Before- and after-school programs that serve nearly 45,000 Indiana children each day aren’t a funding priority in Indiana, but an influential state lawmaker said today that it’s time for that to change.
Advocates for after-school programs say their programs are vital resources, but they are often thought of as an after-thought to the traditional school day.
After bursting onto the national scene a few years ago, Pay For Success financing is gaining traction among Colorado school districts and early childhood organizations.
Programs that allow students to earn high school and college credit at the same time are seen as an effective way to boost college success rates. However, numerous legislative efforts over the past decade to expand opportunities for students to take the courses have withered.
Stagnant funding is making it difficult for after-school programs to retain and attract high-quality staff and is reducing the number of enrichment activities, such as field trips or arts programs, offered to low-income students, according to a survey released Monday by the Partnership for Children & Youth. The daily rate of $7.50 a student from California’s state-funded program has not increased since 2006, when the program was first implemented.
As a result of a new state law, California schools instituted transitional kindergarten to give 4-year-olds who were previously eligible for kindergarten an extra year to adjust to school and experience a less academically-oriented curriculum. But many thousands of those children are in classrooms with kindergartners, leaving teachers to figure out how to accommodate the new approach for 4-year-olds while preparing the 5-year-olds for 1st grade.
Advocates for after-school programs will be holding a national summit in Los Angeles on Tuesday to build opposition to a plan to eliminate $1.15 billion in federal funding for after-school and summer programs.
The switch to integrated math is now complete at Putnam County Schools, which is pioneering the approach in Tennessee as more districts consider a new way of doing math.
Teachers say the new PARCC is an improvement over the previous Illinois state tests, but they want more time to prep for it and say not all of their students are ready for its level of academic challenge.
Nearly 46 percent of Chicago public school students identify as Hispanic this year, and district leaders say it’s necessary to make the study of Latino history and culture a core part of education. CPS plans to sell the new curriculum to other districts, and is launching it a year after an African American Studies curriculum made its debut. Experts say no other school system has made such an expansive effort to incorporate ethnic studies into the school day.