PUBLIC MEDIA AND EXPANDED LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES TRENDS: NEW...

August 29, 2011

With federal funding for educational programs growing increasingly scarce, it can seem daunting to identify potential funding streams to tap into. The Grant Center is working to help stations find new ways to access federal dollars -- possibly in programs you haven't considered before. One such area is around expanded learning opportunities, the "umbrella" concept that includes after-school, summer learning, extended day and year and other initiatives that provide children with more time for learning. Some stations have been doing this work in formal partnerships with schools or community providers for some time. Others are kicking off new projects as part of the new round of Ready To Learn funding. Public media can play a critical role in this work.

Let's look at some research:

Of incoming ninth graders, a third will drop out, while another third will graduate without college and work readiness skills. The need to engage and sustain more young people from elementary school through high school is urgent. High-quality expanded learning opportunities can bolster young people's engagement in school and improve their chance to graduate and achieve success in college and career.

• Only 8.4 million K-12 children (15 percent) participate in after-school programs, although research indicates that an additional 18.5 million would participate if a quality program were available in their community.
• The hours between 3:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. are the peak hours for juvenile crime and experimentation with drugs, alcohol, cigarettes and sex.
• Teens who do not participate in after-school programs are nearly three times more likely to skip classes than teens who do participate. They are also three times more likely to use marijuana or other drugs and are more likely to drink, smoke and engage in sexual activity.
• Research has demonstrated that a lack of student engagement can be a reliable predictor of whether or not a student will drop out of high school.
• Communities face challenges to implementing high-quality expanded learning programs including the need to develop curricula and engaging experiences that can be used by a wide range of groups in a wide range of settings.

Evaluators have found that students in high-quality programs achieved positive academic and social outcomes, such as improved attendance, grades, graduation rates, college acceptance rates and self-esteem.

• A 2007 study by the University of Chicago found that participants in an after-school program were 2.7 times as likely to graduate from high school than similar nonparticipating students.
• An analysis of 73 after-school studies concluded that after-school programs using evidence-based approaches were consistently successful in producing multiple benefits for youth, including improvements in children's personal, social and academic skills, as well as their self-esteem.
• One study found that participants in an after-school program improved their annual school-day attendance by nearly three weeks (14 days).
• "Summer slide" is felt most by high-need students, yet a mere five to 25 percent of high-need students in low-income communities have access to any kind of summer learning activity. When attending a high-quality summer learning program, however, students can make gains of as much as 5.3 months of grade-equivalent reading skills and 5.7 months of grade-equivalent math skills over just a five to six week program period. Research has found that the achievement gap between low-income and high-income students is due to "summer learning loss," but studies have found that a well-implemented summer learning program can have a significant impact on improving students' reading skills.

When it comes to engaging students, public media knows what it's doing. Children's favorite series are an excellent hook, and public media builds on that attention with additional resources and experiences on multiple platforms -- on air, online, on mobile devices and in classrooms -- that keep kids learning. Expanded learning programs provide an excellent opportunity for scaling implementation of public media educational resources. For example, the Super WHY! Summer Camps funded by Ready To Learn produced extraordinary results -- researchers found that after only five days of participation, children measurably improved their literacy skills.

Be sure to join the Grant Center for a webinar on September 29, 2011. We will discuss opportunities within this growing movement and learn more about what these experiences look like on the ground.