When visitors enter the offices of the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, they are often taken by the art on display. The collection is striking and vibrant. Like all good art, each piece makes a statement--sometimes quietly, but boldly. When foundation staff proudly tell guests that the exhibit was created by Boston high school students, the…

The globalization of youth culture complicates young people's relationship to democracy as traditionally conceived. More and more young people define themselves as cosmopolitan citizens, connected through popular culture, digital technologies, and migration histories to social geographies outside their own local and national contexts. Despite…

This article highlights the importance for the youth justice movement to come to terms with a critical reality: The struggle for justice on a societal level cannot be separated from the work of nurturing, healing, and developing young people. Ruben S. Austria, Juvenile Justice Coalition steering committee member and founding director of…

There is increasing awareness that how young people spend their time outside of school has consequences for their development. As part of this awareness, interest in organized activities--extracurricular activities, after-school programs, and youth organizations--has grown markedly. On balance, the bulk of research on organized activities has…

Children benefit when their parents or caregivers are actively involved in their out-of-school learning. Yet a new report by the Harvard Family Research Project and United Way of Massachusetts Bay finds that only a quarter of programs surveyed had effectively incorporated families. This guide, funded by the Wallace Foundation under its Parents and…

Thirteen/WNET commissioned the Center for Children and Technology to conduct an external evaluation of The Story in History initiative. The evaluation, which is the focus of this report, assessed the extent to which local partnerships between Thirteen, local stations and individual chapters of Boys & Girls Clubs fostered youth participation in…

To expand and improve after-school opportunities for children, New Jersey After 3 (NJ After 3) has sought to develop and implement a comprehensive system of high-quality after-school programs throughout the state. Specifically, NJ After 3 seeks to increase the number of after-school programs in New Jersey that provide a safe environment for…

Today, work and other societal practices are experiencing accelerating paradigm shifts from mass-production-based systems toward new systems based on networking between organizations, collaboration, and partnerships. This shift requires new paradigms in the fields of education, learning, and development. As human activity quickly changes to…

Many families in Boston, especially the immigrant ones, are unable to navigate the Boston Public Schools system and offer their children the education they could have. In this article, the author shares how the learning and support she obtained from Citizen Schools has helped her navigate through high school and in life. Citizen Schools is an…

Attempting to invert the pyramid to improve student achievement and increase all students' chances for success is not a new endeavor. For decades, educators have strategized, formed think tanks, and developed school improvement teams to find better ways to improve the achievement of all students. Currently, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is…

This report provides, in tabular and graphic format, the results of a national poll conducted for the Fight Crime: Invest in Kids campaign. The survey sought opinions of 780 police chiefs: all chiefs from cities with populations over 100,000, a sample of 288 chiefs from cities of less than 25,000, and a sample of 292 chiefs from cities of between…

Through a program called the Minority Male Afterschool Program (MMAP), college students at Mississippi Valley State University in Itta Bena (Mississippi) are working one-on-one with high school students. The MMAP is an enrichment program that encourages at-risk African American students aged 12 to 19 to complete high school and pursue…

A study investigated how students felt about the "extra" reading activities and opportunities offered to them through an after-school recreational reading program. Ten fifth-grade students who were deemed most critically in need in terms of academic progress were observed in the after-school reading activities and were interviewed. Six…

This report describes programs that have been developed to improve students' attention to and success with homework assignments. The four predominant types of programs, as identified through an informal survey of 100 school systems around the United States, are discussed: (1) recorded messages by voice mail; (2) live telephone homework help…

This report describes a before- and after-school program for children in prekindergarten through grade 5, implemented at a rural elementary school. The feasibility of the program was evaluated by a survey conducted at a Parent Teacher Association meeting. Because it has become more common for both parents to work outside the home, the number of…