After-school activities improve college access and save lives

Originally posted on October 04, 2011.

Last Friday, I sat in a trailer at Madison Continuation High School, one of my field sites in South Los Angeles. Teachers and administrators in the district call the school an “emergency room.” “Once the students get to us,” said the principal,” they’re in desperate need of some love and care.”

In front of me was a thick binder with student schedules. For the past 15 minutes, I received bad news as the teacher’s assistant reported that student after student was absent. Mrs. Rainard, an all-purpose administrator, said, “Oh, I should have told you: A lot of students don’t come on Fridays. Who’s next on the list?”

“Alberto Morales,” I said.

“That boy is a pot-head. He’s also as old as water,” joked Mrs. Rainard.

A few minutes later, Alberto walked through the door. I met Alberto once before to explain my study. He was skeptical of me and in a daze. As I began the interview on Friday, however, he was friendly and lucid.

I asked Alberto, whose GPA was around 1.8, about college: “Oh yeah, I want to go to college. I take classes right now. Silk screening. I made this shirt.”

He excitedly took his backpack off to show me the back: a woman smoking a bong.

Over the next 30 minutes, he told me about his life. I heard stories about fights, tagging, and beefs with gangs: “My crew, we do graffiti,” he said. “Sometimes gangs get pissed when you tag in their spots.” Throughout the interview, Alberto never mentioned after-school activities like soccer, academic decathlon, or student government. Silk screening, as it turned out, was his only extracurricular. “I’ve been trying to make something of myself,” he admitted. “I don’t want to get in any more trouble with the cops.”

I’ve conducted nearly 30 interviews for my dissertation. I’ve met a lot of amazing young men. I count Alberto in that group. One fact, however, is alarmingly clear: after-school activities are critical to success for teenagers in low-income neighborhoods.

All students benefit from after-school activities. That’s true. But, all students don’t need after-school activities to keep them off the streets and save their lives. These young men do.

Across the country, reformers are creating extended-learning opportunities to keep young men engaged. Get students in early. Keep them late. Charter schools, for instance, often have longer school days. USC’s Neighborhood Academic Initiative (NAI) is another example. The pre-college program supplements the school day with classes before and after school.

Unfortunately, without external funding or the support of universities, such reforms are unlikely to occur in money-strapped urban school districts. After-school activities, however, offer a cheap alternative. Often, with at-risk students, administrators and teachers require less, not more, when the students begin acting out. For instance, they go from honors to general level classes. That’s wrong. At the moment students disengage, schools need to demand more. If we are serious about getting teenagers like Alberto to college, we need to offer more after-school activities and we need to make them part of their required coursework. Otherwise, we have no chance against, what Alberto called, “the pull of the streets.”

Providing opportunities to learn

Annette Lareau, in her classic book Unequal Childhoods, develops the concept of concerted cultivation, the targeted development and socialization of children through experiences and activities. She argues that concerted cultivation—as opposed to natural growth—is a key parenting strategy. It is a concept that is so popular, in part, because it makes sense. For my dissertation, I build on Lareau’s work to discuss concerted cultivation across the neighborhood.

A key difference between high and low achievers is what they do during the first three hours after school. For the highest achievers, this time is spent participating in activities that are consistent with concerted cultivation. For the lowest achievers, this time is often spent hanging around with friends, working at a low-skill job, babysitting siblings, or watching television. Each of these activities does little to improve college access.

What can we do to improve college access?

The answer, I believe, is to create extended learning opportunities (ELOs). The National Education Association defines ELOs as “a broad range of programs that provide children with academic enrichment and/or supervised activities beyond the tradition school day and, in some cases, beyond the traditional school year” (p. 1). Although ELOs may include traditional after-school programs, they consist of a much larger and more flexible variety of options such as before- and after-school tutoring, internships, and summer enrichment programs. ELOs ought to appeal to district administrators, in part, because of the flexibility of delivery options. Districts or private partners such as non-profit organizations or universities may provide them. 

The findings from my dissertation highlight the value of engaging teenagers immediately before and after school. ELOs provide structured supervision where adults act as mentors and resource brokers. High school is a time when teenagers have more independence, more choices, and are more apt to explore their environment. By enrolling their children in out-of-class activities, parents structure and control their teenager’s behavior and activity. After-school activities not only protect teenagers from getting into trouble but also improve student grades, participation, and self-confidence.

While comprehensive reforms such as the Harlem Children’s Zone are necessary and important, they are also expensive and unlikely during the current recession. ELOs present a practical option to provide access to social and cultural capital and engender college access.

The first three hours after school

After the last school bell rings, teenagers have a variety of options to occupy their time. The number of options multiplies due to several factors. First, older age correlates to increased freedom. In addition, parents or guardians are likely to work after school lets out. Second, in urban neighborhoods, teenagers have access to a variety of locations. Friends’ houses, parks, fast food restaurants, and public transit are all within walking distance. Teens are not dependent on rides from parents or older siblings.

From participating in after-school activities to hanging out with friends, what teens do and the people with whom they interact either reinforce or detract from college access. Meaningful after-school activities provide extended learning opportunities and engender college-going behaviors. That knowledge and those behaviors even extend to informal activities such as playing basketball or eating at a fast food restaurant with friends. During those times, teens discuss a range of issues including choosing and paying for college. In contrast, informal activities such as gangbanging or doing drugs have the ability to derail college access. Poor choices out of school lead to poor grades in school. Not only are the teens participating in illicit activities, the conversations differ starkly from those of their more academically engaged teens. 

President Obama is sounding the alarm for increased postsecondary opportunities. At the same time, district administrators are making tough choices. Those choices include which programs to fund and which positions to staff. Unfortunately, after-school activities are often the first to go. The reasoning goes something like, “We have to focus on the core, not the periphery. An after-school college prep program is nice, but it won’t improve test scores.” That reasoning ignores the value of after-school programs, which provide supervision, mentorship, and extended learning opportunities.

If we want to improve college access, it’s time to focus on the first three hours after school.