The overarching purpose of this evaluation is to determine whether providing students
with enhanced after-school academic instruction improves their math or reading achievement
above and beyond what they would have achieved had they remained in a regular after-school
program. In particular, the study examines whether making the enhanced program available
to students for one year improves student achievement, and whether that impact differs
when the program is in its second year of operation and, thus, more mature, compared
to the first implementation year. Therefore, the following impact questions are
examined in this report:
The study can also examine whether making the enhanced program available to students for two school years — thereby potentially lengthening students’ average level of exposure to the program — improves student achievement. Hence, the following question is also addressed in this report:
The report also examines two questions that cannot be answered based on the experimental design of the study. First, in order to provide information about the treatment for those who actually received it in both years (rather than the effect of offering two years of programming, which includes students who did not actually participate both years), this report examines the relationship between achievement and program participation for those students who participated in both years of the enhanced after-school services. Second, because the enhanced program was offered in a variety of settings, this report also examines the association between impacts on achievement and the variation in the local school context, as well as variation in program implementation. These nonexperimental findings can then be used to help interpret the generalizability of the overall experimental findings, as well as generate possible avenues for program improvement.