The Wallace Foundation commissioned Research for Action and McClanahan Associates to study how out-of-school time intermediaries (OSTIs) responded to the COVID-19 pandemic and the role they could play in supporting communities moving forward. Citywide out-of-school time (OST) systems encompass a wide variety of afterschool and summer programs and…

Purpose: This paper aims to explore how sounds and attunements to particular organizations of sound collide across an English language community learning space. The activities in the paper come from a six-week summer initiative that connected middle school youth with community artists for writing songs and rap lyrics, making beats and hip-hop…

The Region 8 Comprehensive Center (Region 8 CC) team joined Michigan's Statewide Summer Learning Network (SSLN) to provide support in furthering the goals of increased access, participation, and quality for summer learning and enrichment opportunities. The team's initial work for the SSLN was a series of listening sessions with representatives…

In 2017, 53,716 refugees entered the United States; the state of Michigan ranks sixth in refugee resettlement numbers. Each year, nearly 600 new refugees settle in Newtown, Michigan, which is now home to more than 20,000 newcomers who represent diverse language and ethnic groups. In this ethnographic case study, the authors investigated the ways…

The COVID-19 pandemic has widely affected existing academia-sponsored community service initiatives. Little is known about the strategies to sustain these initiatives during a public health crisis and the potential effects on community well-being and education. In this case study, we describe the impact of the pandemic on service partnerships…

This report analyzes case studies of "more and better learning time" efforts around the country. With support from the Ford Foundation, America's Promise Alliance looked in Grand Rapids, MI; Louisville, KY; Memphis, TN; and Rochester, NY to see how time spent out of the classroom improved outcomes for students in low-income neighborhoods…

Summer learning experiences for school-age children can be provided in a variety of ways and settings, including summer school programs (often remedial), community-based programs (often a continuation of afterschool programs), and home-based programs (in which families are provided with information and resources to encourage reading, often run by…

As numerous studies from 1906 on have confirmed, children lose ground in learning if they lack opportunities for building skills over the summer. Nonetheless, summer learning loss comes up but rarely in the national discussion of education reform. By the end of summer, students perform on average one month behind where they left off in the spring.…

THE BETTER TOMORROW FOR THE URBAN CHILD PROGRAM (BTU) ATTEMPTS TO HELP INNER-CITY CHILDREN BECOME MORE EFFECTIVE CITIZENS, BOTH EDUCATIONALLY AND SOCIALLY, THROUGH THE USE OF ADDITIONAL HUMAN AND MATERIAL RESOURCES. THE GOALS ARE TO RAISE THE LEVEL OF SCHOOL READINESS, TO DEVELOP A GREATER MOTIVATION FOR LEARNING, AND TO IMPROVE STUDENT SELF-IMAGE…