A Conversation with Terry Peterson About the News Literacy Project (Part 2)

By Sam Piha

Terry Peterson has been an important figure in education and afterschool learning since before his service to the Clinton administration. See his full bio below. 

Q: Do you have any ideas of how we can bring the News Literacy Project into afterschool?

Terry Peterson

A: NLP is expanding in its three current locations: New York City, Chicago and the Washington, DC region. It is seeking new partners as well as funding to support the program in these areas. It is also seeking partners and financial support to expand the project to other locations, including Los Angeles.
 
Q: In the Learning in Afterschool & Summer Project, we promote 5 important learning principles: learning that is active, collaborative, and meaningful, expands horizons and promotes mastery.  How does this align with what you know about learning and engagement? 

A: Your learning principles fit very well with what we know about effective and engaging afterschool and summer learning programs.  These principles are even more important for older youth. 

Q: How do these principles align with the News Literacy Project?

A: These principals dovetail with NLP’s programs, both in the classroom and after-school. The project’s lessons are interactive and engaging. It stresses collaboration in its student projects. The focus is meaningful for students because it reaches them where they live – in a world saturated with news and information and through their devices, which is where they receive much of it. It expands horizons by bringing journalists and the world they cover into the classroom with authentic learning. It also encourages students to tell the stories of their communities and empowers them with the tools to do so accurately and fairly. Finally, NLP promotes mastery by giving students the critical-thinking skills to sort the credible from the incredible and helping them learn and use digital skills to engage effectively in the local, national and international conversation. 

Here is an example of bringing those principles to bear this fall in a classroom program: Youth Violence was produced by middle-school students in Chicago in 2011

Q: In California, all the dollars supporting afterschool learning opportunities for high school youth come from federal 21st CCLC funds (most of the funding for elementary and middle school programs come from protected state funds); how important do you think it is that we include high school age youth in the afterschool equation? 

A: It is very important that we include high school age youth in the afterschool equation. Nationwide this is a fairly new field of endeavor, so we don’t know a lot about how to do it well yet.  But this should not be an excuse to avoid working hard on developing more effective and efficient programming in afterschool and summer for older youth.  The reasons for providing quality expanded learning opportunities may be even more important for older youth, even though it is often more difficult to put all the key elements in place successfully.   Many high school age youth need more and better opportunities, time and helping hands to catch up, keep up and get ahead.

In this economy, graduating from high school and having the educational and personal experiences to possibly continue with career training or college beyond high school are critical if our young people today are going to be self sufficient and an active part of the American workforce, our democracy and economy.  Yet many middle and high school students get off track:

• by not being able to find subjects or occupations of interest so they are bored, 
• by failing core courses,
• by not accumulating enough of the “right courses” to graduate or prepare for future training or education, 
• by missing too many days of school or not turning in homework, or
• by not seeing the relevancy of the regular curriculum so they may disengage or act out. 

Expanded learning opportunities afterschool and/or summers can help some of these young people to get and keep on track.  Effective programs are engaging and personalized, utilize caring and energetic community and classroom teachers, tap into learning opportunities in the community, capture the creativity of the arts and/or excitement of discovery in science and involve families.

Clearly the Learning in Afterschool Project’s 5 important principles of learning that include being active, collaborative, and meaningful and that expand horizons and promote mastery are terrific starting points for designing and delivering afterschool programming for high school age students. 

There is growing concern that some of the proposals to extend the school day or year will simply extend the same typical school day or year and won’t include these principles in a meaningful way.  Just doing more of the same longer won’t make a positive difference for struggling students.  In addition, this approach is very expensive, potentially reducing or eliminating resources for expanding learning opportunities in better, less costly, partnership, and innovative ways afterschool, weekends and summers.

____________________

Dr. Terry K. Peterson served as counselor to former Education Secretary Richard Riley. Terry spearheaded numerous national education initiatives during the Clinton administration as well as state reforms as education adviser to Riley during his governorship of South Carolina. In both positions, Riley said, Terry was his “right-hand man.” He remains deeply involved in education as a senior fellow at the College of Charleston, director of the Afterschool and Community Learning National Network and chairman of the national Afterschool Alliance. Terry called the News Literacy Project "very impressive" and "a very important effort." 

A Conversation with Terry Peterson About the News Literacy Project (Part 1)

By Sam Piha

Terry Peterson has been an important figure in education and afterschool learning since before his service to the Clinton administration. See his full bio below. 

Q: Much has been written about the need to prepare young people for the 21st Century, and there has been an emphasis on critical thinking skills. What do we really mean when we talk about critical thinking skills? 

Terry Peterson

A: Because we are in such a rapidly changing world, knowing the basics is important but not sufficient to becoming an informed citizen and productive member of the American workforce.  As a result, there is a growing interest in afterschool and summer programs that can help students solve problems in creative and innovative ways. Students need to be able to compare and contrast solutions to problems. Also in this media and internet saturated environment there is a growing realization that “all information and news are not created equally, fairly and accurately.”  Thus, more than ever, our young people need to be critical thinkers and problem solvers. They also need the tools to be responsible and effective creators of news and information themselves.

 
Q: You recently were re elected to the board of the News Literacy Project and a member of the founding board. Can you briefly describe the mission and goals of this project? How does the News Literacy Project align with the need to develop critical thinking skills? 

A: The News Literacy Project connects seasoned journalists with schools and youth media programs to give students the critical-thinking skills to sort fact from fiction in the digital age. NLP also seeks to develop an appreciation of the standards of quality journalism and to light a spark of interest in news and information that matters. The project’s goal is to give young people the tools to become better students today and better-informed citizens tomorrow. It also wants to share those tools with teachers, librarians and other educators to reach as many students as possible. Working with educators, students and journalists, NLP has developed original curriculum materials that focus on such topics as discerning news from opinion, advertising and propaganda; determining the credibility of sources; the importance of the First Amendment; viral email; using Google and other search engines to find information, and the ethics of blogging. Most of the activities include one or more of the following elements: student discussion, engagement with journalists, and interactive challenges. Many require the use of multi-media technology, a focus that NLP encourages with its educators and journalist fellows. The curriculum is built on four pillars that address questions of critical importance:

• Why does news matter?

• Why is the First Amendment protection of free speech so vital to American democracy?

• How can students know what to believe?

• What challenges and opportunities do the Internet and digital media create?

The project aligns with critical thinking by getting students to ask questions about the credibility, accuracy and fairness of the news and information that students read, see and hear. It also helps to give students the tools to be responsible and effective creators of news and information themselves.

The project views news literacy as tantamount to literacy for the 21^st century and the skills it embodies essential to success as a student, a consumer and a citizen.

Q: Do you think this project is a good match for afterschool with older youth? If so, is it better designed for middle school youth or high school age youth? 

A: The project has already worked with students in after-school programs in New York and Chicago. The flexibility and additional time permits students to work collaboratively with each other and with NLP journalist fellows to learn valuable digital skills and to create compelling and substantive video and audio reports. In the case of the three pieces listed below, the students also presented their work to the community at showcase events. All three pieces are posted on NLP’s YouTube channel and the two audio pieces done in Chicago are on the PBS site as well. NLP has been successful at the middle-school level with its afterschool programs and feels this would also be a good fit at the high-school level. 

• East Harlem IS was produced by middle school students in New York City in partnership with NLP and Citizen Schools in 2009

• Peer Pressure was produced by middle-school students in Chicago in 2010 

• Video Games was produced by middle school students in Chicago in 2011

_______________________

Dr. Terry K. Peterson served as counselor to former Education Secretary Richard Riley. Terry spearheaded numerous national education initiatives during the Clinton administration as well as state reforms as education adviser to Riley during his governorship of South Carolina. In both positions, Riley said, Terry was his “right-hand man.” He remains deeply involved in education as a senior fellow at the College of Charleston, director of the Afterschool and Community Learning National Network and chairman of the national Afterschool Alliance. Terry called the News Literacy Project "very impressive" and "a very important effort." 

Measuring Learning in Afterschool

Corey Newhouse

By Guest Blogger, Corey Newhouse of Public Profit

In this blog post, I explore the ways in which we can measure learning in afterschool. This requires two complementary approaches:

1. Understanding the ways in which an afterschool program is structured to promote learning.
2. Exploring the extent to which young people are actually learning.

Why focus on how programs are set up? Aren’t we really just interested in whether the kids are learning something? Yes! But…

Program evaluation is all about establishing a strong link between participation and outcomes. We want to be able to state that a young person got better at something while they were in an afterschool program because the program is structured to do this. Without this link, any good things that happen for kids is more likely the result of other things, like what they’re doing in school or their other extracurricular activities, rather than to the afterschool program.

First, select a self-assessment or observational tool that explore whether afterschool programs are structured to support learning. (See the Learning in Afterschool Crosswalk article for some examples.) Select a tool that incorporates measures of:

• Whether young people have the opportunity to make meaningful choices;
•  Whether they have regular chances to reflect on what they are doing;
• The extent to which youth are encouraged to do more challenging things over time;
• The ways in which youth have opportunities to present their work to others.

Depending on the ages of the kids in the program, a program-level assessment should also explore the program’s “paths to leadership” – the structured ways that youth can assume successively higher levels of autonomy and responsibility.

There are lots of options to document the extent to which young people are learning new things. First and foremost, ask the kids! With a little context setting, youth can articulate the new things they’ve learned in afterschool, whether through a survey or quick interview. Asking youth to respond to the statement “I got better at something I care about in this afterschool program” is a simple way to establish whether participants attribute their own growth to the afterschool program.

Consider incorporating rubrics into assessments of young people’s accomplishments. Rubrics document different levels of performance, helping young people assess their own progress and making external reviews (i.e., by staff members or peers) clear and consistent. Rubrics are terrifically flexible, and can be developed for presentations, final products or portfolios. There’s a very good, free, guide to developing rubrics from University of San Francisco and a wonkier version from SRI.

To support continuous program improvement, explore links between program structure and kids’ growth. Are youth in particular activities showing especially strong progress? Do kids credit a particular method or routine as a really big help? This kind of input can point the way to further enhancements to assure that all kids are learning in afterschool.

_____________________________________
Corey Newhouse is Public Profit’s Founder and Principal.  Ms. Newhouse has a wide range of experience in evaluating programs that serve children and families. Ms. Newhouse earned her Bachelor’s degree from Columbia College and her Master’s degree from the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley.

Prior to founding Public Profit, Corey managed the evaluation division of Hatchuel Tabernik and Associates (HTA) where she was responsible for managing and performing dozens of youth service organization evaluation contracts totaling more than $1 million annually. Subsequent to her work at HTA, Ms. Newhouse was a Senior Policy Associate at Children Now where she was responsible for the development and publication of several widely released research reports.

Adding an 'S' to LIA

By Sam Piha

We know that young people learn across the day regardless of whether they're in school or out of school. We also know that much is to be learned during the summer months when school is closed. What is new is the knowledge that children suffer learning loss if they do not have quality learning experiences during the summer. Also, accumulated summer learning loss results in the serious achievement gap between those young people of means and low-income youth.

Because the quality of learning experience during the summer makes all the difference, we have expanded our Learning in Afterschool project to include learning in the summer. We have changed our banner to read Learning in Afterschool & Summer and will be adding additional outreach efforts to reach summer program providers and placing new resources on our website. We look forward to working closely with the Partnership for Children and Youth, the National Summer Learning Association, the Afterschool Alliance, and other important advocates for summer learning. 

A Response to an Interview with Alfie Kohn

Sam Piha

In our blog posted on October 11, 2011, we alerted our readers that Eric Gurna and his organization, Development Without Limits, is now offering Please Speak Freely, podcasts of interviews with afterschool and educational thought leaders. After a recent interview with education thinker, Alfie Kohn, Eric asked me to listen to the interview and respond as a guest blogger. My response follows below. 

A Critical Voice

By Sam Piha, Director of Temescal Associates

Over the last 25 years, Alfie Kohn has been a critical voice in education. He has, through his writings and presentations, urged us to focus on the child instead of the student; on learning instead of achievements. As the pressures of No Child Left Behind increased, he was unafraid to speak freely about these topics. Thus, it is most appropriate that he is featured on “Please Speak Freely.”

Alfie Kohn

I greatly enjoyed the lively exchange between Eric Gurna and Alfie Kohn, in particular their discussion of extended learning time, creativity, and motivating kids without the use of rewards or punishments. (If you also enjoyed the podcast, I highly recommend that you view some of Alfie Kohn’s video presentations on YouTube). 

The latest rage in educational reform seems to be the notion of extended learning time (ELT). We have known for some time that children learn regardless of the time of day or the particular season. This idea is not new to those in the afterschool and summer learning movements. However, ELT for many appears to be about extended seat time and extending the school day. In my recent interview with Karen Pittman (Forum for Youth Investment), she cautioned, “The most important thing to remember is simply that more time doesn’t necessarily equal more learning. Learning opportunities must be high quality if they are going to produce more learning – whether they happen in classrooms or CBOs.”

By Alfie Kohn

The critical questions facing those who are considering extending the school day, are who will be involved, what methods will be used, and what guidelines will shape quality learning experiences? In California, the Learning in Afterschool & Summer project is promoting that all extended learning be active, collaborative, meaningful, support mastery, and expanding the horizons of the participants.

Alfie Kohn and Eric also talked about the importance of promoting young people’s creativity. Creativity is re-entering the educational debate as evidence by two recent articles in Education Week. According to Sarah D. Sparks, “Teaching creativity has been a hot-button topic this fall, from the National Academy of Education's annual meeting in Washington to a Learning and the Brain conference in Boston. Yet researchers are just beginning to determine what makes some students more creative than their peers, and how the classroom environment can nurture or smother that ability.” You can also view an entertaining presentation by Sir Ken Robinson on how we can kill young people’s creativity.

By Alfie Kohn

Alfie Kohn also talked about how rewards and punishment for academic achievement do not motivate or increase young people’s learning. We know that young people have a built-in drive to learn about and master their environment and they experience an innate joy in this. The question for educators inside and outside of school, is how to tap into, and not extinguish, this natural drive. 

Daniel Pink and RSAnimate created an entertaining and brief video entitled “The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us.” He presents evidence that shows that being self-directed, the joy of mastery, and the sense of purpose trumps the offering of rewards. To only offer carrots and sticks for performance “assumes that we are just better smelling horses”.  His video provides good food for thought and I highly recommend afterschool program and educational leaders share it with their staff and facilitate the hearty discussions that will follow.

Measuring Soft Skills in OST Programs: An Interview with Nicole Yohalem, Part 2

By Sam Piha

The Learning in Afterschool project is promoting five learning principles that are well rooted in education and youth development research. Teachers and youth workers alike know that these principles are important to engaging young people in learning. Although these principles are vital to developing important skills, sometimes referred to as 21^st century skills, many refer to them as “soft”. Further, the lack of accessible tools that measure these skills has been a problem for the OST field. 

Recently the Forum for Youth Investment published From Soft Skills to Hard Data: Measuring Youth Program Outcomes, which offers a survey of measurement instruments that measure many of these skills. They include:

Nicole Yohalem

•      Communication
•      Relationships & Collaboration
•      Critical Thinking & Decision-making
•      Initiative & Self-direction

Below, we interview Nicole Yohalem (Forum for Youth Investment) one of the co-authors of this report.

Q: What criteria did you use in selecting instruments?

A: We considered several factors. First we looked for measures where a majority of the contents mapped directly onto one of our four areas of interest. We looked for measures that were appropriate for use in a range of settings, including OST programs, and focused on tools that can be used with upper elementary through high school age youth, since a lot of useful work has already been done by CASEL to review measures for use with younger children. We also prioritized measures that are accessible to practitioners and relatively easy to use. Because we are committed to ensuring practitioners have access to tools that yield reliable (consistent) and valid information, we also looked for instruments that at a minimum, had been investigated for scale reliability, factor structure and sensitivity to OST program impact. 

Q: How might the guide be helpful for OST programs?

A: In selecting measures there are some important things for program leaders to consider. First and foremost, outcome measures should reflect the goals and activities of the program. Programs should measure outcomes that they value and that they are actively trying to influence. Second, it is important to select measures that will yield reliable and valid information. Finally, there are all the practical issues to consider – cost, ease of administration and accessibility. 

The guide includes information about all of these considerations. For each instrument we summarize the origins and focus on the tool, include sample items, and discuss user and technical considerations. Where possible we also include information about length, cost, format, supplemental tools, and training. Our technical reviews focus on the extent to which reliability and validity have been established. 

Q: Finally, do you see this new resource helping to address any important risks or opportunities facing the OST/afterschool movement at this time? 

A: Unfortunately we haven’t done a good job of coming to consensus on what to call important skills like critical thinking and decision-making, relationships and collaboration, communication and initiative and self-direction. I hear these referred to as social-emotional skills, soft skills, 21^st century skills, new basic skills, higher-order thinking, non-academic outcomes…the list goes on. 

If we could get more consistent about naming these and measuring them, programs will be more likely to identify them as target outcomes and demonstrate their ability to move the dial on these skills. At the policy level, we have historically under-invested in programs that are good at developing these skills. With the education and business sectors increasingly recognizing their value to school and workplace success, we have a unique window of opportunity to demonstrate the important role that afterschool programs play in supporting learning and development. 

________________________________________________________________

Nicole Yohalem

Director of Special Projects, The Forum for Youth Investment

Nicole oversees Forum projects on out-of-school time, postsecondary success and bridging research, policy and practice; speaks on behalf of the Forum at national conferences and events; and serves as an advisor to several foundations, organizations and initiatives connected to the Forum. She has authored numerous reports, articles and commentaries, and oversees several regular Forum publications, such as the Ready by 21, Credentialed by 26 issue brief series.

Measuring Soft Skills in OST Programs: An Interview with Nicole Yohalem, Part 1

By Sam Piha

The Learning in Afterschool project is promoting five learning principles that are well rooted in education and youth development research. Teachers and youth workers alike know that these principles are important to engaging young people in learning. Although these principles are vital to developing important skills, sometimes referred to as 21^st century skills, many refer to them as “soft”. Further, the lack of accessible tools that measure these skills has been a problem for the OST field. 

Recently the Forum for Youth Investment published From Soft Skills to Hard Data: Measuring Youth Program Outcomes, which offers a survey of measurement instruments that measure many of these skills. They include:

Nicole Yohalem

•      Communication
•      Relationships & Collaboration
•      Critical Thinking & Decision-making
•      Initiative & Self-direction

Below, we interview Nicole Yohalem (Forum for Youth Investment) one of the co-authors of this report.

Q: Of the many important skills, why did you focus on the four skill areas presented in your paper?

A: We didn’t want to create a new framework because there is so much good 

existing work out there.  So in identifying these four areas to focus on, we reviewed commonly used and cited frameworks from the Collaboration for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL); the Partnership for 21^st Century Skills; and the U.S. Department of Labor. We identified the common constructs across those frameworks, focusing specifically on skill-oriented outcomes and those that are amenable to intervention by afterschool programs. We also focused on skills that are cross-cutting, which means we left some things out that relate to specific content knowledge (e.g., technology, global awareness). That’s how we came to communication, relationships & collaboration, critical thinking & decision-making and initiative & self-direction. We aren’t suggesting this is a comprehensive list of important skills, or that these are the only skills afterschool programs should focus on. We may tackle additional areas in an updated report next year.

Q: Why are these “soft skills” deemed important?

A: There is growing evidence and recognition that these skills and dispositions are critical – to academic success, workplace success, and to overall wellbeing.  Teachers, students, parents and Fortune 500 companies all think these kinds of skills are critical. In a 2006 national survey of employers, collaboration, work ethic and communication were among the most important skills necessary to succeed in the workplace. On the academic side, focusing on social skills is linked with developing a positive connection to school, improved behavior, and increased achievement.

Q: What do you see as the role of OST programs to build these skills? In other words, why are OST programs well positioned to build these skills?

A: We feel these kinds of outcome areas could really be a strategic niche – in economic terms – a “comparative advantage” for many youth programs. Afterschool programs operate with limited resources yet have significant flexibility compared to schools. These are skills that youth programs are good at building and supporting, and they matter for learning and development.

Q: Why did you think it was important to identify instruments to measure these skills?

A: We know that high quality afterschool programs can help young people develop these and other skills, but to live up to this potential, activities need to align with outcomes and programs need tools that are accessible and that do a good job of measuring them. When you are tracking things like attendance, grades or standardized test scores, which many afterschool programs do, data are typically obtained from school records, which means program leaders and evaluators rarely face decisions about what instrument to use.

To be continued in Part 2

________________________________________________________________

Nicole Yohalem

Director of Special Projects, The Forum for Youth Investment

Nicole oversees Forum projects on out-of-school time, postsecondary success and bridging research, policy and practice; speaks on behalf of the Forum at national conferences and events; and serves as an advisor to several foundations, organizations and initiatives connected to the Forum. She has authored numerous reports, articles and commentaries, and oversees several regular Forum publications, such as the Ready by 21, Credentialed by 26 issue brief series.

How Kids Learn: LIA's First Conference

By Sam Piha

On January 27th, over 180 people from across California and the country met at the David Brower Center in Berkeley to hear from experts on How Kids Learn - the first conference sponsored by the Learning in Afterschool project. Participants included representatives from school districts, youth organizations, private funders, the State Department of Education, and afterschool advocates.

Experts shared their best thinking and recent research in 20 minute presentations to the audience. Speakers included Paul Heckman, Associate Dean of Education at UC Davis; Michael Merzenich, a leading brain researcher at UC San Francisco; Alexis Menten from the Asia Society; Shawn Ginwright, a professor and community practitioner from San Francisco State University; youth from San Francisco's Youth Empowerment Fund; Carol Tang from the Coalition for Science After School; and many others. For a complete list of presenters, see the How Kids Learn website.


Thanks to the youth and young adults of Change Agents, we will feature a videotape of each presentation on our Learning in Afterschool YouTube channel in the very near future.

Clockwise: Paul Heckman, Michael Merzenich, Alexis Menten,
Shawn Ginwright, Youth Empowerment Fund, and Carol Tang.

Afterschool for Older Youth and More: An Interview with Karen Pittman, Part 2

By Sam Piha

Karen Pittman

Karen Pittman is President and CEO of Forum for Youth Investment and is known nationally as the leading advocate for youth development. Many credit her with launching the youth development movement and being an important thought leader promoting policies and systemic approaches to supporting young people's development, including the Ready By 21 initiative. See her full bio below. 

Q: In California, all the dollars supporting afterschool learning opportunities for high school youth come from federal 21st CCLC funds (most of the funding for elementary and middle school programs   come from protected state funds); how important do you think it is that we include high school age youth in the afterschool equation?

A: It’s critically important that teenagers, and especially our most vulnerable youth, have access to supports and opportunities geared toward helping them build skills, connect with positive adults, and navigate the transition to adulthood. This is especially important given how many young people are not on track to graduate and how many more are not on track to graduate college and career-ready. California’s funneling all of its 21st CCLC dollars to high school programming has been a boost for the field as you all have had a chance to innovate programmatically and experiment with things like credit recovery.


Q: What do you see as the major risks and opportunities facing the out-of-school time (OST) movement?

A: I think the conversation that is unfolding about expanded learning opportunities represents a real opportunity for the field. The education community is acknowledging schools alone cannot ensure all young people are ready for college, work and life. The business community is acknowledging that young people need more opportunities to develop 21st century skills. Communities are building infrastructure to support broad goals, meaningful partnerships, and shared data. Now is the time for OST programs to shore up their commitment to quality and to put a stake in the ground about the kinds of outcomes they want to be held accountable for. If test scores and grades are not necessarily the best things to measure success by – what is? The development of communication, collaboration, and critical thinking skills? Creativity? Hope? We need to do a better job of naming and measuring outcomes we know are critical to youth success and that programs can influence.   

_________________________________________________________________________

Karen Pittman is a co-founder, President and CEO of the Forum for Youth Investment. She started her career at the Urban Institute, conducting numerous studies on social services for children and families. Karen later moved to the Children’s Defense Fund, launching its adolescent pregnancy prevention initiatives and helping to create its adolescent policy agenda. In 1990 she became a vice president at the Academy for Educational Development, where she founded and directed the Center for Youth Development and Policy Research and its spin-off, the National Training Institute for Community Youth Work.

In 1995 Karen joined the Clinton administration as director of the President's Crime Prevention Council, where she worked with 13 cabinet secretaries to create a coordinated prevention agenda. From there she moved to the executive team of the International Youth Foundation (IYF), charged with helping the organization strengthen its program content and develop an evaluation strategy. In 1998 she and Rick Little, head of the foundation, took a leave of absence to work with ret. Gen. Colin Powell to create America’s Promise. Upon her return, she and Irby launched the Forum, which later became an entity separate from IYF.

Extended Learning Time and More: An Interview with Karen Pittman, Part 1

, 

Karen Pittman

By Sam Piha


Karen Pittman is President and CEO of Forum for Youth Investment and is known nationally as the leading advocate for youth development. Many credit her with launching the youth development movement and being an important thought leader promoting policies and systemic approaches to supporting young people's development, including the Ready By 21 initiative. See her full bio below. 

Q: You have recently cautioned us to think more clearly about diverting funds and efforts to expand learning time by expanding the school day.  Can you briefly summarize your concerns?

A: Ensuring that all young people are ready for college, work and life requires integrated communitywide commitments to learning. While the current push to expand learning time offers some great opportunities, it could actually have the opposite effect of decreasing overall learning time in communities. This is because if public funding currently available to community-based organizations through programs like the 21st Century Community Learning Centers is redirected toward schools, some CBOs will have to reduce their programming or even shut down.  


Also, a shift toward schools alone being held accountable for expanded learning time could destabilize effective collaborations that are finally in place, actively supporting effective community-school partnerships. But the most important thing to remember is simply that more time doesn’t necessarily equal more learning. Learning opportunities must be high quality if they are going to produce more learning – whether they happen in classrooms or CBOs. 

Q: The Learning in Afterschool Project is stressing the need to increase learning engagement in OST programs by promoting 5 learning principles that should characterize how we design activities in afterschool programs.  These principles are: learning that is active, collaborative, meaningful, supports mastery and expands horizons. Can you comment on which of these you think are most important?

A: They are all critical. Your principles reflect what our own field experience and research suggest about the characteristics of effective learning environments. They speak to both staff practices and program content, which is important. I think that working toward mastery, which goes right to the intersection of program content and staff practices – is something we need to be more intentional about in out-of-school time (OST) settings. Ensuring that young people have opportunities to engage in activities that build their skills and interests over time can be difficult in settings where participation and staffing patterns aren’t always as consistent as school.


Q: Do you have any advice of how best to get these principles better integrated in our expectations of afterschool programs?

A: In our experience generating data that give staff concrete feedback about the extent to which they are implementing these principles and the kinds of practices that support them is extremely  powerful. We know that professional development as usual – sending staff off to a training here and a training there – does not change organizational practice in sustained ways.  The Forum’s Center for Youth Program Quality is working with over 60 networks of OST programs around the country to build their capacity to do this kind of continuous quality improvement work. This kind of data-driven continuous quality improvement approach is the direction that education and other human services fields are moving as well.

___________________________________________________________________

Karen Pittman is a co-founder, President and CEO of the Forum for Youth Investment. She started her career at the Urban Institute, conducting numerous studies on social services for children and families. Karen later moved to the Children’s Defense Fund, launching its adolescent pregnancy prevention initiatives and helping to create its adolescent policy agenda. In 1990 she became a vice president at the Academy for Educational Development, where she founded and directed the Center for Youth Development and Policy Research and its spin-off, the National Training Institute for Community Youth Work.

In 1995 Karen joined the Clinton administration as director of the President's Crime Prevention Council, where she worked with 13 cabinet secretaries to create a coordinated prevention agenda. From there she moved to the executive team of the International Youth Foundation (IYF), charged with helping the organization strengthen its program content and develop an evaluation strategy. In 1998 she and Rick Little, head of the foundation, took a leave of absence to work with ret. Gen. Colin Powell to create America’s Promise. Upon her return, she and Irby launched the Forum, which later became an entity separate from IYF.

Ongoing Debate On Using 21st CCLC Funds for Extending the School Day

By Sam Piha


On this blog we have been following the discussions nationwide about whether or not to allow 21st CCLC funds for afterschool to be diverted to extending the school day. We have interviewed several advocates, including Jennifer Davis and Carla Sanger, about this topic. 


Recently, the Washington Post posted a blog that featured differing views authored by Jennifer Davis, co-founder and president of the National Center on Time & Learning, and Jodi Grant, executive director of the nonprofit Afterschool Alliance. To read their comments and the comments of many readers, click here.