Accountability for After-School Care. Devising Standards and Measuring Adherence to Them
Abstract
Several long-term trends have led to increased interest on the part of the American public in how and where children spend their time after school. Among these are the following: * The percentage of parents at home when school lets out has steadily declined in the past several decades. * A number of highly publicized violent incidents have occurred involving children and adolescents. * A move toward academic accountability has increased attention to after-school programs as a means of improving school performance. In response to these concerns, the number of after-school programs has steadily risen over the past decade. As of the late 1990s, one of every six children aged six to twelve with employed mothers was participating in a before-or after-school program. Increased federal and state funding suggests that the number of such programs will in- crease in the coming years. In the case of the U.S. Department of Education's 21st Century Community Learning Centers programs, funding increased from $1 million in 1997 to $450 million in 2000, with $1.5 billion proposed for 2002 (After school Alliance, 2001). Given the proliferation of after-school programs, a greater premium is bound to be placed on information that helps in the design, selection, and management of such programs. With the sponsorship of Stone Soup Child Care Programs and additional support from the RAND Child Policy Project and the Promising Practices Network, we sought to provide information helpful for these purposes in two ways: * We identified a set of good management practices that currently available evidence and expert judgment indicate should be associated with quality child care. * As a case study, we assessed the degree to which Stone Soup's programs adhered to these good practices.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2001
- Accession Number
- ADA400299
Entities
People
- Alison Jacknowitz
- Angela Hawken
- Megan Beckett
Organizations
- RAND Corporation