentile of effectiveness with an above-average principal at the 75th percentile increases the average student’s learning by nearly three months in math and reading annually. Schools led by strong principals also have higher student attendance and greater teacher retention and satisfaction, according to the report. </p><p>Recently, the Wallace Blog caught up with the report’s authors, Jason A. Grissom, the Patricia and Rodes Hart professor at Vanderbilt University; Anna J. Egalite, associate professor at North Carolina State University; and Constance A. Lindsay, assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, to discuss their findings and implications for the field. The interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity. </p><p>
<strong>After the release of the report, some people were asking on social media if a great principal is more important than a great teacher and you had a great response. Can you share it with us? </strong></p><p>
<strong>Grissom:</strong> You can’t directly compare the effects of teachers and principals because the effects of a principal are largely through their work to expose kids to great teachers. It’s helpful to think about it from different points of view. From the student’s point of view, the teacher is clearly the most important person because he or she has the most direct effect on what I learn and my other outcomes. For the life of a school, the principal is certainly among the most important people, maybe the most important person, in part because principals are the ones who hire great teachers, ensure that great teachers stay in the building, and set the conditions for teachers to be able to teach to their full potential. </p><p>The report tries to emphasize how large the impacts of principals are and also what the scope of those effects are. Even if you just focus on student test scores, the report uses this size-plus-scope-of-effect to argue that we really should be investing in principal leadership. We’d go so far as to say that if you could only invest in one adult in the school building, then that person should pretty clearly be the principal. </p><p>
<strong>Given the research evidence showing the positive effects that a principal can have on student learning and other important outcomes, how can the field help less-effective principals improve? </strong></p><p>
<strong>Egalite:</strong> That’s the question we tried to answer in the second part of the report, which identifies the four leadership behaviors of great principals: engaging in instructionally-focused interactions with teachers, building a productive school climate, facilitating collaboration and professional learning communities, and managing personnel and resources strategically. If you were designing professional development for below-average principals, these are the four areas you could lean on that the evidence shows are associated with better outcomes in the long run. </p><p>
<strong>Which instructionally-focused activities appear particularly effective—and which ones not so much?</strong></p><p>
<strong>Egalite:</strong> One effective activity is the use of data. Principals can encourage teacher buy-in by using data to monitor student progress and demonstrate changes in student achievement. Another is teacher evaluations, which have become more sophisticated in recent years. They no longer just analyze student test scores to say if someone is a good teacher or a bad teacher, but marry that information with other data points collected through classroom observations and other measures. </p><p>
<strong>Grissom:</strong> We tried to highlight engagement with instruction as separate from a more general, and maybe ill-defined notion, of what it means to be an instructional leader. Some principals have internalized the message that instructional leadership means being in classrooms. But simply being present is not associated with greater student growth. It may even have negative effects because having the principal in the classroom is distracting for both the students and the teacher. Maybe that distraction is worth it if the principal follows up with support for the teacher’s work and uses data from the observations to help drive the instructional program. But on its own, it’s not enough to move the needle.
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<strong>The report found that principals can have an important impact on marginalized populations, including students from low-income households and students of color. How does an equity-focused principal exhibit the four leadership behaviors?</strong></p><p>
<strong>Lindsay:</strong> They infuse all the activities they usually do with an equity focus. With regard to instruction, it would mean working with teachers to adopt a more culturally responsive pedagogy. It means making sure that teachers are engaging in practices that are relevant to all students in the school. In building a productive school climate, it means working with families and thinking about the community context. </p><p>
<strong>Grissom:</strong> Thinking about how equity can be infused into these domains of behavior is clearly an area we need to know more about. The report offers lots of examples from the research base that exists, but the evidence is still developing.<br></p><p>
<img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/Why-should-school-districts-invest-in-principals/FIGURE-7-2-Emerging-Framework-Connecting-Equity-in-Principal-Leadership-to-Equitable-Outcomes-ch.jpg" alt="FIGURE-7-2-Emerging-Framework-Connecting-Equity-in-Principal-Leadership-to-Equitable-Outcomes-ch.jpg" style="margin:5px;" />
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<strong>You also found widening racial and ethnic gaps between principals and the students they serve. What are some tactics that districts can use to diversify the principal workforce? </strong></p><p>
<strong>Lindsay:</strong> The key is diversifying the teacher workforce, because principals start as teachers. In terms of district actions, there are strategies like “grow your own” programs where districts identify and develop individuals in-house who are well-suited to meeting the needs of their community. Districts can also examine different stages of the educator human capital pipeline to identify places where people of color drop out and then work to shore up those stages. </p><p>
<strong>Grissom:</strong> We’ve had concerns for a long time that access to the principalship in a lot of areas is driven by who you know within a district. That likely disadvantages people who are not in power. In response, districts are increasingly formalizing leadership programs with predefined selection criteria, ensuring that people are getting into the principal pipeline on the basis of their capacity for leadership. And at the end of the pipeline, there has to be an equitable hiring and selection process. Diversifying the pipeline is an area we have to learn more about—where is it happening successfully and how, so that those practices can be taken to other places to ensure greater principal diversity. </p><p>
<strong>Based on your report’s findings, what aspect of school leadership would you study right now if money and time were no object?</strong></p><p>
<strong>Lindsay:</strong> A lot of the research on equity that we drew from is very localized and context specific. I would study equity in a more systematic way. Just as we have rubrics for other things, I think it would be nice to have one about culturally responsive pedagogy that’s been tested and validated at a wide scale. </p><p>
<strong>Egalite:</strong> I’d like to know more, from a measurement perspective, about defining effective principals. I went through a Catholic teacher training program and for a brief moment considered its leadership training program. Their approach to leadership training is very much centered on building the school culture. Test scores are a much later part of the conversation. Private Catholic schools are obviously a different context than public schools, but how a principal sets the tone in a school and gets everyone rowing in the same direction is still relevant. How do you measure that? We rely on test scores to gauge principal effectiveness because they are easily collected by states, but it’s really just one piece of the pie. A more multidimensional view of principal effectiveness would be helpful.</p><p>
<strong>Grissom:</strong> I’m interested in how to measure capacity for the skills and behaviors we discuss in the report, so that we can do a better job identifying future leaders, developing their capacities and ensuring they are ready to lead when they enter the principalship. Historically, we have not done a great job of assessing people’s future potential. Maybe this is because we didn’t have the opportunities to develop the tools that measure those capacities. The same tools could also be used once a person is in leadership to identify areas for growth and target professional learning. They could also help us identify excellent leaders so we can draw on their excellence to help other people behind them in the principal pipeline. There are a lot of opportunities to think about how we identify, measure and assess both potential and strength at all phases of the pipeline. </p><p>
<strong>Your report is the first of three research syntheses to be released by Wallace this year. A second will examine the role of the assistant principal and a third will look at the characteristics and outcomes of effective principal preparation programs and on-the-job development. How does it feel to be first out of the gate?</strong></p><p>
<strong>Grissom:</strong> We’ve done a few presentations about our report and people have asked how our findings apply to assistant principals and the implications for pre-service preparation and in-service professional learning. </p><p>It will be very interesting to see the conversations following the release of the other two reports and how they build on the conversation we’ve been having with the release of ours. Stay tuned. </p> | Jennifer Gill | 83 | | 2021-03-23T04:00:00Z | Your source for research and ideas to expand high quality learning and enrichment opportunities. Supporting: School Leadership, After School, Summer and Extended Learning Time, Arts Education and Building Audiences for the Arts. | | 4/5/2021 8:19:43 PM | The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / Why should school districts invest in principals Authors of major new research review on school leadership discuss the | 1355 | https://www.wallacefoundation.org/News-and-Media/Blog/Pages/Forms/AllItems.aspx | html | False | aspx | |
| Creating Safe Spaces for Young People During the Pandemic | 23742 | GP0|#ff9563e3-b973-45a7-8ac3-c9f4122f9a13;L0|#0ff9563e3-b973-45a7-8ac3-c9f4122f9a13|Summer Learning;GTSet|#a1e8653d-64cb-48e0-8015-b5826f8c5b61 | <p>The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry, according to the poet Robert Burns. For a nonprofit organization serving young people in the midst of a pandemic that has forced them to stay at home and take on a raft of additional worries and responsibilities, the best-laid plans don’t so much go awry as get adapted on the fly. At the beginning of 2020, Washington, D.C.-based <a href="https://higherachievement.org/">Higher Achievement</a>, which provides academically focused afterschool programs for middle schoolers in the D.C. metro area, Baltimore, and Richmond, Va., was all set to promote the impressive results of a randomized controlled trial (RCT) it had recently wrapped up as well as roll out new programming to better serve its students. </p>
<img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/Creating-Safe-Spaces-for-Young-People-During-the-Pandemic/LynseyWoodJeffries.jpg" alt="LynseyWoodJeffries.jpg" class="wf-Image-Left" style="margin:5px;color:#555555;font-size:14px;width:174px;height:174px;" />Then, COVID-19, along with an overdue racial reckoning and a wildly contentious presidential election, flipped the script. Through it all, Higher Achievement, a participant in Wallace’s now-concluded
<a href="/knowledge-center/after-school/pages/expanded-learning.aspx">expanded learning effort</a>, has continued serving its students, known as “scholars” within the program. The intent is to respond, CEO Lynsey Wood Jeffries says, “with both urgency and gentleness.”
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<br>In this interview, the first of a two-part blog post, Jeffries discusses what it’s been like for one youth-serving nonprofit to face the great unknown—a topic on the minds of many this month as we mark the first anniversary of the declaration, by the World Health Organization, that the coronavirus outbreak was a pandemic. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. In part two, scheduled to be published later this month, Jeffries talks about the challenges that can come along with the benefits of research, the steps Higher Achievement took to put the research into practice, and considerations for other nonprofits contemplating an RCT. <br></div><p>
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<br>Has the pandemic caused you to view the role that Higher Achievement plays in a different way? </strong></p><p>The pandemic has forced us to prioritize what matters most. This pandemic has devastated traditionally marginalized communities and exacerbated health disparities and economic instability. Too many of our scholars are shouldering additional burdens, whether it’s worry about the health of family members or responsibility for childcare for their younger siblings because their family members are essential workers. </p><p>With these realities at home, and Zoom fatigue from virtual school, we had to radically adapt our high-dosage afterschool program to focus on where we could be most effective in this context of trauma, extra responsibility, learning loss and isolation. </p><p>
<strong>You had these really positive RCT results to share right when the pandemic hit. Did that change the way you went about communicating the results of the research?</strong></p><p>We had plans to highlight the results of the study with our funders and our school partners in 2020, but those plans got overtaken by events. The study was published three weeks after George Floyd was murdered. We weren’t going to do a virtual roadshow on our study when it felt irrelevant. That was what was in the hearts of our staff. </p><p>Now the conversation is beginning to move towards what we can do to recover what's been over 12 months of learning loss, according to McKinsey's estimates, for kids who've been in virtual learning. As school districts and funders are considering “high-dosage” tutoring as one of the solutions, the RCT is elevating Higher Achievement’s position as a potential part of that solution. When we think about the results, particularly the positive effect on Black boys’ math scores, we’re asking how does this encourage us to be bolder in this racial reckoning work, in the achievement gap work?</p><p>
<strong>How exactly has the pandemic affected the services that Higher Achievement provides?</strong></p><p>We’ve narrowed our program down to three things for now. The newest is virtual math tutoring pods, in which small groups of scholars review and practice what they’re learning in school. Second is mentoring, including high school placement mentoring. Third is community meetings. All those happen throughout the week. The virtual math pods are the biggest play we made. We realized our scholars were really slipping in math, and families are largely unprepared for that. Our school partners and school teachers have also asked us to support math instruction in these small groups. Scholars have wanted to be able to ask questions and have that person over their shoulder to help work through these concepts. We’ve had to re-skill our staff to be able to deliver. We did four rounds of pilots from March until August, then we rolled out a full program in September based on those pilots. With math, first semester grades are seven percent higher in December 2020 than in December 2019, pre-pandemic. </p><p>Math instruction by our volunteer mentors did not work well in the pilots of spring 2020, so we switched approaches in September, and the math pods are now led by our paid staff members.  Humanities mentoring is working, however, and serves as a critical vehicle for tackling relevant social justice topics. We build on the curriculum and materials of a group called
<a href="https://youthcomm.org/">Youth Communication</a>. They produce a youth-written online magazine about relevant topics from identity to the presidential election to activist movements to relationships, and it builds in reading, writing and critical thinking skills. Mentoring is consistently the most popular element of our program, with scholars and mentors so eager to deepen their relationships, combat isolation and dive into social justice together. </p><p>The high school placement mentoring looks radically different this year. Even though many of our eighth graders have not learned eighth grade content in school, we expect most of them will be ninth graders next year. And we want to make sure we’re supporting them in the transition. Family engagement throughout this year, starting with one-on-one outreach the week after COVID closed schools, has been critical to our high school placement efforts. </p><p>Community meetings have been a wonderful time for scholars, staff and mentors to all come together to process current events. There have been a lot of conversations about the election and now about figuring out how to support our communities through the recent assaults on democracy.</p><p>
<strong>Do you anticipate any of the changes you’ve made because of the pandemic becoming permanent?</strong></p><p>We will see. We are conducting a strategic review in late March to develop our COVID recovery plan for the next two school years. We expect to continue our math pods in some form, but convert them to in-person settings, and possibly during the school day. We are also involved in advisory efforts to design and scale tutoring efforts in our cities.</p><p>
<strong>Any advice for organizations struggling to adapt to the pandemic? A lot of time has passed, but we still unfortunately don't exactly know where we're at in terms of recovery.</strong></p><p>Do not try to do it all. Focus on your towering strengths to meet the extreme urgency of this moment. And then balance that with care for self and team. Try to act with both urgency and gentleness. The stake are high, and humans are fragile. </p><p>These turbulent times are hard, but also potentially transformative. Don’t lose sight of the hope.  </p> | Wallace editorial team | 79 | | 2021-03-18T04:00:00Z | How one afterschool program is balancing ‘urgency and gentleness’ for middle schoolers in these difficult times | | 4/5/2021 8:20:55 PM | The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / Creating Safe Spaces for Young People During the Pandemic How one afterschool program is balancing ‘urgency and gentleness | 1243 | https://www.wallacefoundation.org/News-and-Media/Blog/Pages/Forms/AllItems.aspx | html | False | aspx | |
| Survey of Large Cities Shows Afterschool Systems Have Staying Power | 42565 | GP0|#b804f37e-c5dd-4433-a644-37b51bb2e211;L0|#0b804f37e-c5dd-4433-a644-37b51bb2e211|Afterschool;GTSet|#a1e8653d-64cb-48e0-8015-b5826f8c5b61 | <p>Over the past two decades, we at Wallace have learned a lot about how afterschool systems work and how cities can go about building them. One thing we still didn’t know, however, was whether cities would be able to sustain their efforts to coordinate the work of out-of-school-time providers, government agencies and others over a period of years. Now, a new report by the nonprofit human development organization FHI 360 offers some answers.</p><p><a href="/knowledge-center/pages/stability-and-change-in-afterschool-systems-2013-2020-a-follow-up-study-of-afterschool-coordination-in-large-cities.aspx"><em>Stability and Change in Afterschool Systems, 2013-2020</em></a><em> </em>is a follow-up to an earlier study of 100 large U.S. cities, of which 77 were found to be engaged in some aspects of afterschool coordination. For the current report, the authors were able to contact 67 of those 77 cities. They also followed up with 50 cities that weren’t coordinating afterschool programs in 2013 and found a knowledgeable contact in 34 of them. </p><p>The report provides a snapshot of the state of afterschool coordination just before COVID-19 hit, causing the devastating closure of schools and afterschool programs. We recently had an email exchange with the lead authors, Ivan Charner, formerly of FHI 360 and Linda Simkin, senior consultant on the project, about what they found in their research and what the implications might be for cities looking to restore their afterschool services in the wake of the pandemic. Their responses have been edited for length and clarity. </p><p><strong>What do you consider the key findings of this research?</strong></p><p>We discovered that more than three-quarters of the 75 cities coordinating afterschool programs in 2013 were still coordinating in 2020. [<em>Two of the original 77 cities were left out of the study for methodological reasons.</em>] In addition, 14 cities that were not coordinating in 2013 had adopted some coordination strategies.  </p><p>Our study of the cities that sustained coordination between 2013 and 2020 explored the extent to which they had the three key components [of an afterschool system]: a coordinating entity, a common data system and a set of quality standards or a quality framework. Overall, there was an increase in the proportion of cities with all three components (from 29 percent in 2013 to 40 percent in 2020). There was a decrease in the percentage of cities with a coordinating entity but increases in the percentage with a common data system or a set of quality standards, or both.<br>
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Not surprisingly, funding was an important factor in whether or not cities had these components. Seventy-one percent of the cities that sustained their systems experienced either stable funding or increased funding over the past five years. A much higher percentage of cities reporting funding increases had all three coordination components compared to cities where funding remained the same or decreased. Increased funding was highly correlated with the presence of quality standards or a quality framework, in particular. </p><p>The commitment of a city or county leader to afterschool coordination was also important, as it was in 2013. Eighty percent of the cities that were still coordinating in 2020 characterized their current leaders as moderately or highly committed to afterschool coordination. There was a significant association between a high or moderate level of commitment and having a common data system in 2020.</p><p><strong>You found that at least three-quarters of the cities that were doing afterschool coordination in 2013 sustained their systems. What about the ones that didn’t? Were you able to identify possible reasons these cities dropped their systems?</strong> </p><p>A review of data collected for the 2013 study suggests that in some of these cities afterschool coordination was not firmly established (eight had one or none of the key coordination components). Another reason was turnover in city leadership, which brought with it changing priorities that resulted in decreases in funding for, and commitment of leadership to, afterschool coordination. In two cities, systematic afterschool coordination became part of broader collective impact initiatives. </p><p><strong>You found that more afterschool systems had a common data system and a quality framework or set of quality standards in 2020 than in 2013, but fewer had a designated entity responsible for coordination. What do you make of these changes, particularly the latter?</strong></p><p>Our finding that fewer cities had a designated coordinating entity in 2020 than in 2013 was surprising. Our survey question listed eight options covering different governance structures and organizational homes, so we’re fairly confident that the question wasn’t misinterpreted. We can only speculate about reasons for the change. It’s been suggested that mature systems may no longer see the need for a coordinating entity, which may be expensive to maintain. A coordinating entity such as a foundation or a United Way may have changed priorities, and systems may have collectively decided to operate without one, distributing leadership tasks among partners. Or cities may have been in the process of replacing the coordinating entity. This is one of those instances in which researchers generally call for further inquiry.</p><p>While it wasn’t within the scope of this study to investigate reasons for the increase in data systems and quality standards, we can speculate about why this occurred. More than half the cities that sustained their systems experienced increased funding, and that probably facilitated the development of both data systems and quality standards. One possibility is that, with the growing emphasis on accountability in the education and nonprofit sectors, funders may be calling for more supporting data. It’s also possible that cities or school systems decided to incorporate afterschool data into their own systems. It’s interesting to note that some respondents in cities without data systems were investigating them. </p><p>As for quality standards and assessment tools, we learned from anecdotal reports that cities had adopted templates and received training offered by outside vendors or state or regional afterschool networks, more so than came to our attention in 2013. </p><p><strong>In the context of the pandemic and the racial justice movement, what do you hope that cities will take away from this report?</strong> </p><p>The findings of this study present a picture of progress in afterschool coordination <em>before</em> the full impact of the challenges caused by the pandemic and the reckoning with social injustice and inequality. We’ve since learned that systems have renewed their commitment to ensuring the growing numbers of children and youth living in marginalized communities have access to high quality afterschool and summer programming that meets their social-emotional needs. Statewide out-of-school-time organizations and others have rapidly gathered and disseminated resources and tools to aid the response of afterschool providers and coordinating entities. Some intermediary organizations have shifted to meeting immediate needs, while others have found opportunities to partner more deeply with education leaders and policymakers to help plan ways to reconfigure and rebuild afterschool services.</p><p>This study gives us reason to believe that cities with coordinated afterschool programs will be in a strong position to weather these times because of their shared vision, collective wisdom, standards of quality, and ability to collect and use data to assess need and plan for the future. Not surprisingly, funding and city leadership continue to be important facilitators for building robust systems, and respondents in both new and emerging systems expressed a desire for resources related to these and other topics.<br></p> | Wallace editorial team | 79 | | 2021-03-11T05:00:00Z | Your source for research and ideas to expand high quality learning and enrichment opportunities. Supporting: School Leadership, After School, Summer and Extended Learning Time, Arts Education and Building Audiences for the Arts. | | 3/11/2021 4:49:54 PM | The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / Survey of Large Cities Shows Afterschool Systems Have Staying Power Authors of new report discuss why cities that | 1047 | https://www.wallacefoundation.org/News-and-Media/Blog/Pages/Forms/AllItems.aspx | html | False | aspx | |