In 1998, George Soros and Herb Sturz seized an opportunity to significantly improve children's lives by founding The After-School Corporation (TASC). They believed that increasing the quality and availability of after-school programs, with the ultimate goal of changing public policy, could transform the potential for many New York City kids who…

This guidebook was prepared by TASC (The After-School Corporation) and their Frontiers in Urban Science Education (FUSE) programs. FUSE is TASC's initiative to help more out-of-school-time programs and expanded learning time schools offer kids engaging, exciting and inspiring activities that promote science inquiry. The guidebook offers a a…

While research on program effectiveness offers ample evidence that afterschool programs can benefit young people in a variety of ways, this same body of research demonstrates that not all programs are equally effective (Granger, 2008). Some programs show positive results in many or all major outcome categories. Other programs are associated with…

Quality afterschool programs offer participants productive ways to spend the crucial afterschool hours--whether these hours are between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. on school days, during weekends, or before school--that otherwise might be spent in unsupervised and potentially harmful activities. Also, afterschool programs help provide additional support to…

While significant progress has occurred over the past several years regarding the expansion of the quantity and quality of after-school opportunities, the ambitious idea of "after-school for all" remains a distant goal. In this commentary, we push beyond some of the numbers to take a close look at questions related to access and equity,…