After-school programs have grown rapidly in recent years, spurred by rising employment rates of mothers, pressure to increase academic achievement, and concerns about risks to children who are unsupervised during after-school hours. The percentage of public schools offering "extended day" programs (which include before- and after-school programs) more than tripled from 1987 to 1999, from about 13 percent to 47 percent. The federal government's investment in after-school programs has grown rapidly as well. Funding for the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program, created in 1994, rose from $40 million in 1998 to $1 billion in 2002. The program now provides funding to 2,250 school districts to support school-based programs in 7,000 public schools. Some studies of after-school programs have found that these programs increase academic achievement and student safety, as well as reduce negative behaviors such as drug and alcohol use. However, other studies have found that after-school programs have no effect on--and even worsen--certain outcomes, leading to debate over whether the evidence supports increased investment in after-school programs. Four appendixes include response rates and data quality, study design and methods for estimating impacts, sensitivity tests and results for alternative specifications, and subgroup tables.

In Supplementary Education, the editors argue that while access to schools that enable and expect academic achievement is a necessary ingredient for the education of students, schools alone may not be sufficient to ensure universally high levels of academic development. Supplemental educational experiences may also be needed. The idea of supplementary education is based on the assumption that high academic achievement is closely associated with exposure to family and community-based activities and learning experiences that occur both in and out of school in support of academic learning. For low income and some ethnic minority student groups, opportunities to participate in such activities are generally under-resourced and underutilized in comparison to the access to and participation in such activities by many European- and Asian- Americans from mid to high socio-economic backgrounds. This book makes the case for supplementary education. Specifically, it focuses on the need for universal access to high levels of academic achievement, and the challenge of reducing the 'achievement gap' that exists between Asian American and European American students and their African American, Latina/o, and Native American counterparts. Having posed the problem, the editors define the construct and provide in-depth descriptions of some of the more colloquial expressions of supplementation in after school care, youth development, and other forms of supplemental education. The editors close with a discussion of the emerging institutionalization and need for more thoughtful and rigorous research of the supplementary education movement.