From Monday’s issue of K-12Leads and Youth Service Markets Report.
Announcement: High-Quality Supplemental Educational Services and After-School Partnerships Demonstration Program Due August 12 (Jul 7)
Their Description:The purpose of the High-Quality Supplemental Educational Services and After-School Partnerships Demonstration competition is to encourage the establishment or expansion of partnerships between supplemental educational services (SES) programs and 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21stCCLC) projects in order to increase the academic achievement of low-income students in Title I schools identified for improvement, corrective action, or restructuring. Through this competition, the Department will fund projects that will serve as national models of how these two federally authorized afterschool initiatives can be coordinated so that a greater number of students enroll in, participate in, and complete academic after-school services that improve their achievement in reading and mathematics.
SES programs, authorized under section 1116(e) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as amended by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (ESEA), provide free academic instruction to students from low-income families who attend a Title I school in the second year of improvement, in corrective action, or in restructuring. SES programs provide tutoring, remediation, and other research-based educational interventions that are consistent with the content and instruction used by the local educational agency (LEA) and aligned with the State’s academic content standards.
The 21stCCLC program, authorized under Title IV, Part B of the ESEA, provides opportunities for communities to establish or expand activities in community learning centers that offer academic enrichment, including tutorial services, to help students, particularly students who attend low-performing schools, meet State and local academic achievement standards in core academic subjects. The program also provides a broad array of additional services and activities for students and their families that are designed to reinforce and complement the regular academic program of participating students. Centers can be located in elementary or secondary schools or other similarly accessible facilities....
Under the ESEA, students in low-performing Title I schools across the country may be eligible to participate in the 21stCCLC and SES programs. Both programs provide after-school services designed to help raise students’ academic achievement....
This competition has one absolute priority... This priority will support innovative approaches to coordinating SES and 21stCCLC programs in order to increase and sustain students’ participation in these programs and improve students’ academic achievement. Through this priority, we will fund demonstration projects that coordinate the after-school academic and enrichment services of recipients of 21stCCLC local grants with the academic instruction of one or more State-approved SES providers, in an
LEA that is identified by the State as in need of improvement or corrective action. The projects funded under this priority will develop strategies to coordinate the resources of the SES and 21stCCLC programs so that (1) greater numbers of students in the LEA enroll in and benefit from intensive, standards based academic services, and (2) the projects will be sustained after the grant period ends.
We believe that coordinating the Federal investments in the SES and 21stCCLC programs has the potential to strengthen the quality and intensity of services available to students by leveraging the resources of the two programs and providing services that meet a wide range of academic and after-school needs of students and families.
My Thoughts: I can see the two programs merged in NCLB II. It consolidates funding and provides a way for those opposed to SES, to “do something” about it. Here is an opportunity to be prepared.
