Our investment in the 21 st Century Community Learning Centers (CCLC) program is indeed a rare example of a social investment with substantially bi-partisan support and, equally important, a growing footprint of local collaboration with elected officials, school administrators, and community providers. Although the program enjoys wide support, the depth of the investment, $1.2 billion each year, should lead us to regularly ask questions about social value. Is it worth the money? In this policy commentary, we do some reasoning about how 21 st CCLC produces value and discuss the limitations in one particular way of seeing that value – the intent-to-treat impact evaluation design. Because some actors see the intent-to-treat evaluation design as a sufficient source of evidence for high stakes policy decisions about 21 st CCLC programs (e.g., Dynarski, 2015; Kremer et al., 2015), we want to take time to understand how the decision to use this powerful evaluation method affects what gets seen and what gets valued.
[1]
Brandy R. Maynard,et al.
Effects of After-School Programs with At-Risk Youth on Attendance and Externalizing Behaviors: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
,
2015,
Journal of youth and adolescence.
[2]
M. Dynarski,et al.
When Schools Stay Open Late: The National Evaluation of the 21st-Century Community Learning Centers Program, First Year Findings
,
2005
.
[3]
M. Dynarski,et al.
When Schools Stay Open Late: The National Evaluation of the 21st Century Community Learning Centers Program. New Findings. Executive Summary.
,
2004
.
[4]
Frank Fischer,et al.
The Experimenting Society: Essays in Honor of Donald T. Campbell
,
1999
.