ResearchNew research continues to point to the importance of quality out-of-school time (OST) learning as a key indicator for student success. By keeping youth occupied with activities to stimulate their minds, they are engaged and focused while simultaneously improving social skills, academic achievement and exposure to career aspirations. But high-quality, effective programs that provide enrichment and learning opportunities for students are often costly, making them unattainable for low-income families.
STATISTICS ON THE ACCESSIBILITY OF OST IN CENTRAL TEXAS
- There are 1.1 million children alone every day after school across the state of Texas. Only 678,989 Texas’ K-12 youth are served by afterschool programs for an average of 9 hours per week. (Afterschool Alliance)
- 70% of school-age youth did not have access to afterschool programs in 2004 Only 60% of surveyed afterschool providers serve middle and high school youth. About 50% of these providers maintained a waiting list of youth to be served. (Community Action Network: Frequently Asked Questions, 2004)
- Approximately 173,560 low income students attend public schools in Central Texas, 87% of which are classified as at-risk of dropping out of school based on state-defined criteria. The 21st Century Community Learning Center program, the largest source of funding for OST programs in Central Texas served only 16,933 students in school year 2010-11. Even with all other funding sources combined, it is unlikely that even half of the students in need are being served by high-quality OST programs. (CTAN website)
- Throughout Central Texas there is a lack of afterschool opportunities in our rural areas. According to a report published by the Finance Project, rural OST programs face a myriad of obstacles, ranging from limited tax base and eligibility for federal funding to support youth programming to staffing and transportation obstacles that make it difficult to provide and sustain high-quality OST programs. (CTAN website)
THE GOOD AND BAD OF DIVERSIED FUNDING
Although Central Texas is fortunate to have numerous OST providers that are supported by a mix of public funding from local, state, and federal sources, registration fees, and private contributions, this diverse financing is both a strength and weakness of OST in Central Texas. Diversified funding helps address the many different needs of young people and encourages creativity, flexibility, and collaboration with other systems. Diversity also means that each funding agency can impose its own objectives and administrative requirements, often making it difficult to administer programs and track effectiveness.
This inefficient fragmentation can create confusion for providers and make it difficult for policy-makers, school administrators, and parents seeking OST programs for their children to see the full picture of how the region’s resources are deployed to ensure that all young people are receiving the supports they need.
TO MAKE GOOD DECISIONS, PEOPLE NEED GOOD DATA
Luckily a solution is in sight. Community-based partners, such as the Central Texas Afterschool Network, and Ready by 21 Coalition to name a few, focus not only on optimizing student learning in and outside of the traditional classroom setting, but are working at every level to promote effective educational practices in out-of-school programming. These organizations work to reduce service duplication and identify gaps of OST program offerings, thereby maximizing existing resources to sustain quality school-based/school-linked afterschool programming and ensuring that OST programming is accessible to as many underserved youth as possible.
Together these networks, along with a consortium of other OST providers, have collected and built data points of their services under the Youth Services Mapping Project (YSM) project, which is a web-based repository of operations and programs that serve children in the Austin-area. In coordination with the data that is collected by YSM, CTAN plans to produce an OST mapping report to be published in early Fall 2011, which they will distribute to policy makers, funders, city planners, and afterschool service providers to develop a strategic direction for continued growth of the OST field.
In the spring of this year, KDK-Harman awarded a capacity building grant to CTAN for this exact aim. Jennifer Esterline, Executive Director of KDK-Harman Foundation commented, "By building the field of OST, CTAN's efforts will have broad implications for raising the profile of OST and its role in the public education debate in Texas. More and more research proves that it is the out-of- school time space where low-income kids fall behind and that this space is a significant factor in understanding the achievement gap. The more we can spread this message to not only build public awareness of the importance of this space, but support organizations like CTAN to build the sector, the more we will be able to fulfill our mission of closing achievement gaps for low-income students in Central Texas."
The launch and utilization of YSM does not come without its share of logistical challenges. In order to address the effective utilization, data entry, and analysis of OST programming, a series of community conversations and task forces are underway. Given KDK-Harman's refined funding priorities in OST, the Foundation looks forward to deepening our knowledge and collaboration with practitioners and thought leaders working toward increasing OST access, quality, data-based decision making, and sustainability.
Credits: Photo courtesy of Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders
