What Has TASC Accomplished?

	Our History Watch the video below to see where we came from and what we achieved in just one decade:

Decade One: Establishing After-School

TASC was founded in 1998 through a challenge grant from the Open Society Foundations (then the Open Society Institute), with the goal of making comprehensive, daily after-school programs available to all kids who could benefit. In America, the poorest kids have the fewest opportunities to keep learning after 3. We created a model for daily after-school programs that community organizations, such as Ys and settlement houses, operate in New York City public schools every day that school is in session. We proved that high quality, effective after-school programs that keep kids safe while parents work could be supported cost-effectively at scale to reach large numbers of kids in the regular public schools that most attend

Results Lead to Policy Change

Policy Studies Associates conducted an independent, five-year evaluation of TASC programs, which found that high quality programs demonstrably improve kids’ school achievement, attendance and engagement. By showing results, TASC influenced a national movement for the development of high quality programs and school models that expand the time and ways kids learn at a cost public funding can sustain.

We also influenced policy change by showing how private investment could leverage more efficient, more effective use of public investments in both education and youth development. Over 10 years we leveraged more than four dollars in private and public spending for every dollar the Open Society Foundations invested in our founding challenge grant. We laid the foundation for New York City to build the nation’s largest publicly funded after-school system.

TASC helped found or advocated for the creation of:

• Collaborative for Building After-School Systems
• Coalition for Science After School
• New York State’s Advantage After School program
• The only federal funding stream devoted exclusively to after-school learning opportunities, 21st Century Community Learning Centers

Decade Two: Reforming Education

In our first decade, we found that the most effective after-school programs were ones where the host school and its community partner—the principal, teachers, and community educators such as teaching artists—all operated across the school day and after school as one unified team. Together they planned a set of after-school activities that reinforced and expanded on what kids learned during the school day. Together they shared the responsibility of educating the whole child by supporting each student’s intellectual, creative and healthy development.

This became the basis for ExpandED Schools.

In 2008, TASC began to pilot a longer school day model in what grew to be 17 New York City elementary and middle schools. Our partners in Expanded Learning Time/New York City were the New York City Departments of Education and Youth and Community Development, as well as visionary principals and their partnering community organizations. We commissioned an independent evaluation of the three year pilot, which supported schools and community partners working together across a longer school day. We looked at changes in students’ achievement, school attendance and attitudes and found:

• Students out-performed city and state peers in improving their math and English proficiency.
• Students’ school attendance improved, on average, seven more days a year than in matched schools.
• 85% of teachers surveyed said students’ learning improved.

We also found that it’s possible to expand the school day in a way that’s cost-effective and feasible even in this economic environment. By blending education and youth development funds with private investment, we can give kids at least 35% more learning time at 10% additional cost to the school day.

In the 2011-2012 school year, the Wallace Foundation and the Open Society Foundations committed major funding to a national expansion or our longer school day model, which we re-named ExpandED Schools. TASC is now working with five demonstration schools in New York City, three in Baltimore and three in New Orleans to refine a model longer learning day that does the following:

• Improve student outcomes.
• Give students a wider range of opportunities to develop their talents, so that less advantaged kids get the kinds of opportunities middle class families arrange for their children.
• Keep kids safe and support working parents through the crucial afternoon hours.
• Provide what everyone wants for their children: a well-rounded education, quality instruction and a fighting chance to be successful.