No Idle Hours Making After-School Time Productive and Fun for Teenagers

A report to the After School Project of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation by Tony Proscio NO IDLE HOURS Making After-School Time Productive and Fun for Chicago Teenagers

A report to the After School Project of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Tony Proscio Executive Summary

NANAVERAGE DAY in two dozen neigh- But apart from the diversity of its curriculum, borhoods across Chicago, some 3,000 to the experience of its instructors, and the satisfac- O4,000 teenagers take part in a pioneering tion of its participants, what makes After School after-school program run by After School Matters, a Matters nationally significant is the size of its ambi- three-year-old nonprofit organization backed by the tion. Its goal is eventually to offer a rewarding city’s school, park, and library systems, and chaired after-school experience to at least half of the by Chicago’s First Lady, Maggie Daley. teenagers in the public school system — not neces- After School Matters offers paid “apprentice- sarily through its current programs alone, but in a ships” in technology, the arts, sports, and commu- widening circle of high-quality activities that take nications, in which high school students learn skills full advantage of the city’s resources and those of that can qualify them for summer or part-time Chicago community organizations. jobs. Instructors in the program are practitioners The fact that this goal seems achievable, in time, in their discipline, and the apprenticeships are run has a lot to do with the extraordinary interweaving as “master classes,” with direct coaching for small of the three city agencies that stand behind it: the groups of 20 students each. A related program, less , the Park District, and the structured and unpaid, provides open recreation, Public Library. The three bureaucracies constitute a with adult supervision, for teens who are free to huge percentage of the city government workforce, drop in and out as they please, and whose only but with little history of cooperation with one responsibility is to have a good time. Participants another and even some longstanding rivalries. Yet in all these programs give them high marks, many within a year after the idea was first floated, the return for a repeat experience, and there is some three organizations were sharing facilities, coordi- evidence that the word is spreading from student nating staff functions, and contributing part of to student, semester to semester. their budgets to making After School Matters programs a reality. The bureaucratic artistry that quality at its pilot sites for the first few years. made this happen — which starts, necessarily, in Even with a now-established roster of activities, the top ranks of Mayor Richard M. Daley’s admin- each expansion means recruiting another cadre istration — is at least as remarkable a story as the of accomplished instructors, assembling the right design and growth of the program itself. facilities and equipment in each new neighbor- So is After School Matters’ commitment to hood, introducing students and parents to the pro- teenagers, a group that some conventional wisdom gram, and ensuring the cooperation and smooth dismisses as too old for after-school programs. interaction of all the participating agencies at What makes that belief wrong, says Mrs. Daley, is each new site. With each stage of expansion, that that most after-school programs are designed to process becomes a little easier, but it will remain suit younger children, not older ones — they don’t a challenge until After School Matters is operating offer the challenges, use the skills, or present the throughout the city. opportunities for leadership and employment that Given the difficulties ahead, this report is not a teenagers want. “That attitude,” she says, “assumes chronicle of proven success, at least not yet. It is, that teenagers are somehow already ‘lost.’…If though, the story of an impressive start, against teenagers are lost, it’s because we’re losing them.” long odds, on a project that very few cities have At the three-year mark, After School Matters is even begun to undertake. If it succeeds, it could still at an early stage of growth — with all pro- provide a model, or at least a practical working grams operating at one-quarter of the city’s high example, for other cities where teenagers have too schools and involving, at the time this is written, little to do with their out-of-school time, and the roughly 4 percent of the total citywide enrollment. resources to help them have yet to be mobilized. Although growth is now expected to accelerate, the program was careful to start slow, ensuring high June 2003 Gallery 37 Apprentice, Spring 2002. NO IDLE HOURS ■ 5

ATE ONATUESDAY AFTERNOON Whatever Horton Foote or Gregory It’s a good inventory of what many of in April, well past the end of the Peck might have thought of Jerone’s per- After School Matters’ 3,000 to 4,000 stu- L school day, a cast of Chicago formance, for the young actor the role dents would say in response to the same teenagers is rehearsing a courtroom scene is plainly something physical, urgent, question. According to a survey by the from To Kill a Mockingbird, playwright nearly volcanic. Chapin Hall Center for Children at the Horton Foote’s 1961 adaptation of the Afterward, a visitor asks what brought University of Chicago, most participants novel by Harper Lee. The stage is in Jerone to the ten-week theater academy, give some version of these basic explana- the auditorium of Paul Robeson High part of Chicago’s pioneering after-school tions for enrolling: School, on the city’s south side. All the arts program for teenagers, called Gallery actors are African Americans. Most of the 37. It’s the usual kind of well-meaning ■ They want to learn a new skill. characters they portray are white segrega- visitor’s question, intended to elicit the ■ They need money or a job (participants get a $15-a-day “stipend” in most tionists. The unconventional casting adds dreams of a talented youth, a star-struck programs, and the majority of the a layer of complexity — and maybe also movie or theater buff, or just someone programs prepare students for regular of meaning — to Lee’s tale of white soci- who likes to perform in front of friends. summer or part-time jobs). ety coming to terms with race in pre- (Some other students in the class do, ■ They enjoy the activity, whatever it may be. (After School Matters offers programs Civil Rights Alabama. in fact, confess an inner passion for in the visual and performing arts, tech- Something about the teenage actor the stage, though far from a majority.) nology, sports, and communications.) Jerone, playing the patrician lawyer Atti- Despite what seems like a flair for his ■ Or in some cases, like Jerone, they cus Finch, draws a visitor’s attention. It role, Jerone isn’t trying out for a remake joined because “a friend was in this.” isn’t Jerone’s technical performance — he of Fame. He has no plans for a life in the shows a command of the character and spotlight. He’s a sports enthusiast with The After School Matters academies are the surrounding tensions, though the dreams of medical school. not, in short, elite clubs for the gifted and courtroom language occasionally trips Instead, Jerone’s simple answer to the creative. For most students, they are first him up. What’s instantly striking is his visitor’s question “what brought you and foremost an alternative to “not doing physical intensity. here?” provides a clue to the remarkable anything else” — a chance to be among Jerone’s Finch isn’t just defending the depth and reach of Gallery 37 and its friends and adults working on something innocent Tom Robinson, or wryly sub- growing circle of affiliated after-school challenging that doesn’t necessarily involve verting a smug racist order, in the under- programs for teenagers, collectively called tests or grades. In some cases, a semester stated style of Gregory Peck in the 1962 After School Matters. with After School Matters also offers an film. Jerone leans and scowls, his gestures “A friend of mine was in this,” he says, alternative to a low-wage, low-skill job, sharp, athletic, and blunt, like a boxer’s. referring to the theater program. “And a and a way of getting more interesting At 5’9” and roughly 150 pounds, he teacher said I’d be good at it. I wasn’t work down the road. But even among doesn’t walk across the stage, he thrusts. doing anything else. So I signed up.” students who see the program as a path 6 ■ NO IDLE HOURS

‘We have tended to isolate teens — we’ve walled them off as a big mystery that we never hear about except when there’s trouble.…If teenagers are lost, it’s because we’re losing them.’ — Maggie Daley toward personal development or a better gram. Most people who support or operate focus on younger kids. And sure, we job, most say they mainly chose it because, youth development programs prefer to need to pay attention to younger stu- like Jerone, they consider it a fun place to start younger, when children’s habits are dents. But that attitude assumes that be with friends. still forming and their reliance on adults is teenagers are somehow already ‘lost’ — That response corresponds to a growing still mostly intact. Some experts on the that it’s too late to interest them in body of scholarship on what appeals to topic, usually speaking hypothetically and things, to get them involved in the com- adolescents and how young people organ- sometimes off-the-record, even speculate munity. Anybody who has raised ize their time. The more the architects of that adolescence may be too late to do teenagers, as I have, knows better than After School Matters learn about what’s much good, at a stage in life when social that. Which is why parents get so frus- drawing kids into their program, the satis- urges and pressures tend to be anarchic trated with the system. If teenagers are faction of those who participate, and the and overwhelming. Some believe that the lost, it’s because we’re losing them, by not peer-to-peer “buzz” about the opportu- very teenagers who most need structure giving them opportunities to show what nity, the more they believe they may be and adult supervision will aggressively shun they can do, to be their best, and to have on to something — a rare big-city pro- after-school programs. Only the brighter, a little fun in the process. So After gram aimed specifically at teens, with a better disciplined students, they say, are School Matters is about teenagers. We’re real potential to transform the way likely to attend in any significant number. starting with the group that has been the teenagers spend time after school. If it Chicago First Lady Maggie Daley, the most neglected, and we’re turning this works, it will upend an edgy conventional chair of After School Matters and the whole pattern on its head. wisdom that says that teenagers are the city’s chief advocate of after-school pro- hardest group to engage in after-school grams, has little patience for the doubters. Though Mrs. Daley isn’t yet in the programs. Buoyed by the program’s rapid She picked teenagers as her prime target main stream of professional opinion on growth, leaders of After School Matters more than a decade ago — precisely the issue, she has experts on her side. now believe they have a shot at reaching because the conventional wisdom said it Joan Wynn, a research fellow at the at least 50 percent of the Chicago was a bad bet. “As a society,” she says, Chapin Hall Center and an architect of teenagers before the decade is over. After School Matters, has spent much of we have tended to isolate teens — we’ve her academic career surrounded by skep- walled them off as a problem, a big mys- ticism on the prospects for adolescents in Why teenagers? tery that we never hear about except out-of-school activity. when there’s trouble. And no surprise, CREATING ACTIVITIES SPECIFICALLY FOR our high schools are in trouble, too. We There’s a consensus in the field that by ADOLESCENTS — and such a large number tell ourselves, sometimes, that by the age 12, kids’ participation in organized of adolescents besides — is hardly the time kids are in high school it’s too late programs drops off steeply. And in gen- usual way to design an after-school pro- to affect them, that we might as well eral, that seems to be true. But there NO IDLE HOURS ■ 7

‘Programming for teens can’t simply be trying to engage older kids in whatever is currently provided to younger ones.’ — Joan Wynn

have been studies of organized programs or prepare for a job — all these things There was Block 37, prime commercial for teens, where when you provide qual- do, the student respondents say, draw property in the middle of the Loop, just ity programming aimed at teens, aimed them into programs after school. It’s sig- sitting vacant. It drove him nuts. Now, at characteristics that engage them, they nificant, too, that the respondents are a I had told Rich when he first became sign up in droves. What this tells us is, cross-section of urban teens — they are, mayor that I wanted to work on programming for teens can’t simply be like the overall public school enrollment, teenagers and the arts in the city. So trying to engage older kids in whatever overwhelmingly African American and when he started complaining about is currently provided to younger ones. Latino — and that they live in some of Block 37, and asking ‘what can we do That’s when their interest falls off. But the city’s poorest neighborhoods. with this,’ a thought struck me. I talked certain characteristics in programming to Lois Weisberg [the mayor’s commis- for teens fundamentally changes the sioner of cultural affairs]1 and she and dynamic: engagement in hands-on activ- Filling a void I came up with a program we could put ities focused on issues that matter to right on that block, where kids would them, where they can make a contribu- THE WIDENING NETWORK of After School be apprentice artists for the summer, tion that ends in a product or perform- Matters programs grew from a 10-year-old working with master artists — right on ance or some way of demonstrating inspiration for putting a vacant piece of Block 37. At least it was something pro- mastery, that have high expectations and commercial real estate in downtown ductive on the site until a permanent really provide sustained support over Chicago to temporary use. Tied up in use was decided on. So we put up a time, and where youth have a voice in financial and planning disputes, the tent, and we did it. Soon, of course, making decisions, some role in leader- absurdly prominent parcel at the core of we’ll have to stop using that site. But by ship that isn’t simply ‘sit there, be pas- the city’s business district — designated now, we’ve got year-round activity going sive, do your homework.’ Design “Block 37” in the official plat books — all over the city. So when Block 37 is no programs that way, and participation had been sitting undeveloped since 1989, longer available, the program will go on. isn’t much of a problem. a yawning hole in the downtown skyline. “That empty block just made him crazy,” From just a label in the city’s land-use The first preliminary data from surveys says Maggie Daley, referring to her hus- records, the number 37 has since become of students in After School Matters pro- band, Mayor Richard M. Daley. What something of a trademark in Chicago, grams seems to confirm the point. Partic- later became the cornerstone of Chicago’s attached to a widening circle of programs ipants say not just that they like the after-school program, Mrs. Daley recalls, in technology, sports, and the performing program, but more fundamentally, that took shape partly to soothe the mayor’s and visual arts. Along with the unifying they want to participate in programs of frustration over the wasted block of down- “brand name” of After School Matters, this kind. A chance to do something they town real estate: it’s meant to designate the best, most fun, enjoy, be with friends, earn some money and most unusual things a teenager in

1 As a description of Lois Weisberg, or her importance to the development of Gallery 37, the official title is completely inadequate. Through a long, varied career, Weisberg has become locally famous for cultivating and expanding on small, off-beat, or obscure people and ideas, making connections among people and ideas that might not otherwise have come in contact. For an admiring description of Weisberg’s career and talents, see Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point, Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 2000, pages 49-53. 8 ■ NO IDLE HOURS

‘I try to help students learn…that thrill, that sense of finding something in yourself that you never imagined.’ — Debbie Maddox

Chicago can do — after school, in school, But the prospect of later employment, you hit the moment when it works — in the parks, in libraries, and in summer, and even the temporary stipend along the there is nothing to compare to that. to this day, under a tent on Block 37. way, aren’t the only reasons why young Maybe if you’re a research scientist, it’s people take part in apprenticeships and like the moment of discovery when you clubs at After School Matters’ 24 schools, find a cure or prove a hypothesis. But Fun with a purpose or the 16 others that so far offer only [in the theater] you don’t just get it once Gallery 37 arts programs. A common rea- or twice, you get it over and over. That’s ALTHOUGH THE TEENAGE ACTOR JERONE son — confirmed in the Chapin Hall what I try to help students learn here — and most of his cast-mates at Robeson survey of participants — is to be with that thrill, that sense of finding some- High School aren’t planning on an acting friends and interesting, attentive adults, thing possible in yourself that you never career, many students in After School Mat- and to learn something new. imagined. Once you’ve felt that, you live ters programs are, in fact, training for a job. Like Jerone, a majority of the young in a whole new way. For example, the after-school sports people in After School Matters come into apprenticeships, called Sports 37, offer a the program on the encouragement of a It was for the sake of that sense of dis- regimen jointly sponsored by the schools friend or teacher. About 28 percent of covery that Mrs. Daley and Commis- and the that prepares them, according to Chapin Hall’s survey, sioner Lois Weisberg created Gallery 37, teenagers to work in city recreation pro- decided to join partly because that’s and with it, the pattern for After School grams. They can qualify for temporary or where their friends are. Sixty percent said Matters. The point of starting with the part-time jobs as day-camp counselors with they wanted “to learn new skills.”Just arts, Mrs. Daley says, is precisely that younger children, as coaches or officials in under half said they joined the program they teach a kind of energizing discovery the smaller sports leagues, or (for the Park “to do something fun.” that “draws children out of themselves, District, a real godsend) as lifeguards at city Actress and after-school theater coach into a wider world.” pools. Tech 37, the After School Matters Debbie Maddox watches the seductive computer academy, trains some students to fun take hold almost immediately — “the be aides in public libraries, helping readers thrill of rehearsal,” as she describes it: Diversity and scale use and master the library system’s powerful research database and online catalog, or to the opportunity to step out of your own YET SUCCESSFUL AS GALLERY 37 WAS in its learn job skills in robotics, web design, and life into someone else’s, to change who first ten years, it remained a program for the digital video production. Words 37, a new you are, and your whole world, at the creatively inclined — not necessarily the verbal-arts program, hires professional sto- snap of your fingers. Rehearsal, even most talented or artistic young people, but rytellers to train young people to tell stories more than performance — the thrill of unquestionably for youngsters who enjoyed and read to smaller children during the going from ‘I have no idea what I’m relying on the right-hand side of the brain. summers and after school. doing in this scene’ to ‘I get it,’ where Plenty of teens, like people in any other age NO IDLE HOURS ■ 9

then recruiting qualified athletic and tech challenge: There was no history — professionals and master storytellers to run none whatsoever — of any collaboration all the sessions. Although Gallery 37 was among these three bodies. In fact, there born in a spectacular burst of activity in was a historical animosity dating back 1991, it took a decade to grow from one many years. It had to do with a lot of summertime tent to a citywide network of things, including just plain mutual dis- programs in 42 schools. Mrs. Daley and trust: ‘Your school kids disrupt my the other designers of After School Mat- parks and libraries,’ ‘your libraries don’t ters had no intention of waiting another serve my students,’ ‘your programs group, have other passions, sparked by other ten years to build the three new compo- aren’t run well enough to use my facili- kinds of talents. If the promise of Gallery nents. They needed facilities and equip- ties,’ all the Balkanization and rivalry 37 was going to extend to all high school ment, coaches, instructors, computers, and you’d expect from longstanding bureau- students, or even a significant percentage, it curricula, virtually ready-made. cracies with separate professional cre- would have to vary its content to suit young That seemed to call for a partnership of dentials, separate unions, separate people with other skills, interests, and ways the city’s three biggest networks of suit- missions, separate ways of doing busi- of thinking. Sports was one obvious choice. able programs and facilities: the Chicago ness….We bureaucrats weren’t amateurs Computer technology was another, espe- Public Schools, the Park District, and the at this [rivalry] — we’d been practicing cially in the midst of Chicago’s high-tech Public Libraries. So in early 2000, Mrs. for decades. boom (quieter since the tech bubble burst, Daley called together the heads of the but still strong by post-2000 standards). three agencies and told them, as one par- Left to their own devices, officials from Thus were born the idea for Sports 37 and ticipant remembers it, “We’ve got to be all three systems agree, the bureaucracies Tech 37. Words 37, the newest addition, is doing more than Gallery 37 — we need could well have fought each other, and seen as a way of distinguishing the more lin- something broader, deeper, richer. More After School Matters, to a standstill. Yet ear form of creativity typical of the verbal variety, more activities, more kinds of three other forces lined up to breech the arts from the intuitive or spatial disciplines experiences. And the people who hold the walls of separation dividing the agencies. of painting, design, music, or dance. key to that are you.” The first was almost purely serendipi- Making these ideas real, however, meant “Sounds obvious, doesn’t it?” says a tous, but several participants considered rapidly putting together enough playing senior official of one of the three systems. it crucial: The CEOs of all three systems fields, gyms, pools, and courts for a com- were friends, or at least close colleagues. plete sports program; finding enough I mean, these are the agencies with Whatever rivalries and distrust may have computers and lab space for a good tech everything you need, right? So the trick strained relations at lower levels, the three program; lining up performance space and is to just put them together and get top officials were in harmony, and liked audiences for apprentice wordsmiths, and them rolling. OK, great. Now, here’s the working together. Personal consultation 10 ■ NO IDLE HOURS

‘I know what a parent faces when the school day is over but the work day is not, and that child is out there somewhere at the mercy of the elements.’ — B.J. Walker

among key players, in fact, played a cru- faces no term limits, and at the time this is cial role throughout the formation of written, was just elected to his fourth term ‘Someone to get things done’ After School Matters, and to a lesser by a three-to-one margin. extent continues to do so. The third and perhaps most potent WALKER’S INFLUENCE over city agencies, force against bureaucratic inertia has been she says, comes less from her formal power the formidable B.J. Walker, the mayor’s than from the personal attention she gives “director of human infrastructure.” to the agencies and their issues, as well as Behind the exotic title lies what public from her “instincts” about how big organi- administration experts sometimes call a zations function, what motivates people, “super-cabinet” position of considerable and how to anticipate trouble before power. Walker, one of a small handful of you’re up to your waist in it. Now in her confidential aides in the mayor’s suite, 50s, Walker’s three decades of experience describes her responsibilities as “sort of a as a publishing executive, university pro- meta-coordinator of all the city resources, fessor, and state administrator have The second factor was the exceptional programs, and initiatives that have to do equipped her with “a pretty good sense of interest and power of Chicago’s mayor. with people —housing, the homeless, where the land mines lie, and a real driven Not only was the mayor’s wife behind the children, education. I get agencies to tenacity against the worst tendencies of idea of Gallery 37 and After School Mat- work on common problems or to per- the bureaucracy.” One other element of ters, but the mayor himself has insistently form on mayoral priorities.” In short, her background made her the perfect made after-school programs a top priority.2 said another city official, “on human choice to move mountains for the sake of In his 2002 State of the City address service issues, when you’re dealing with After School Matters: “I raised a difficult Mayor Daley declared it a city priority B.J., you’re dealing with the mayor — child. I know what a parent faces when “every year to provide more high-quality except that she’s the part of the mayor the school day is over but the work day is after-school and summer programs so that that’s always paying attention to you.” not, and that child is out there somewhere more of our children can participate in a For more than a year, the thing B.J. at the mercy of the elements.” meaningful alternative that engages them Walker was most paying attention to was It would be easy, but wrong, to imag- and keeps them away from gangs, guns, After School Matters and the complex ine that the simple fact of mayoral diktat and drugs.” That kind of mayoral com- bureaucratic partnership that the Daleys and sub-mayoral muscle could make mitment might be impressive in any city; believed would make it happen. a program like After School Matters but it is decisive in Chicago — where the come together. In the messy reality of mayor has control of the public schools, actual government, bureaucracies have

2Mayor Daley may, in fact, be the first mayor in the country to have personally started his own after-school book club. “He did it sort of on the spur of the moment, when he was visiting schools,” his wife recalls. “In one school, he said to a group of students, ‘hey, let’s start a book club!’ and they snapped it up.” In 2000, the American Library Association picked Mayor Daley’s Book Club — with 1,600 students in 78 schools — as one of six outstanding after-school programs in the country. In 2001, the idea took another giant leap when Mary Dempsey, head of the , launched “One Book, One Chicago,” a single book club for all Chicagoans, beginning with Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. The Gallery 37 theater instructor at Robeson High School later picked the play of the same name as a way of seizing the momentum of “One Book, One Chicago.” Thus, in a sense, the mayor of Chicago was the original impresario for the brief acting career of Jerone, the teenage leading man in the after-school theater program. NO IDLE HOURS ■ 11

a thousand ways of complying with exec- edging that nothing would have been have genuinely seamless access to city utive commands without actually pursu- possible without the mayor’s strong sup- parks, pools, classrooms, libraries, and ing the official goal. In his landmark port, believes just as strongly that other, clubhouses, they would be moving 1967 study of organizational behavior, less powerful mayors could have done the around from place to place. Students in Inside Bureaucracy, political economist same thing, given the right administrative a dance or storytelling workshop would Anthony Downs considered what hap- follow-through. “He didn’t just order it need to travel from rehearsal space in pens as an executive order is transmitted to happen. He assigned someone to get a school or park building to a library or down the hierarchy from one administra- things done, and he gave that person — senior center. Sports participants might tive stratum to the next: me, in this case — enough authority and need to be in a school gym one day, a space to move the barricades.” city park the next. They might use school Orders from the top must be expanded She continues: “The mayor controls buses, park vehicles, or other transporta- and made more specific as they move the schools, the parks, the libraries. He’s tion. So — which department’s liability downward. There are a number of dif- the boss. But (a) he’s not going to work forms would they have to sign? ferent ways in which these orders can be on this every day, and (b) there needs to The bureaucracy’s natural answer was: made more specific at each level, and be some distance between him and the All of them — and no door could open, each official has some leeway in select- nuts-and-bolts implementation of this, no wheel could roll, until every form ing the one he will follow.…Because because he can’t take the heat every time was filled in. B.J. Walker’s answer was: individual officials have varying goals, we screw something up. So there has to “Ridiculous.” the purposes the superior had in mind be somebody with his commitment to “We can ruin these programs with per- will not be the precise ones his subordi- this, but with more time than he can missions and paperwork. Everyone loves nate’s orders convey to people farther spend, and some ability to absorb the to spend time on paperwork, because it’s down the hierarchy.…[By the time shocks day-to-day.” so much more orderly than dealing with this process plays out,] a very significant To “move the barricades,” B.J. Walker kids. Yet in the end, [the liability prob- portion of all the activity being carried used not force but face-time. Spending as lem] wasn’t really that hard to solve. We out is completely unrelated to the much as a third of her workday for more just brought the lawyers from all three bureau’s formal goals, or even to the than a year, the mayor’s top lieutenant for agencies together with lawyers from [City goals of its topmost officials.3 human services frequently found herself Hall], and we vetted the issue collectively. at meetings of employees several ranks And collectively we agreed that we could To this day, people impressed by the below cabinet level, clearing logjams in have a single liability policy, with a single progress of After School Matters tend to interdepartmental negotiations on issues form, and be done with it. We all had attribute most of its rapid growth to the normally far beneath the notice of City pretty much the same legal and financial nearly unique strength of Richard M. Hall. One example: liability forms. If stu- obligations anyway.” Daley. But B.J. Walker, while acknowl- dents in the after-school program were to It’s worth noting that the “we” who

3Downs, Anthony, Inside Bureaucracy, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1967, pp. 133-136. 12 ■ NO IDLE HOURS

‘You can’t solve every problem by calling the director or the CEO, and quite often you won’t even know what the problems are unless you’re talking to the people who are actually working on them.’ — B.J. Walker convened the pow-wow of liability attor- And when that happens, they’re not than New York’s, constitutes the nation’s neys was not a city lawyer or legal aide, just getting a call or e-mail from the biggest municipal job market for life- but Walker herself. For months at a time, ‘Mayor’s Office,’ it’s me — it’s some- guards every summer. And most years, a her “constituency” for after-school pro- body they know, somebody they can portion of its 1,200-plus jobs go empty. grams, as she puts it, was mid-level pro- work with.” As on the East Coast, according to Park fessionals and managers in the far reaches District Superintendent David Doig, of the city administration. If a school too few Chicagoans know how to swim, principal or park manager balked at a More carrot than stick much less how to pass the battery of new procedure or the introduction of a emergency-response tests required of life- new program, there was at least an even BESIDES A FAR-FLUNG NETWORK of per- guards. The city’s 24 miles of lakefront chance that the official would get a call sonal connections, Walker’s other asset in and roughly 100 pools, including both not from a direct supervisor, but from the effort to launch After School Matters indoor and outdoor, are an annual strug- the mayor’s office. And most of the time, was the fact that the new program offered gle for the Park District to keep staffed the call was a friendly one: How can we things the participating agencies genuinely (New York, by contrast, has 53 pools and make this work for you? What do you wanted — a fact not lost on the three 14 miles of beaches). Most of the time, need to implement this? departments’ top executives. swimming hours need to be restricted “People may not realize how important One example is lifeguards. A perennial and closing times juggled to stretch the it is to work the lower ranks,” Walker says. problem for big cities with public pools, limited lifeguard staff across as many the national shortage of lifeguards had neighborhoods as possible. It really works. You can’t solve every sent New York City in 2002 searching So when After School Matters brought problem by calling the director or the for experienced swimmers as far away as the Park District and the Chicago Public CEO, and quite often, you won’t even Eastern Europe, importing Polish and Schools together to create Sports 37, part know what the problems are unless Ukrainian university students, among of the deal was that it would teach high you’re talking to the people who are others, to stand guard at city pools and school students to swim and train them to actually working on them. That kind of beaches. “Nobody on the East Coast qualify as lifeguards. The benefits would thing is sensitive, though; you have to knows how to swim,” a Brooklyn life- be nearly universal. Teenagers would get be careful that City Hall isn’t interfering guard told The New York Times. “In the a shot at a choice summer job, the Park with a department’s management. But ’70s, if a school had a pool, you had to District would have a new source of it really pays off, because now I’m not pass a swimming test to graduate. Now potential recruits, and After School Mat- spending hours of my time every day pools are empty all year. Cool is basket- ters would have the kind of activity that on this; it’s more like 5 to 10 percent. ball and maybe baseball and football. Joan Wynn and other scholars say is ideal Because now, if there’s a problem, I can Not swimming.” for teenagers: “where they can make a just e-mail somebody who can fix it. Chicago’s Park District, even more contribution,…[with] some way of NO IDLE HOURS ■ 13

‘We didn’t spend a lot of time studying. We didn’t need to do a needs assessment and run regressions. It’s intuitive. We just started doing it.’ — David Doig

demonstrating mastery, high expectations the public schools, with considerable inte- their separate systems, and follow differ- and…some role in leadership.” gration of the two systems. ent schedules during the rest of their Superintendent Doig, who is a fan of Students in swimming classes or learn- work day. The idea of Sports 37, to use after-school programs anyway, needed no ing to be lifeguards, for example, often Doig’s word, was “intuitive.” The imple- persuading. “This was like a ‘duh.’ We train in their own school pools — which, mentation was anything but. have a chronic problem; they have a solu- in many poor neighborhoods, have sat tion….We didn’t spend a lot of time unused for years. The school thus has to studying. We didn’t need to do a needs fill the pool and supply the facility — at assessment and run regressions. It’s intu- additional cost to the cash-strapped itive. We just started doing it.” Chicago Public Schools — while the Park District supplies the instructors and some of its scarce lifeguards. (Where a partici- Benefits — but with a cost pating school has no pool, the Park Dis- trict or a nearby school may supply a LIFEGUARDS WERE an especially vivid training venue.) Similarly, students train- example of how Sports 37 benefits the ing to be day-camp counselors or coaches Yet to the likely astonishment of some Park District, but they weren’t the only spend part of their after-school time public administration experts, Sports 37 example. The program also trains training in school gyms, part in park was up and running within a year. That teenagers to serve as day-camp counselors clubhouses or playing fields, supervised feat required more than the usual atten- in city parks and as coaches and officials by school or park personnel or, often, by tion from Doig and his top staff. Not all for teams of younger kids. But these bene- specially recruited “masters,” including administrators took to the idea, and one fits came at a cost: The Park District at officials of the National Basketball Asso- or two needed to be strong-armed or first had to recruit or supply most of the ciation, whom the Park District hires to reassigned to ensure cooperation. A few coaches, trainers, and instructors to work teach officiating skills. decisions were admittedly improvised with the teenage apprentices (more All this bureaucratic crossover and and, as Doig puts it, “we’ll definitely be recently, participating adults have come sharing of responsibility is a profound tinkering with it as we go along.” Still, a from community organizations and the change from anything most city employ- challenge that many M.B.A. textbooks school system). The park system has to ees have ever experienced. Many people consider among the toughest an organiza- make its clubhouses, grounds, and pools doing similar work, or sharing responsi- tion can face — integrating alien bureau- available, with maintenance supervision, bility for the same students, have in most cracies around a hybrid set of for classes and training. More complicated cases never worked together before, con- responsibilities and goals — was accom- still, it has to weave these responsibilities tinue to report to different supervisors, plished in a matter of months, not years. into the related after-school activities of represent different levels of seniority in Barely a year after the program began, 14 ■ NO IDLE HOURS

Principals would ‘look across town at the better-off neighborhoods, and there’d be all kinds of things going on after school. And these principals would be sending their students home, in many cases, to nothing.’ — Arne Duncan

53 alumni of Sports 37 were on the job lengthen the principal’s normal workday than the kids across town. Now, that’s as Park District lifeguards at close to by at least three hours. As Duncan something that matters to a principal — $10 an hour, with the majority of those explains it: not just out of compassion, but also expected to come back again the next because nobody likes to see what they year. Meanwhile, as this is written, 50 to There’s no question that, in a typical work hard to accomplish all day long 60 more students have passed the life- school, this is going to involve more just get un-done in the next few hours. guard test and roughly 100 are expected work for the principal, the engineer, the to join the ranks in the summer of 2002. janitorial staff, the security staff. And at Other advantages also started to In short, within 24 months, the total this particular school, the principal had appear, reassuring some principals that number of lifeguards recruited and been around for awhile. He’d seen 50 of After School Matters would be good for trained in Chicago after-school programs these great reform ideas come and go, them and their schools even in the day- will exceed the number that New York and he wasn’t keen on sweating blood time hours. In one or two schools, a par- City had to fly in from overseas. The dif- over another one that wasn’t going to ticularly visible benefit came in the form ference is that on Labor Day, the new amount to anything…But today he’s a of new computers, broadband connec- Chicago lifeguards won’t be heading believer, one of the most enthusiastic tions, telecommunications support, and home to Warsaw or Kiev. Most will be people we’ve got. And why? Not just electrical upgrades for classrooms where back on the job year after year. because he feels it’s worth the extra work, the Tech 37 program would operate in but because it’s helping to create some the evenings. All that equipment, pur- basic equity that didn’t used to be there. chased and installed for After School ‘Some basic equity’ Matters, would then be available to the Principals in these neighborhoods are all school all day long as well. Schools that RECRUITING LIFEGUARDS for the Park Dis- running schools that, before Gallery 37 never, or rarely, had a working computer trict is surely the most obvious story of and After School Matters, had little or suddenly had an entire computer lab, how After School Matters benefited one nothing for their students [in the after- with high-speed connections and up-to- of its participating agencies. Other such school hours]. They’d look across town date software. “I walked in there the first stories were more subtle — and in some at the better-off neighborhoods, and day,” said one teacher, “and thought, I cases, agency officials weren’t exactly over- there’d be all kinds of things going on must have fallen asleep and woke up on whelmed by the alleged benefits at first. in the schools or in the community after the North Side.” Arne Duncan, CEO of the Chicago Public school. And these principals would be The prospect of “basic equity” has Schools, recalls a battle-weary principal at sending their students home, in many meant a lot to parks and library officials one high school who bluntly regarded the cases, to nothing. And it’s safe to as well. Parks chief David Doig has even after-school “opportunity” as a burden — assume those same students would be made it a point to chisel away some of the one whose main consequence would be to coming back the next day worse off class barriers that have made certain sports NO IDLE HOURS ■ 15

‘With a 40 percent dropout rate in the public school system, we have to give students reasons to go to school every day, and we can’t kid ourselves that those reasons are going to be purely academic and intellectual.’ — Arne Duncan alien in the inner city — activities like argues, schools and parks can at least help And if they aren’t coming, it doesn’t much golf, tennis, and yachting. Yes, yachting. to de-mystify these sports for students matter what we offer.” “We have the largest harbor system in who, someday, “may find it helpful — or Many proponents of after-school pro- the country,” says Doig, “and that’s an maybe just fun — to play a round of golf grams tend to spotlight their intellectual asset the whole city should enjoy. So last now and then.” and social benefits. That’s partly to summer, we took kids on sailing classes. increase their political appeal, no doubt, Most of them worked in our day camps and partly a genuine desire to help stu- four days a week, then on Fridays we dents perform better in school. And there gave them the day off to learn sailing. It is some research to suggest that partici- was part of their regular duties, so it gave pating in after-school programs might them a reason to try something that a lot help to boost academic performance — of them probably never would have con- though the data are still a long way from sidered.” Similarly, the Park District gives conclusive on that score. Other advocates Sports 37 participants free access to its connect after-school programs with other golf classes during part of the day, an serious public-policy goals, like reducing increasingly popular opportunity thanks crime, improving social development, to the rise of Tiger Woods. A public policy on fun and fending off harmful influences like In poorer neighborhoods, says Doig, (in Mayor Daley’s words) “gangs, guns, “there’s been a tendency to concentrate IT’S ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE to talk with any- and drugs.” All of that is fine with the on the ‘core’ sports — football, basket- one for very long about After School Mat- Daleys and other leaders of After School ball, baseball. Most won’t have a volley ters without hearing the word “fun.” The Matters. But first, it has to be fun. And ball program, or track and field. Many program is serious business, its leaders all in Chicago, that is a cornerstone of the don’t have soccer. And a lot of schools are point out, but its success depends heavily, public policy. struggling just to maintain the few they maybe decisively, on how much fun it is. “Look,” says Duncan, “with a 40 per- have. At a typical Chicago public high The word — in fact the very issue — has cent dropout rate in the public school school, they have at most a dozen sports. been known to raise eyebrows, as when system, we have to give students reasons Meanwhile at New Trier in North members of Congress in 1994 decried to go to school every day. And we can’t Chicago [a nearly all-white suburban proposals to spend federal anticrime kid ourselves that those reasons are going high school], they have something like money on Midnight Basketball as “pay for to be purely academic and intellectual. I 64 sports, including hockey, fencing, and play.” But in Chicago’s official after-school didn’t go to school every day because I boating.” Even if they can’t afford to run circles, fun is considered a sine qua non. was excited about trig and biology. I did golf and fencing programs for every “If they don’t enjoy it,” says schools CEO it because I wanted to be on the basket- Chicago public school student, Doig Arne Duncan, “they probably won’t come. ball team. If we have an after-school 16 ■ NO IDLE HOURS

program that students enjoy, something to perform, not just listen — and they they look forward to during the day, that Apprenticeship and income receive a stipend of $15 a session, or can change how they think about the $450 for a full semester. The stipends next day, and the next year, in school. serve several purposes, beyond the obvi- But if we just sit them down after school ous one of encouraging students to keep and give them more of what they got all attending. They also create an environ- day long, we aren’t changing anything.” ment of high expectations and reinforce So alongside the arts and sports and the idea that the program is meant to tech apprenticeships, the skill training lead to better-paid employment. Mean- and the job preparation, After School while, the paycheck offers a rare opportu- Matters also offers a pure-fun program nity to earn at least a little money while called Club 37, a no-obligation after- acquiring marketable skills. school sports program in gyms and park Organizers of the program recognize clubhouses, open to any student any day. OTHER AFTER SCHOOL MATTERS PROGRAMS that the stipends present a political risk. The only rule in Club 37 is to have fun. are much less free-wheeling than Club 37, Some critics would surely consider the But even here, the fun has a purpose: and intentionally so. The other programs idea another case of “pay for play,” even Club 37 activities are all supervised by are officially called “apprenticeships,” and though little of the “37” apprenticeship attentive adults, and they all take place are run as master classes — just like the regimen allows for playtime. (Club 37 is near other After School Matters pro- original Gallery 37 arts program that cre- the only pure-play option, and it pays no grams. Beyond the pure enjoyment, the ated the model. In Tech 37, most instruc- stipend.) Others might argue that the theory of Club 37 is that (a) at least the tors are professional freelancers in the stipends, albeit justified, are unaffordable kids are safe, which is more than many of telecommunications industry or work for as the program grows toward its much them could say otherwise; (b) they are tech-related nonprofit groups. Sports 37 bigger enrollment goal. The architects with an adult whose example or friend- leaders may be teachers, coaches, league of After School Matters, including the ship might be valuable to them; (c) officials, or others with hands-on experi- mayor and Mrs. Daley, say they under- they’re interacting with one another, ence in the sports they teach. And all the stand these concerns — and the question which by itself contributes to social devel- artists in Gallery 37 and Words 37 are prac- of affordability sometimes worries them opment; and (d) this could be a first step titioners, just as were the artists under the too, of necessity. But they believe the toward a more organized after-school original tent on Block 37 in 1991. stipends are too valuable — both to the activity later on. Along with the professionalism of the program and to the participants — to instructors goes a professional approach give up on them without a fight. Says to the training of the students: Partici- schools CEO Arne Duncan: pants are expected to attend regularly and NO IDLE HOURS ■ 17

‘A network of out-of-school activities can — in fact has to — reach at least half the teenagers in a relatively short time, and should be reaching more than that.’ — Joan Wynn

We have focused this program on our enrollment of 96,189. About 2,200 of the Although After School Matters can’t most impoverished communities, and participants are in the more structured supply every student’s needs for after- we’ve done that deliberately. That’s apprenticeship or “master-class” programs; school activity, it does see a need for a where we need to succeed, and that’s the remainder — necessarily a rough esti- wider and more tightly woven network of where the schools and the students need mate — are in Club 37, whose open-door options — a citywide partnership that to see success. But with that come some policy means that participation will vary includes the menu of ‘37’ programs, plus basic realities: These kids are under pres- from day to day . Those numbers are still those of schools and community groups sure to bring money in, not just for their far short of the goal, construed narrowly. and of larger nonprofit organizations like own pockets, but for the family, and for But that’s the wrong way to construe Y’s and Boys and Girls Clubs. Some of necessities. So in the out-of-school it, according to Joan Wynn of the Chapin these programs, especially those operated hours, your main competition is with Hall Center. “Our aim is not to create by smaller organizations, could use some things that bring in money — not just the universal answer to every kid’s out-of- help in recruiting students and adults, dead-end jobs, but gangs and drugs. school time,” she says, organizing or improving programs, and We’ve got to compete with that. We’ve measuring quality and results. That may got to be able to say to a student, “this but to fill in the gaps — and they’re huge be an opening through which After can be fun, and you’ll learn something, — where kids have idle time, and com- School Matters begins to reach more and you’ll get to try new ideas and new munities have nothing, or very little, for neighborhoods, not necessarily with activities — and you won’t have to go them to do. That’s a big part of the chal- immediate programs of its own, but without income.” lenge, supplying those gaps. But After through cooperation with programs that School Matters is not the whole picture. already exist elsewhere. In the meantime, Community organizations, churches, that would allow time for the ‘37’ pro- Growth and diversity sports leagues — they all have other grams to deepen their reach in neighbor- things that kids can be doing. They’re hoods that have few, if any, alternatives. THE AMBITIOUS GOAL of After School not in every neighborhood, and they’re Envisioning such a network puts After Matters — to have at least 50 percent of often not in the neighborhoods that need School Matters on sensitive terrain, the students in Chicago Public Schools them most. That’s where we have work which it will have to navigate carefully involved in some after-school activity by to do. But if you talk about After School over the next few years. On one hand, 2005 — is not as far-fetched as it seems. Matters as part of a much wider network the program brings formidable resources, On one hand, the apprenticeships and of out-of-school activities, then that both actual and potential, to the chal- clubs operating in the spring of 2003 whole network certainly can — in fact, lenge of galvanizing a truly citywide after- involved at most 4,000 students on any has to — reach at least half the teenagers school industry. It has the city’s official given day — just over 4 percent of the in a relatively short time, and should be backing; wide-ranging experience with Chicago Public Schools’ total high school reaching more than that. different kinds of programs and activities; 18 ■ NO IDLE HOURS

The goal is to bring in not only a caring adult, but also a distinctive set of interests, skills, and activities that will create a unique experience for the student — in which the instructor is not just an expert, but a fan and a promoter. credibility with instructors, mentors, and School Matters has enlisted more than spend their days at jobs that have little or administrators; and a fundraising reach 100 community-based organizations to nothing to do with coaching teenagers. that is still growing. On the other hand, provide apprenticeship and internship Quality, for students in After School it is exactly the kind of big, celebrated positions for 2,500 teenagers across the Matters, begins with an instructor who new program that struggling community city. As a first step toward a year-round speaks from experience and who has organizations and longstanding nonprofits common agenda, the Summer Initiative come to the program specifically as a way tend to distrust: championed by Chicago’s provides a kind of laboratory for collabo- of encouraging young people and culti- financial and cultural elite, lionized in ration and building trust, and starting to vating their talent. the media, and most of all, anointed as form relationships that could continue to To find such adults, After School a City Hall initiative, with no less than grow after school begins again. Matters advertises, encourages word-of- the First Lady as chair. Seen that way, mouth solicitation, contacts sports and any attempt by After School Matters to arts organizations and participating cor- organize and support other after-school Recruiting the ‘Masters’ porations, and recruits through the Inter- programs could sound a bit like “we’re net. The web site invites adults not only from the government, and we’re here to SEEN AT AN OBJECTIVE DISTANCE, the qual- to become instructors, but to submit help you.” ity of an after-school program depends on ideas for activities they could lead. Some For that reason, among others, After dozens of moving parts, including the ade- apprenticeships — for life guards or School Matters has been careful and quacy of the facilities and equipment, the league referees, for instance — require a deliberate about reaching out to other care with which activities are planned and set curriculum leading toward a fixed set organizations, coordinating and sharing administered, the level of security, avail- of skills. Others, though, like communi- resources, and building an after-school ability of transportation, and the variety of cations, computer technology, or the arts, network. Eventually, Mrs. Daley says, topics and activities in which kids can par- could take many forms, depending who “there will be a great benefit to all of us ticipate. From the perspective of the par- leads them. When After School Matters in working more closely together.” But in ticipants, however, most of these elements recruits an instructor, the goal is to bring the meantime, by setting a goal that is are visible only indirectly. What really in not only a caring adult, but also a dis- probably beyond the capacity of any one counts, for them, is the quality of the par- tinctive set of interests, skills, and activi- organization to reach, After School Mat- ticipating adults. ties that will create a unique experience ters sends two related messages: It has set Gallery 37 started on the model of a for the student — one in which the its own sights high, and its vision is one master class, and the idea has carried over instructor is not just an expert, but a fan in which many others can — in fact need into After School Matters’ other programs. and promoter. to — take part. The instructors and coaches are, first When theater coach Debbie Maddox The networking has begun. Beginning and foremost, accomplished practitioners. introduces students to the “thrill of with a Summer Youth Initiative, After A minority are full-time teachers; most rehearsal,” she is putting them through NO IDLE HOURS ■ 19

Achievement and passion alone don’t make a good instructor. The program has to find adults who are also good with adolescents, able to plan activity that fills a semester, and available from 3 to 6 pm three days a week. an experience she knows firsthand, from ing — with 74 more high schools yet to administrators and researchers from her regular work life. Tech instructors be served — it will need an expanded Chapin Hall had hoped to track students’ help students design web pages by tinker- recruitment and training program big daily participation by using electromag- ing with the same design elements the enough to fill new slots while still manag- netic ID cards, which participants would instructor uses professionally. Participants ing turnover in old ones. swipe through a reader on their way in in Words 37 perform stories that they and out of the programs. Data from the write or choose themselves, but the tech- readers would then have told exactly niques come, in large part, from the Interpreting outcomes which enrollees attended, at what loca- repertoire of a master storyteller, who is tions, on which days, and which ones also their instructor. IN LESS THAN THREE YEARS since it was persisted in the program for how long. For After School Matters instructors, organized, After School Matters has made If a particular program was losing stu- personal achievement and passion for the much more progress in organizing pro- dents at a higher rate, or if a particular subject are as much a qualification as any grams than in collecting data. That’s natu- day of the week showed above-average formal credential. But achievement and ral, to some extent — the program prides absences, the programs’ coordinators passion don’t necessarily make a good itself on placing action ahead of theory, could try to intervene or, at a minimum, instructor. In fact, the program has to and as a result, on leaping organizational factor the results into the planning of the find adults with a rare combination of hurdles in record time. But even the pro- next semester’s activity. qualifications: people who are not only gram’s most pragmatic, action-oriented But the card-readers proved unwork- experienced in their subject and infec- supporters had expected to have more able. Not only did students tend to mislay tiously enthusiastic about it, but also numbers and measurements in the first the cards or forget to use them, but many good with adolescents, able to plan and three years than have, in fact, materialized. participants never left the building carry out activity that exactly fills a As this is written, aggregate data on enroll- between the normal school day and the semester, and available from 3 to 6 p.m. ment and participant satisfaction are start of after-school activity. So there was three days a week. Starting in just a hand- beginning to come in. But numbers on no point of “entry” at which to swipe a ful of schools, the program recruited daily attendance, student attitudes toward card. Paper surveys, manual head-counts, instructors who already met the basic particular activities, and comparisons of and interviews have supplied some of the requirements, or who showed a natural performance school-by-school or program- missing information, but they require ability and could rise to the challenge by-program, are still sketchy or nonexist- much more human effort, and the infor- with minimal training. (Even then, coor- ent. As it turns out, the practical obstacles mation consequently comes in more dinators for the various “37” programs to collecting reliable data have been nearly slowly, with less ability to use data in “real- have occasionally had to replace instruc- as tough as the obstacles to setting up a time” management. A new online atten- tors between semesters if the chemistry program in the first place. dance system now tracks participation for was wrong.) But at 24 schools and grow- At one point, for example, program each two-week pay period, but can’t yet 20 ■ NO IDLE HOURS

pinpoint attendance on a given day. in After School Matters was equal to or ■ 75 percent of Tech 37 apprentices Even so, as data start to come in, the greater than the school-wide percentage. rated themselves highly on designing, publishing, or building products using results are encouraging. Most important, Roughly 10 percent of the students in the computers; the data are forming a partial answer to structured, skill-building apprenticeship ■ 88 percent of Words 37 apprentices the question most often raised about any programs have known learning disabili- reported that they had improved their program with such a rich array of activi- ties; 2 percent are classified as mentally ability to speak in front of an audience, and 90 percent said they were now bet- ties: Is After School Matters “creaming”? handicapped, and 1.5 percent as having ter at expressing their feelings in words; That is, are the students in the program emotional and behavioral disorders. ■ 86 percent of Sports 37 apprentices say the least needy by some standard — the Still, much of this information relates they now know how to be fair when brightest or most talented kids, the ones to applicants, not participants (partly teaching sports, that they know appro- with the most engaged parents, or those for the obvious reason that applicants priate drills to run with different age groups, and that they know how to who would have done something con- all fill out the same form, more or less teach the fundamentals of a sport; structive after school anyway, program at the same time, so that information is ■ 94 percent of Gallery 37 apprentices or no? complete and comparable). Data on feel able to express themselves through At a minimum, it’s clear that the pro- participants — those who actually show their chosen art form, and 85 percent say the program introduced them to arts gram overwhelmingly serves minority up from day to day and take part in institutions in their field, like museums students — 76 percent of applicants are organized activities — are harder to col- or dance companies. African American and 18 percent are lect and interpret over time, but survey Latino. But that isn’t so remarkable, given information is now being compiled on None of this proves what many that the schools in which it operates students’ satisfaction with their experi- observers surmise, and what the organizers have nearly all-minority student bodies. ence and the result they believe it’s had of After School Matters in fact deeply More significant are the results of reading for them. believe: that the program has filled a achievement tests, which show no signifi- Most significant is that the students yawning void in students’ after-school cant difference between students who feel their time with adults has been pro- hours, and provided constructive activity go on to enroll in After School Matters ductive: 90 percent say that instructors to students who would otherwise have programs and those who don’t. helped them learn new skills; 75 percent done nothing or may have landed in trou- In the 18 schools with the full range report that instructors held their interest; ble. As data trickle in, they do strongly of programs in the Fall of 2002, 16.5 81 percent credit instructors with encour- suggest those things — especially when percent of the applicants were enrolled in aging them and making them feel combined with even a cursory tour of the special education — only a shade lower comfortable in the activity they were neighborhoods where After School than the schools’ overall rate of enroll- practicing. Satisfaction levels seem to Matters operates: communities with few ment in special ed, 18.5 percent. In four carry over across all four component pro- businesses to offer jobs, no community of the 18 schools, special-ed enrollment grams. For example, at the end of 2001, centers or civic organizations to offer NO IDLE HOURS ■ 21

‘We’re looking for the kids who need a teacher or some adult to say, “You know what? I think you ought to try this.”…That’s who’s going to get us the enrollment we need.’ — Kristin Eckberg recreational or volunteer programs, nor teacher or some adult to say, ‘You know programs operate on site in several of the even any safe havens where just “hanging what? I think you ought to try this. I schools in After School Matters. out” would at least be secure and inviting. bet you’ll be good at it.’ It might be a To the naked eye, these efforts seem to Within these communities, the pro- teacher or a counselor or an assistant be working. Speaking at random to visi- gram has gone to extra lengths to make principal — every school has its own tors, participants in “37” programs tell sure its recruitment reaches young people system. One school has a park specialist stories of siblings murdered or injured in who would be the least likely to sign up who happens to know every kid in street violence, relatives imprisoned or on their own. Bright or eager students will school by name. He roams the halls addicted to drugs, parents working multi- naturally join, and the program is better after school and he can say to some kid, ple jobs or otherwise unavailable for most for their participation, but the annual ‘You’re not up to anything right now, of the day. Are those conditions wide- sign-up drive includes a special mobiliza- why don’t you come with me and let’s spread among the students who partici- tion aimed precisely at the students who see what’s going on.’ He’s our secret pate in the program? Do such problems wouldn’t normally come forward without weapon at that school. That’s who’s affect participating students to the same encouragement. In the weeks before the going to get us the enrollment we need. degree that they affect others? Is the pro- drive starts, After School Matters and the gram offering a really effective remedy to heads of participating city agencies hold Other parts of city government help these conditions? With After School Mat- rallies at participating schools aimed not too. Chicago’s Department of Human ters barely approaching its third birthday, at students but at teachers, principals, and Services operates YouthNet programs the answers aren’t conclusive yet. counselors. As part of her pitch to school in every police district, coordinating But even for much older organizations, personnel, Kristin Eckberg, communica- community services, law enforcement, real answers, in the form of scientific tions director for After School Matters, after-school programs, and other youth proof, are hard to come by. The definitive urges teachers to seek out the loners, the development efforts, and point unserved evaluation of a program for youth — the discouraged or troubled, or students they young people toward programs that can 1995 study of Big Brothers Big Sisters suspect simply don’t have anything con- benefit them. “YouthNet works with kids of America by the nonprofit firm Public/ structive to do. who might be on the verge of criminal Private Ventures — explains one reason “Part of my appeal to them is that this behavior, or might just be hanging out in why really conclusive evaluations are is not a program just for the best and the dangerous places,” Eckberg says. “Because scarce. That evaluation was ground- brightest,” Eckberg says. they work closely with the police, among breaking, both in the thoroughness of other programs, they find kids someone its methodology and the strength of its We need to find the kids who aren’t might be worried about, kids on the findings. Young people were randomly going to look at a poster or find the fringes who might really enjoy After assigned to experimental and control web site and just sign up on their own. School Matters but would probably never groups, their behavior was monitored for We’re looking for the kids who need a come here on their own.” YouthNet a follow-up period of 18 months, and the 22 ■ NO IDLE HOURS

‘In these neighborhoods, who isn’t in need? It’s not just that these areas aren’t wealthy, it’s that they don’t offer…much of an opportunity to learn skills and find work.’ — Arne Duncan results were rigorously measured and vey and data-collection techniques that fewer advantages. Service to any student, compared. But the cost — approaching will track experience in the programs, doc- gifted or challenged, sociable or with- $4 million, with all the research included ument conditions around the participating drawn, motivated or discouraged, is an — would be prohibitive for many pro- schools, and otherwise lay the groundwork opportunity to build strengths, and a grams. And creating a truly randomized for an evaluation. Chapin Hall and After shield against harm, that otherwise would experiment, in which a selection of young School Matters are also seeking grants to not exist. people are deliberately denied service, mount such an evaluation, though at the You don’t need a randomized experi- would be hard for most organizations time this is written, in early 2003, a slug- ment to see this point clearly. You just to swallow.4 gish economy has made grants for research need to ask. Down the hall from Jerone’s But the results of Public/Private Ven- even scarcer than normal. theater workshop at Paul Robeson High tures’ work were remarkable, and to this There’s no disputing the importance School, Gallery 37 offers a painting class day they define, in capital letters, what a of a sound evaluation, both to funders for 18 students. One of the apprentice good relationship with a caring adult can and to the program’s leaders. Yet no one artists, Ronnell,5 a clever, talkative young- achieve. In several statistically significant at After School Matters seems particularly ster with obvious talent for painting, ways, young people who had a Big Sister in doubt about at least one aspect of such exchanged jokes and stories with a visitor or Big Brother had markedly better results an exercise — the question of whether while he worked. From the lively, mature than those in the control group. Among the program is “creaming” less-needy conversation, Ronnell hardly seemed to other things, participating youngsters youngsters. As Public Schools CEO Arne be someone experts would designate an were substantially less likely to start using Duncan put it, “In these neighborhoods, “at-risk youth.” Asked what he would drugs or alcohol, to engage in violence, or who isn’t in need? It’s not just that these have been doing if he weren’t in this to skip school. Grades were slightly better, areas aren’t wealthy, it’s that they don’t workshop, he answered, “Drawing.” and even subtler signs of trouble, like offer much that’s constructive to do, or “You prefer to draw?” the visitor asked. lying to parents, were sharply down. much of an opportunity to learn skills or “No, I’d rather paint. But you can Not surprisingly, After School Matters find work.” In that kind of environment, draw anywhere, you don’t need nothing has no plans to create a control group by Duncan argues, it doesn’t matter much special. Painting’s messy.” randomly barring students from their pro- how gifted or well-behaved or diligent a “Where would you draw, usually? At grams. But even with other methods, the student is, because when the final bell home?” cost of a reliable evaluation will surely be rings, even the most accomplished student “No, at my friend Shawn’s house.” high. In the meantime, Chapin Hall is going into the same world of boredom “Is Shawn here too?” researchers are helping the staff design sur- or ambient danger as is one who has “Uh-uh. He’s in jail.”

4 Big Brothers Big Sisters of America agreed to this practice, after considerable soul-searching, only because it did not affect the number of children who would ultimately get a mentor. The program would have had to say No to at least as many young people anyway, study or no study. The network of local Big Brothers Big Sisters agencies never has enough volunteer adults to serve all the youngsters who sign up. Consequently, the number of children in the control group was no greater than the number of children who would have been unserved under other circumstances. For organizations like After School Matters that still have room for more children, and have plans to increase their enrollment, the creation of a randomly assigned control group would be much more unsettling. It would mean actively barring the gates to young people who want to sign up and would otherwise have been welcome.

5 The names in this exchange have been altered. All other names in this report are real. NO IDLE HOURS ■ 23

Acknowledgements

AFTER SCHOOL MATTERS Maggie Daley, chair Nancy Wachs, executive director Marisa Gonzales Silverstein, associate director Kristin Eckberg, director of marketing Rachel P. Klein, director of evaluation and new program development

CITY OF CHICAGO Mayor Richard M. Daley B.J. Walker, chief of human infrastructure, Office of the Mayor Mary A. Dempsey, commissioner, Chicago Public Library David J. Doig, general superintendent, Chicago Park District Arne Duncan, CEO, Chicago Public Schools

CHAPIN HALL CENTER FOR CHILDREN Joan R. Wynn, research fellow Robert J. Chaskin, research fellow

THE AFTER SCHOOL PROJECT Carol Glazer, senior program consultant JoAnne Vellardita, program associate About the After School Project

HE ROBERT WOOD JOHNSON FOUNDATION created the After School Project in 1998 as a five-year, three-city demon- Tstration aimed at connecting significant numbers of young people in low-income neighborhoods with responsible adults during out-of-school time. To that end, the Project focuses on developing: (1) consistent, dedicated revenues to support after school programs in low-income communities; (2) an array of developmental opportu- nities for youth, including physical activity and sports, educational, social, and recreational programs; and (3) strong local organizations with the necessary resources, credibility, and political clout to bring focus and visibility to the youth development field.

For more information, please write to The After School Project, 180 West 80th Street, Second Floor, New York, NY 10024; or e-mail: [email protected]. For additional copies, please contact The After School Project 180 West 80th Street New York, NY 10024

e-mail: [email protected] Designed by Amy Janello. Cover photo by Zelick Nagel/Getty Images. Inside photos courtesy of After School Matters.