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Academic achievement in the nation's lowest performing schools is troubling. Despite improvements in students' overall academic achievement over the past few decades, proficiency gaps in reading and mathematics remain across income, racial, and ethnic groups. One promising strategy for reducing achievement gaps is to expand the school day, often called Expanded Learning Time (ELT); evidence suggests that students' increased access--through ELT programming--to enrichment activities can improve their academic motivation and social-emotional skill development. Since 1995, Citizen Schools (CS) has developed and implemented its own ELT model. CS partners with middle schools serving predominantly low income, racial or ethnic minority, and academically struggling students. The CS model relies upon an additional shift of educators and community volunteers to engage middle school students in hands-on apprenticeships, while simultaneously providing individualized supports to ensure academic and future success. The study was designed to address questions about implementation to inform program improvement as well as questions about the impact on student engagement, aspirations, and achievement. The outcome-focused findings are mixed. The study finds positive effects on student engagement and aspirations and negative perceptions about students' CS ELT experiences. [SREE documents are structured abstracts of SREE conference symposium, panel, and paper or poster submissions.]

One of the primary obstacles facing education researchers today is the struggle to obtain student-level data from states, districts, and schools. Researchers typically face one of two scenarios; they must either (1) work with contractors hired by the state or district to handle data requests who can be prohibitively expensive or (2) invest significant amounts of time making data requests from overworked school district staff that can take a year or longer. Due to budget cuts and waning resources, district staff juggle many competing demands and typically prioritize district-level needs above those of external evaluators. It is becoming increasingly clear the research community must look for methodological alternatives that allow the continuation of rigorous research about what works in education. This study explores the possibility of using publicly available school-level data instead of student-level data to conduct an impact analysis of a national education intervention. The authors use a national evaluation of an Expanded Learning Time (ELT) initiative in middle schools across the country as a case-study for these methods. One table is appended.

Expanded Learning Time (ELT) is seen as one promising approach for improving academic achievement, particularly in the nation's chronically low-performing schools. Since 1995, Citizen Schools (CS) has developed and supported the implementation of its own ELT model. The CS ELT model uses an additional shift of educators and community volunteers to engage middle school students in hands-on apprenticeships, while simultaneously providing individualized supports to ensure academic and future success. Theory suggests that as a result of ELT, students may become more engaged in school because of additional enrichment and learning opportunities, develop better communication skills due to more time with teachers and peers, and be less likely to engage in disruptive behavior because of less idle time. Ultimately, student achievement may improve as a result of additional learning time. The authors are conducting a five-year evaluation of the CS ELT model that includes an implementation and outcomes component to assess the operation and effects of ELT programming on middle school students. The implementation component of the study incorporates surveys, interviews, and site visits to assess how schools integrate ELT into their school days, organizationally and instructionally. This paper focuses specifically on how to characterize implementation systematically and in such a way as to explain variation in student achievement results.

"The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001" (PL 107-110) established the Reading First Program (Title I, Part B, Subpart 1), a major federal initiative designed to help ensure that all children can read at or above grade level by the end of third grade. Reading First (RF) builds upon research indicating that effective reading instruction on specific early reading skills, particularly in the primary grades, significantly reduces the number of students who experience reading difficulties in later years. This study was designed to answer two broad sets of questions, each focusing on a different aspect of sustainability of the program. These policy questions are critical to the ongoing conversations about the directions federal education policy should take to close achievement gaps and promote high achievement. The first set of questions is the following: "What are states' planned responses to the Reading First budget reduction?" and "Which RF program elements do state-level staff believe can be sustained beyond Reading First?" These questions address the planned and likely sustainability of the program from the perspective of state-level program administrators. The second set of questions is the following: "Does student achievement in later grades differ for students exposed to Reading First in K-3 compared with students in Title I Schoolwide Program (SWP) schools?" and "Is there evidence that the effect of RF spilled over to students in non-RF Title I SWP schools in RF districts?" These questions address the sustainability of program effects on students by examining patterns of student performance after students have completed the targeted grades. Findings are embargoed pending release of report results by the U.S. Department of Education (anticipated early 2011). (Contains 1 footnote.)