Citywide implementation of project-based learning highlights the benefits--and the challenges--of promoting exemplary practices across an entire out-of-school time (OST) network. In summer 2009, the City of Philadelphia and its intermediary, the Public Health Management Corporation (PHMC), introduced project-based learning to a network of more…

This article describes a new paradigm for accountability that envisions afterschool programs as learning organizations continually engaged in improving quality. Nearly 20 years into the era of results-based accountability, a new generation of afterschool accountability systems is emerging. Rather than aiming to test whether programs have produced…

Throughout the nation, afterschool programs are seeing increasing numbers of English learners (ELs) among their participants. Many afterschool program practitioners, recognizing the growth in the EL population in their programs, are hungry for professional development and research to understand how better to educate this population. However,…

When the author accepted a job with the Bayview Hunters Point YMCA as the director of the Beacon Center on the campus of Burton High School in San Francisco, she found out that New Day for Learning (NDL), an initiative that helps schools implement the community schools model, had chosen Burton as a pilot site. The author had heard that community…