Hanaa Arafat spearheaded an appeal effort that had a big statewide impact in New York, by gently but rigorously insisting that the State maintain standards of fairness in how they dole out grants for afterschool programs

 

"The self-reporting mechanism to document poverty [is] discriminatory, because teenagers do not want to self-report on this."
       – Hanaa Arafat

Transcription Available: read here or download pdf

Measuring Need is Not Always Simple

By Kiran Gaudioso, Vice President of Program Operations for New Jersey After 3

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the conversation between Hannah and Eric. They discussed an extremely important aspect of grant writing and data collection. As those of us in the youth development and education sector know, the use of the free and reduced lunch data is an accepted measure to prove “need” within a particular school community. However for high schools, as Hannah explained, it isn’t necessarily the best way to measure community and school “need,” for two reasons: 1) it requires families to self report their status. High school students don’t want to be viewed as poor or in need, so high school students have a tendency to not submit a request for free and reduced lunch benefits. 2) NYC High Schools tend to draw students from all over the five boroughs, requiring students to commute up to two hours each way. These transportation logistics make it even harder to collect parent information, such as free and reduced lunch needs, because the parents are rarely in the school building.

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Simple logistics coupled with a student’s desire to fit in can significantly impact the ability of a school to demonstrate true community need.  But, no one had officially raised the issue with the NY State Department of Education before. That is, until Hanaa received notification that her organization didn’t receive funding for a 2010 proposal to the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program to support the afterschool programs at Murray Bergtraum High School because of a lack of “community need.”  That is when she started to peel back the process layers to uncover the need for change in the current data collection standards.

After identifying what Hanaa believed to be a lack of fairness in the 21st Century Community Learning Center process, she wrote an appeal asking for reconsideration to the NY State comptroller. She explained her concerns in a professional and concise manner that motivated other organizations and policymakers to take notice and get involved as well. Other issues related to the review process also surfaced - such as how the peer review was conducted.

In the world of grant writing, this situation highlights the need for data requirements to accurately represent the community and population being discussed in the grant application.  It emphasizes the need to dig deeper into data to truly understand how information is collected, who collected it, and when and where it was collected.  We can’t always assume that a chart of statistics tells the entire story.

Hanaa’s story serves as a great example of how one person can be moved to action and engage others in a simple yet significant issue.  In a time of tremendous change in the youth development and education sectors, it is re-assuring to know that basic principals of fairness and equal process are important to decision makers and that a process exists to invite dissent and explore other options.

I think others will appreciate the passion, integrity, and sense of justice that Hanaa shared throughout the interview. She inspired me to more carefully keep in mind that each community, school, family and child are unique, and not simply a point of data on a spreadsheet.

 

"You've got to try lots and lots of different things and think about lots of crazy ideas and you have to be comfortable that most of them will fail. But if one of them is a great idea and it sticks, you're successful."
       – Brad Lupien

Transcription Available: read here or download pdf

Youth Workers Are a Lifeline

By Deepmalya Ghosh, LCSW-R; Director of Youth Development Programs, The Child Center of NY

Brad Lupien is an idealist and an entrepreneur in the field of youth development. In his world, every young person would have an Individualized-Education Plan (better known as an IEP).  He thinks that we need to find cost effective ways to deliver services with dollars invested, whether from the public or private sector. With the zeal of Robin Hood, he believes that there can be a symbiosis between the non-profit and the for-profit world and challenges executives to see this. I found the dialogue on this episode of  Please Speak Freely to be passionate, inspiring and a good reminder of how important it is to think, “out of the box.”

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I thought I heard two distinctly different episodes of Please Speak Freely, in this episode, as two major topics were touched upon (and I admit enjoying both!) The first episode, I would call: Youth worker vs. Credentialed Social Worker and the second, Social Service Business Models. While I love both of these topics, I’ve only responded to the first of the two episodes…

As mentioned, Lupien works toward the ideal of seeking an IEP for every young person! An IEP for every young person! And, really, WHY NOT?  This is something that we should all aspire toward as providers in human service. Social work practitioners, for years, have been challenged with documentation and often see the need to keep notes as being part of, “the bureaucracy.” But the framework of good and professional work is in being able to conceptualize efforts on paper and the best social workers are also the best note keepers. An adjusted IEP (of some kind) would simply uplift the game of youth work, especially if all youth workers were made accountable to keep notes. A well-designed document can be the best educational tool for any worker.

Perhaps, Lupien did not intend that the IEP’s be done by a “professional,” and my assumption is that again we’re talking about a social worker or guidance counselor completing such. Here is where I would push farther…in order to make this dream come true, policy makers and funders and social workers/guidance counselors need to recognize the cost-effective strategy of using youth workers as the means of bringing this home. In the education world, IEP’s are only reserved for those that tend to be in the special education system, but really…if we consider this carefully, it just might be a better way to go, to teach youth developers to work within normative organizational structures, to create an individual plans for the thousands that we serve? We’d essentially be training differing levels of staff in good casework practice, in developing habits of highly effective people and in joint goal planning!

I guess that this resonates with me, because this topic relates to my own career as graduate-level, credentialed and licensed social worker. In my first years in the field of human service, I worked as a clinician providing psychotherapy to youth involved in the foster-care system and then after initial success in this area, was moved into a management role focused on the opening of a Beacon Center in NYC. At this juncture in my career, I was forced to see many limitations in understanding life through a clinical eye. Transitioning from a, ‘symptom-driven referral-only culture,” to an asset-based structure that engaged young people with services, opportunities and supports led me down a different path that ultimately challenged my core understanding of an individual’s capacity to change, particularly those that we serve and under what conditions folks are inspired to change.

In youth work, with a point of entry coming via a different route, peers and mentors develop trust more easily and readily than some of the best social workers…whether credentialed therapists or not. In fact, within my first year, neighborhood youth workers…primarily college students from the local neighborhood, who were on my staff often playfully challenged me to explain why I relied so heavily on social work staff to engage our more disengaged youth participants. They challenged me to see how deeply they, themselves, had engaged even the hardest to reach and done so with remarkable ease.  Essentially, youth workers are much more able to engage a young person, “where they are at,” because they’ve already been there and often pretty recently.

Lupien suggests that youth workers in afterschool programs can act as “support staff,” to the social workers and guidance counselors, who are too often overburdened with enormous caseloads. I believe that, although perhaps unintended, this small comment does not fully recognize the power and potential of youth work & mentoring. He does go on to touch upon the important training regimen he’s implemented in Champions (now ARC) programming, which my dream can’t be realized without. This is a direction that we’ve all reached in the afterschool field, as the potential for youth work to address gaps in social-emotional learning has come to the forefront. A steady professionalization of the field has taken place through identification of core competencies and through the public’s steady dependence on afterschool programs.

The ideal that Lupien dreams of and that I join him in…having every young person involved in afterschool programs, with an IEP is sadly brilliant in that it is so obvious. And while I am a strong proponent for the role of the youth worker, I do not want to marginalize the equal importance of credentialed social work staff, who can specialize in digging deeper and in more readily getting at root-causes with their clients. I wonder if, however, the greater ideal is to see that guidance counselors and credentialed social workers can be the “support system,” for the youth worker…who far more often, is the lifeline for our most disengaged…or even our most successful and engaged.

The 2012 PASEsetter Award Winners (from right to left): Sadie Mahoney, Fabyiene Miranda,
Deena Hellman, Mi Jung You, and Patrick Pinchinat.

The PASEsetter Awards Celebrates Afterschool

By Jodi Grant, Executive Director, Afterschool Alliance

Most of us don’t stop to celebrate our work often enough. I think it is especially true for those in afterschool, where new and seemingly intractable challenges crop up daily, and certainly in advocacy, when success can be hard to measure and troubling policy proposals threaten the progress we’ve made to date.

Thanks to PASE and its awards, we have a moment to stop and reflect on the amazing work that makes our field so special. These awards shine a light on individuals who are literally transforming lives.

PASEsetters Deena Hellman, Mi Jung You, Faybiene Miranda, Patrick Pinchinat and Sadie Mahoney don’t let any challenge thwart their efforts to support youth. From starting new projects like a Guys and Girls discussion group, to engaging external resources to help a struggling student succeed, to securing a mental health counseling license, they are constantly finding ways to better serve their communities.  They are resourceful, dogged, inspired.

Thanks to the efforts of Afterschool Champions like John Shutkin, our PASEsetters are able to keep doing their amazing work serving youth. As we know well here at the Afterschool Alliance, working to ensure access to quality afterschool programming is no small endeavor.

That’s why we also need to use the PASE Awards as an excellent opportunity to educate our leaders on the difference afterschool makes. If you find inspiration in the PASEsetters, or in the daily work of your afterschool program, share it with your leaders. Call, write or invite them to visit.

Or, join us in calling on Congress for more afterschool resources at the Afterschool for All Challenge this May 8-9 in Washington, D.C.  (Registration is on me for any PASEsetter Awardees!)

We’ve got a long way to go to get afterschool the resources and respect it deserves, but thanks to PASE and its awardees I’ve got an extra spring in my step as I head out to advocate today on behalf of quality afterschool and summer programs, and the youth who rely on them.

"I'm very worried that the move towards the business is best approach, right throughout society, is eroding older traditions of solidarity and working together, and cooperation and community in the public spirit, which are the things we are going to need to get us out of the mess that we're in."
       – Michael Edwards

Transcription Available: read here or download pdf

I can’t remember how I first came across Michael Edwards’ book, Small Change, Why Business Won’t Save the World, but it was a rarely engrossing experience for me. I love to read, but I often skim the non-fiction stuff, and I was surprised to find myself highlighting passages, dog-earing pages and reading lines aloud to whoever happened to be nearby. I even bought a stack of them and started giving them away – to me the book is somewhat of a manifesto, and I wanted others to share my fascination. Small Change is a thin paperback that packs a punch – it’s a critique of the current culture and system of philanthropy, and more than that it’s a sharp analysis of where we are as a culture in general.

I had a great conversation with Mr. Edwards at his home in Swan Lake, NY. We talked about how the current definition of education reform – a package of policies that all amount to a move towards privatization and a reliance on “market forces” – is part of a larger agenda that puts more value on efficiencies than values, and makes false assumptions about the power of business-like practices. I hope you enjoy the talk, along with a guest blog by Jakada Imani, Executive Director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights (and also my best friend since seventh grade).

There Are Questions That Business-Thinking Can’t Answer

By Jakada Imani, Executive Director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights

It would be silly (and destructive) to attempt to run a business as though it was a kindergarten. With naptime, finger paintings, and slowly taking time to teach people to do the simplest things no matter how much repetition is involved, kindergarten-minded businesses would likely fail in the first year. Even if our model were a world-class kindergarten, it would be a bad idea. The fundamental missions of early childhood education and business are distinct. The main goal of business is to maximize profits. The main goal of kindergarten is to teach children social development; there are very few lessons that you could ever really apply from a well-run playschool to business. But we are more and more confronted with the inverse proposition - that education and human service organizations should run like businesses.

When I first heard this concept, I thought it referred to efficiencies and effectiveness. But I have come to understand this as an attack on the public and social sectors, an attack on public investment in and for public good. The notion that everything can be done efficiently and for a profit is almost everywhere. Recently I wrote a piece for HuffPost about the profit motive in private prisons. We can learn a lot from great, well run companies. I have been deeply inspired by entrepreneurs. But business does not have a lock on excellence. In fact many for-profits are poorly run and most fail. And fail miserably. For every Facebook there are a thousand Friendsters. And that’s fine for widgets, or social network sites. But not for the education of our children, not for economic development of our community and not for the future of our country. For these endeavors we need to focus as much or more on long-term outcomes and the health of the human family as we do on the cost per unit.

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As Michael Edwards points out on this epsidode of Please Speak Freely, and in his book, Small Change: Why Business Won’t Save the World, if we use a market approach, the hardest people to serve and the toughest problems often get over looked or strategically ignored. Which is increasingly the reality of people that live in  under-served communities. They are mostly left to fend for them selves. One example of this is so-called “food deserts,” where communities have scant access to healthy food. The market that serves these communities provides high fructose corn syrup and white flour by the truckload and little in the way fruits or vegetables. This raises the question, is healthy food a privilege or a human right?

As Eric pointed out in the cast, the per person cost is too high and the “return on investment” too low to make the work “profitable” in these type of cases. Why? This means that some folks are left out and left behind – left. Left behind when we think about education, adequate housing, economic development and an effective public safety approach. These are the types of communities I was raised in and that our work at the Ella Baker Center focuses on. Not because it is cost effective or easy, but because it is the right thing, the moral thing to do.

This is why I believe that we must have clear separation between public/social sector and business thinking. If we go with the market thinking we can argue that some people in our communities are too expensive to serve, and therefore we should leave them behind. That some folks are worth the investment and some people - the poor, folks of color, immigrants, disabled people, and so on - are not. Cost-benefit analysis and profit margin approaches are not the values from which we should judge the worth of helping everyone live with dignity and peace.  

What is the cost of a human life? What is the cost of a broken life, dashed dreams? These are questions that markets can’t answer.

Transcription Available: read here or download pdf

Alfie Kohn is a busy man, and I had to be pretty pushy to get him to agree to be a guest on Please Speak Freely. As the author of bestselling books Punished By Rewards, The Schools Our Children Deserve, Beyond Discipline and more, Mr. Kohn pretty much embodies the title of the podcast, and his work has been incredibly important to me – he’s shaped my perspective on youth work more than any other writer. Our conversation ranged widely – we talked about charter schools, expanded learning time, Race to the Top, and the dark side of using extrinsic rewards to motivate both young people and adults. He doesn’t pull any punches, but his views are always grounded in solid research and compassion for young people and families. It wasn’t until we wrapped up the interview and I took his picture that I noticed the giant frog balloon gazing admiringly at him the entire time.

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.”

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.”

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.

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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.

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.

Sam Piha began his career as a classroom teacher and later as a family therapist. In 1985, Sam began his work managing and promoting afterschool programs. He has been an important figure in the growth of the afterschool movement and a strong advocate for programs serving older youth. Sam is presently Founder and Director of Temescal Associates, an educational and afterschool consulting group in Oakland, CA.

This episode of Please Speak Freely is all about food. I sat down with Crystal FitzSimons of the Food Research Action Center at the Bridge Conference in Seattle last October, and learned a lot about how school lunches, snacks and suppers are funded and provided, and the efforts being made to ensure high-quality nutrition. Because I am recording the podcasts faster than I can edit and post them, some time passed before I got a chance to listen to the conversation, and I happen to read a gripping article in the NY Times called, “How the Food Industry Eats Your Kid’s Lunch,” and immediately reached out to the author of the piece, Lucy Komisar, who was kind enough to sit down with me as well. The two conversations provide interesting perspectives on an important issue. Having worked on the Healthy Children, Healthy Futures program for many years, and because I love to cook (and of course, love to eat), the issue of what we feed kids matters to me very much, and I hope you enjoy the conversation. Coming soon…my conversation with one of my professional heroes, Alfie Kohn.

Let’s Focus on Healthy Food Solutions

By Rhys Powell, Founder & President, RedRabbit

When I listen to these types of interviews, I cannot help but think how this is mostly a community issue and that we all need to work together to create a systemic change. I believe we can have an impact on the issues facing our society in this area if we focus on both ends of the spectrum—the bottom-up local grass roots level and the top down regulatory and government level. I would like to talk about that theme first, using the conversation with Crystal Fitzsimmons &Lucy Komisar, as a starting point. Then I’d like to expand on some of the key points that they brought up with more specificity.

From the top:
We live in a country where USDA nutrition standards consider(using only a few examples here) pizza and french fries as vegetables—which means they can be served to our school-aged children every day of the week. If that is the standard that we set; if the bar is set at that low a level, then kids are far from safe. No one can re-invent the system overnight, but parents and educators need to step up and say, “this is not helping our children and it must change.”

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Here is another awful oversight in our current system:refined foods. None of the school nutrition standards in place today address those at all. Until Congress changes the guidelines, large companies will not change what they serve. We all know pesticides, chemicals and preservatives are horrifically bad for us—as kids and adults. Yet, we treat all fruits and vegetables the same. Do you think peaches that were grown on a farm 50 miles away and picked yesterday have the same nutritional value as those that were picked 6 months ago, shipped half way around the world,dumped into a sugary syrup (most likely high fructose corn syrup) and canned?Take a look at the typical school lunch fare and you will find more of the latter than the former.

Though I think the Let's Move Campaign is a terrific first attempt at setting a good example, we need to go further and deeper into the system to make wellness, fitness and healthy food options something all kids—of all socioeconomic backgrounds—have access to.

From the bottom:
Companies like Red Rabbit go above and beyond to provide top notch meal programs using local, sustainable food sources—typically at the same price as the current poor quality options found in most schools. Parents and educators are reaching out to smaller companies for all of the above—and something else—education and support of local suppliers.

Through partnerships with local and regional suppliers, we are able to contribute to the health of our local economy and also provide operational efficiencies that translate into savings which we then pass onto our parents and schools through competitive pricing. Other similar organization like City Fresh Foods in Boston,and DC Central Kitchen in Washington DC have made the health and wellness of children and the local community a greater priority than making a profit.

Additionally, by combining healthy meal programs with nutrition and cooking education, we can extend the benefits of healthy eating beyond the classroom and into the home. Local NY based non-profits like the Children’s Aid Society, The Palette Fund and Food Fight (to name a few), are all making a concerted effort to embed nutrition education as a basic component of our education system.

In response to the INTERVIEW with CRYSTAL:

I agree with Crystal that there is a huge need for more summer and after-school programs, but the food quality in the majority of those programs is also questionable. Small companies like ours want to do something about food insecurity but we are often discouraged by all the regulations. We are willing and able to provide healthy food in a safe manner, but someone has to step in and help us navigate the “endless administration and red tape” that surrounds the system.

In terms of packaging and waste, we encourage schools to use a family style approach in place of individual packaging. As adults we have all dined family style or buffet style at events ranging from fancy banquets, to small neighborhood pot lucks, so why can't our kids in school?This approach typically requires a greater initial effort from the school, so Red Rabbit provides the training and support to help them through it. Teachers don’t think they have options for both healthier food and more sustainable practices, but they do—just look away from large conglomerates that put convenience and profit ahead of our kids’ health,towards local community based organizations.

I strongly counter the assumption made that healthy always means more expensive because we have proven since our inception that it doesn't have to. Through a careful selection of local and regional vendors, and our commitment to sustainability and streamlined operations, we are able to take the waste out of our business—literally. This enables us to offer far healthier choices to our schools and kids—at, or even below, the federal reimbursement program level. It has been a challenge, but one that we're proud of.

In response to the INTERVIEW with LUCY KOMISAR:

The relationship between food service management companies and food manufacturing companies is a great topic. If the question is “can a school can provide healthy meals to kids at an affordable rate if there is no rebate offer?”, then the answer is most definitely yes. Do you think districts/schools are aware that they risk reimbursements based on these rebates? Schools and districts should feel empowered to look for options that make their net costs the same—and are far better for their students and kids health. If small providers like us are able to achieve better quality, and healthier options with a commitment to the local economy—let’s not make the conversation about these rebates at all.

I would like to steer the conversation away from the ills of the current system and onto the cure: a dose of good and simple corporate responsibility. Red Rabbit is proud to be an early supporter of the new B-corp/Benefit Corporation. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s a new breed of company that ties social benefit directly into their business model. We like to call it “doing well by doing good.”
Bottom line, I recommend a follow-up special segment to discuss solutions not just the issues. We all know that traditional school lunches are bad, that the poor typically get the short end of the stick, and that there is a huge obesity issue in this country. Without effort at the top, and at the grass roots level, like I spoke to above—we are just talking in circles. It is important that people hear about real world solutions and examples, and about who is succeeding in our current environment. It’s a mission that companies like Red Rabbit have had since 2005, well before it was a national trend.

Transcription Available: read here or download pdf

As a youth development organization, Rich Berlin and his team did an audacious thing – they started their own school. What began as a notion to revive baseball in the inner city grew, until Harlem RBI was a major resource to the East Harlem community, and then they founded DREAM Charter School. I had a frank and interesting conversation with Rich, Harlem RBI’s executive director and the chair of the charter school. Rich was more than happy to speak freely! Plus we get to hear from Earl Martin Phalen of Summer Advantage (and founder of BELL) again, as he responds to Rich's challenge that out of school time organizations who want to make a real impact on academic success should start schools. DWL Senior Consultant Rebecca Fabiano wrote the PSF Blog for this episode, and she draws an interesting parallel between what Harlem RBI is doing and the Expanded Learning Time movement. Please join the conversation!

Should Youth Development Agencies Start Their Own Schools?

By Rebecca Fabiano, Senior Consultant
Development Without Limits

It was really refreshing to listen to this recent podcast of Please Speak Freely. There were so many moments when I wanted to shout "YES!" in complete agreement as I listened to guest Rich Berlin, Executive Director of Harlem RBI and the Chairman of Dream Charter School.

One idea that resonated with me was Mr. Berlin's description of why he does this work, "I do this because I believe in it and I know if everyone did this the world would be better," which aligns with my own values and path that led me to working with youth. Two other ideas that stood out for me were his comment on how we can 'assess' the quality of an after school program in about 36 seconds - that even with tools like the YPQA (formerly known as, "High Scope") and other similar assessments, we know in our gut if something is quality or not - and that the work we do is "incredibly important but not that complex."

I was most interested in hearing Mr. Berlin describe why Harlem RBI decided to open a charter school. For almost seven years, I ran a school-based afterschool program at a public high school in New York City. Young people, parents and teachers often commented on how our afterschool program was like a mini-school within the school, and I have often thought about how schools could be different (and safer and more effective) if youth development principles and strategies were applied in the school day, and wondered what it would be like to build a school around positive youth development principles.

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At the core of positive youth development and the focus of Out of School Time (OST) programs are concepts like creating a space that is physically and emotionally safe, establishing and developing positive relationships between adults and peers, and among peers; providing opportunities for youth to connect, be productive and have access to meaningful experiences, and providing challenging and engaging learning opportunities. In after school or OST programs, we often integrate the literacy and numeracy skills so that when coupled with 'soft' skills (sometimes also known as 21st Century or life skills), we help to young people become prepared, skilled, and productive citizens.

Mr. Berlin points out that Harlem RBI does incorporate math and reading, but that is not the focus of their programs, moreover, it's not what the program is good at, nor why kids come to the program. Mr. Berlin acknowledges that due to poor policies, many OST programs get 'forced' into trying to take on the task of making gains in reading and writing, when the programs don't have the resources, nor the staff with the appropriate skills to do so. He goes on to state that young people do need to learn reading and writing and while there are many ways to do that both in school and after school, OST programs should not take on the task of fixing what’s not working in schools. Though he acknowledges that most OST professionals would probably agree with him (I certainly do), I lean towards Eric's point that it’s not the common position that people take publically. I think the more typical situation is that OST programs see funding opportunities and try to 'figure out' what the grant is asking them to do, and that sometimes means pushing aside the things that it does well for the sake of funding.

One of Harlem RBI’s motivators for opening a school was that they needed more time to be able to develop the 'hard skills' to help youth realize their dreams, but Mr. Berlin didn’t want to give up the time needed to develop the soft skills that help youth to recognize their potential. In his view, the only way to do that was to extend their time with their participants. Not wanting to turn the OST program "into something else", Harlem RBI decided to take advantage of the opportunity to develop a school, and intentionally drew from their OST, social services and family services that already existed.

This is an interesting parallel to the national trend of Extended Learning Time (ELT) which is usually about schools getting students to spend more time in formal learning activities, with varying degrees of involvement by community partners.

Whereas schools either extend the hours in the school day or the school year, sometimes partnering with an OST programs to do so, in the case of Harlem RBI, they essentially extended the time the spent with youth in their OST programs into the school-day hours and created Dream Charter School. They have the same desire to create extended learning time for youth, but wanted to do it in a way that did not compromise the things that they know work.

While the goals of most OST programs are aligned with some of the goals of the ELT movement, I rarely hear the discussion around ELT even touch upon the idea of a holistic approach to child and youth development, or the opportunity to deepen connections with the community. It seems to focus on adding more time for academics, which is why I often have a negative visceral reaction when people talk about ELT. I feel anxious because I worry that by extending the school day, we are going to have to push aside the things that OST programs do well. As Mr. Berlin says, educating the whole child incudes being able to "know your R's", but not at the expense of focusing on the life skills that OST programs develop.

And so that leaves me to wonder, should more nonprofits follow Harlem RBI's lead? I am excited about the possibility of OST programs and professionals starting schools because they too see the benefit of extending their time with youth. And I am hopeful that this perspective will be valued in the education reform conversation.

I've known Dr. Paul Heckman, Associate Dean at the University of California School of Education for a long time – thirteen years ago, when I was Director of Staff Development for LA's BEST Afterschool Enrichment Program, Paul was a consultant for LA's BEST, and a mentor for me. I've learned so much from him over the years, and I was so happy to talk with him for this episode. We didn’t even get close to covering everything I wanted to talk about, but we did have a great talk about the current culture of education, and how to create a new path.

I'm also happy to introduce a new feature of Please Speak Freely – a blog! Sam Quiah, Director of Professional Development for Development Without Limits, kicks off our blog with a lively commentary on the issues and ideas raised in my conversation with Paul. We plan to have different members of the DWL team and guest writers featured in the blog each time we release a new podcast, and we encourage you to join the conversation as well by making comments. Enjoy!
 

Reclaiming the Standards Debate

By: Samuel C. Quiah, Director of Professional Development
Development Without Limits

Throughout this episode of Please Speak Freely, Dr. Paul Heckman raised many important and sometimes controversial points about the current state of our education system. One of the key points he highlighted is our education system’s movement towards standardization, through increased testing and focusing on “achievement” i.e. grades and scores rather than “attainment,” engaging young people so that they understand the value of their education and become life long learners. Working in the youth development field for almost a decade, as an educator and a staff developer, this topic struck a chord with me. All kids should know how to read, write, and understand basic math and science concepts. Likewise, all kids should learn about music, art, and be engaged members of their community, possessing a critical mind and sound leadership skills. But what happens when we put an overemphasis on grades and not learning?

Over the last 10 years, since the inception of No Child Left Behind, young people have become all too familiar with the term “high stakes testing” or standardized tests that presumably measure their mastery of specific concepts and subject matter at a particular grade level. School administrators have had the added pressure to improve, in many cases failing test scores, to stave off threats that their schools may be shut down if they don’t meet the grade. I’ve spoken to teachers who have had to fundamentally shift their teaching methods to ensure that students are prepared to answer questions on standardized tests, and so that they are viewed as “high-quality instructors,” worthy of incentives and raises.

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The kind of impact this has had on young children should give us pause—lack of engagement and interest in school, unhealthy anxiety around test taking, and increased reports of kids feeling burnt out before they even reach middle school. All of this compels me to ask:  are students who score better on standardized tests actually getting smarter or are they just better equipped to pass a test?

The standardization offensive does not stop there. Afterschool programs have often been the creative oases for kids. The outlet where kids are given a choice to participate in a variety of activities and not judged by their test scores. Historically, these programs have complemented the academic learning taking place during the school day by focusing on social and emotional learning through arts, sports, leadership, and community engagement programs. Small learning environments, one-on-one attention, interactive group work, community projects, guest speakers, and trips are all hallmarks of an engaging program.

More recently however, many afterschool programs are starting to look more and more like the school day. Instead of having a balanced approach of homework help and social enrichment activities, many programs are spending the majority of their hours solely focusing on providing additional classes on literacy, science and math to help their students (and schools) bolster test scores. Now, I want to emphasize that schools and afterschool programs should support each other and rally around common goals like effective student engagement, parent involvement and ultimately, graduation. However, I don’t believe afterschool programs should just be additional school hours.

This off-balanced approach has been further legitimized by a growing number of funders and government agencies requiring afterschool programs to provide academic programming and improve academic outcomes, such as many state managed 21st Century Community Learning Center (21st CLCC) afterschool programs. Let’s be clear, developing high standards are a good thing, and all afterschool programs should have them, but if we are going towards standardization, than we run the risk of asking programs to dismiss their creative missions and develop a one size fits all approach to working with kids—an approach we already know is failing millions of students around the country. But, since many non-profit organizations rely on this funding to run their afterschool programs, resisting this trend can ultimately mean shutting their doors.

So how do we reclaim the standards debate? For starters, we need educate ourselves and the people who design education policies about how children really learn. All children have the capacity to learn and they learn best when they are encouraged to question and engage in a dialogue about how what they are learning relates to the world around them. Their level of engagement is magnified when they work in small groups to come up with solutions to problems or thought out answers to questions.

Asking students to demonstrate what they have learned through presentations or projects actually fosters deeper inquiry and increases their ability to actually retain the information they are learning. Think about it, what do you remember more, something you had to present or something you memorized? The answer is probably obvious. For the afterschool funders who would like to see afterschool just look more like school, we need to inform them that increasingly employers are looking for people with 21st century skills like critical thinking, communication, collaboration, creativity and innovation and not just stellar test scores. Last I checked, job descriptions didn’t ask for my SAT score. Traditionally, these skills have had an intentional focus placed on them during the afterschool hours. However, if educators are all marching towards the beat of standardization, we are missing the boat in terms of the range of skills and competencies children need to succeed in later in life. It’s inspiring to see many afterschool programs fight this trend by instituting more arts, life skills and project-based learning into their offerings. They continue to be a safe space where struggling and successful students alike learn, develop community, and the confidence to succeed. These organizations are led by innovative staff and managers—pushing the definition of what it means to be “smart” everyday.

This is a special episode of Please Speak Freely, recorded live at the Bridge from School to Afterschool and Back Conference in Seattle, WA! While I have recently recorded a few more interviews that still need to be edited and put online, I wanted to get this episode up while the conference is still fresh in the minds of everyone involved. In this episode, I tried to capture some of the ideas and conversations from the conference, and I included excerpts from the keynote speeches of Karen Pittman, President and CEO of the Forum for Youth Investment and recent PSK guest, and Dr. Shawn Ginwright of San Francisco State University, who I will be interviewing soon. I also spoke briefly with several conference participants, and had a more in depth conversation with my friend and colleague Zach Wilson, Director of Educational Services for School’s Out Washington, and the “maestro” of the Bridge Conference. The editing might be a little shaky, because I’m no radio producer, but I think you’ll enjoy what you hear. Thanks to School’s Out Washington for sponsoring the first few episodes of the podcast!

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I got to sit down with Karen Pittman, President and CEO of the Forum for Youth Investment and a national leader and advocate for positive youth development. Ms. Pittman has received many awards and has advised the top levels of government, foundations and nonprofits on how to create programs and policies that promote the values of youth development and address the holistic needs of young people and communities. We had a great conversation about the importance of "low-stakes accountability" strategies for encouraging rigorous practice while still letting creativity and risk-taking thrive, as well as the range of challenges facing the field today.

Ms. Pittman was refreshingly reflective about how the youth development field could frame the issues in a way that connects with people, and insightful about the language that she now prefers. She also talks about how the OST field can educate and support the regular classroom, and vice versa. Ms. Pittman will be the keynote speaker at the Bridge Conference in Seattle, WA next week, where I will also be presenting a session that screens the documentary, Race to Nowhere. Hope to see you there!

This episode is dedicated in loving memory to Mr. James C. Welbourne, who passed away on August 22, 2011.  I got to know Mr. Welbourne, the City Librarian for New Haven, CT when he engaged Development Without Limits to help in his efforts to support afterschool programs by having the library serve as a community hub. He was a visionary in his field, a mentor to me, and a gem of a man. 

This episode of Please Speak Freely is sponsored by the School's Out Washington Bridge to Afterschool and Back Conference, happening on October 17-18 in Seattle Washington. Come to the Bridge Conference to connect, act and transform!

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I was pleased to speak with Dr. Pedro Noguera of New York University, who has been a leader and advocate for holistic and equitable education. Dr. Noguera has been a consistent and strong advocate for the role of community organizations and the importance of afterschool and summer learning opportunities.We had a good conversation about the complexity of the movement towards "expanded learning time," the value of social and emotional learning supports, and the role of afterschool programs in the larger context of education reform. We got to talk about the advice he gave to the chancellor of the New York school system, and how that advice was interpreted. Enjoy!

This episode of Please Speak Freely is sponsored by the School's Out Washington Bridge to Afterschool and Back Conference, happening on October 17-18 in Seattle Washington. Come to the Bridge Conference to connect, act and transform!

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In this episode, I had a chance to talk with Earl Martin Phalen, who founded BELL and Summer Advantage and is the President and CEO of Reach Out and Read. BELL, which Earl founded when he was a law student, has grown to become one of the leading afterschool providers in the country, and Summer Advantage has received a lot of attention recently because of their results with helping to keep young people engaged over the summer months. Earl and I talked about some of the thornier issues in the field today – how organizations represent their work as opposed to the realities, who gets to call themselves an educator and the value of investing in measuring results. We also had a few laughs.

This episode of Please Speak Freely is sponsored by the School's Out Washington Bridge to Afterschool and Back Conference, happening on October 17-18 in Seattle Washington. Come to the Bridge Conference to connect, act and transform!

Download .mp3 file

In our premier episode, I had a very interesting conversation with Alexis Menten, Assistant Director for Education of Asia Society. Asia Society has been leading the way in the out-of-school time field in the area of global learning and global competence. Alexis and I discussed what those terms mean, what the ideas mean for afterschool, and what it looks like to really prepare young people for the 21st century. We also talked about the notion that not all programs really live up to their own hype, and the difficulty of assessing our work in meaningful ways. Please take a listen and join the conversation!

This episode of Please Speak Freely is sponsored by the School's Out Washington Bridge to Afterschool and Back Conference, happening on October 17-18 in Seattle Washington. Come to the Bridge Conference to connect, act and transform!

Download .mp3 file