“I hope my new Japanese friends paid attention to what American kids were doing after school and on the weekends,” he writes, “because that is when our special sauce is made.”

Mike cites a range of skills that our young people develop while participating in extracurricular activities—innovative thinking, leadership and teamwork skills, competitiveness and creativity—all of which contribute to “America’s special sauce.” I would add to that list of secret ingredients: having the opportunity to discover their passions and take charge of their own learning (a theme that my colleague Saskia Traill wrote about here). The innovators that Mike lists in his post—Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg—may or may not have been introduced to technology in school, but it was the time and opportunity they had to pursue what they loved outside of the classroom that made them great.

The post also reminded of a comment one of the TASC staff members made during a company-wide outing to our ExpandED Schools earlier this year. Stela, a native of Bulgaria, was amazed to see the wealth of learning opportunities offered by community organizations after the end of the traditional school day. “This does not happen in my country,” she said when she saw kids going to the library, learning African drumming and practicing martial arts well after 3PM.

At the time, I didn’t have a catchy phrase to describe what those community educators were doing, but now I do. They’re cooking “America’s special sauce.”

>   In economic news, the 2011 Kids Count report is out and Annie E. Casey Foundation President and Chief Executive, Patrick McCarthy, “has never seen the landscape for America’s at-risk children and families quite so alarming.” Meanwhile, on NPR’s Talk of the Nation, Amy Wilkins of the Education Trust discussed how income, more than race, is driving the achievement gap.

>  But don’t let the bleak job market get you down, college students. Here’s another option: In The Root DC, Jeff Franco of City Year Washington explains why soon-to-be college grads should consider committing to a year of service to expand learning.

>   In Chicago, 13 principals explain why a longer school day works for them in this Op-Ed in the Chicago Sun-Times. And in the Huffington Post, a group of teachers in the city’s charter schools offer their fellow educators three ways to use the extended day wisely.

>   On last night’s Daily Show, Jon Stewart debated Race to the Top, standardized testing, and the narrowing of the curriculum with one of Harvard’s most famous basketball alums. (No, not that one.) Check out Part 3 of the extended online interview to hear how great things can happen when schools and communities work together.

Featured Friday Funding Opportunity:

2012 National STEM Video Game Challenge
The National STEM Video Game Challenge aims to motivate interest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) learning by tapping into students’ natural passion for playing and making video games. Entries can be created using any game-making platform including, but not limited to, written concepts, Gamestar Mechanic, Microsoft’s Kodu Game Lab, GameMaker and Scratch.

Deadline: March 12

And now for something completely different:

News in brief from The Onion: “According to a report from the U.S. Department of Education released Thursday, watching a single episode of the British TV series Downton Abbey is the cultural and educational equivalent of reading an entire book.” Does watching these spoofs (#1 and #2) count as reading a short story?

Last activity in the ExpandED day at Thurgood Marshall Academy Lower School--African drumming.

Note: ALWAYS make sure to invite the New Orleanians—they bring the party with them, as evident by the King Cakes that our friends from the Partnership for Youth Development had shipped to our office!

We had a series of thought provoking conversations, and we shared experiences across sectors that really brought to life ExpandED schools. School teams spoke about several different strategies for sharing accountability toward results including the use of data folders that are accessible to teachers and community educators and educating parents and caregivers on how standardized tests are used and scored.

A highlight of the convening was a visit to two ExpandED Schools in Manhattan, PS 188 on the Lower East Side and the Thurgood Marshall Lower Academy School (TMALS), in Harlem. On the visit to TMALS, I was struck by the “Data Wall” that was prominently displayed on the second floor of the school.

This public display of results illustrating where the school currently stands and where it aspires to be, coupled with the call to action for everyone who passes by (students, parents, teachers, and yes, even out-of-town visitors) was inspiring.

This, in my mind symbolizes true accountability. I was amazed when our fifth-grade host spoke about his “acuity”scores, about the steps the school was taking to improve their performance and how they all were working hard to be their best.

There is a heated national debate around school assessment and the role that test scores should play. Regardless of what measures a school community chooses to use—standardized tests, qualitative measures, or portfolios—I think every school would be benefit from having a data wall to inform and inspire.

Guest post by Tiffany O’Neal, Special Assistant to the President, TASC

I love exploring art galleries. If you were to happen upon my Facebook pics, you’d see I’m that person who takes pictures of the art hanging on the walls and the sculptures along the hallways. I’ll even pose with them as if I’m posing with a friend. So of course I had a great time at yesterday’s opening reception for the Rush Gallery at the Thurgood Marshall Academy Lower School (TMALS), an ExpandED School in Harlem.

TMALS partnered with the Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation to create this gallery, which features the work of the school’s students, teachers and staff. Students serve as gallery docents, and I experienced how eager they are to explain and showcase their work. On this particular day the gallery featured three pieces; Eyes in the Sky (pictured above), A Contemplative Gaze, and Mediating Constellations.

I enjoyed seeing the older students walk the younger ones through the gallery.  And just like when I have explored the Met or the National Gallery of Art, I found myself just standing and staring at the pieces, admiring both their simplicity and complexity.

I am also that person who touches the art, and I have had my fair share of scolding. Fortunately the student docents are little more understanding.

The Rush Gallery at TMALS will feature these pieces for the next three weeks and then display new ones. The public may visit on school days between 8 AM and 2 PM; just call the school to make an appointment: 212-368-8731.

Technology is dramatically changing the way young people learn, especially when they’re learning on their own. Kids with the financial means are online every day—both in school and at home—living the hopeful motto that PBSKids Lab stamps on its website: “Every new technology is an opportunity for learning.”

But the digital divide is real. In this age of digital learning, fewer than 1 in 10 low-income families have a mobile reading device at home. And many of the organizations that work with kids outside of the traditional school day—and which overwhelmingly work with kids with great educational and economic needs—are still on the sidelines, interested but lacking infrastructure, tools or staffing.

With digital learning, we have a chance to ensure that the least advantaged kids are not left behind once again. Thanks to support from the Motorola Mobility Foundation and hosting by Google, we brought together educa­tion and technology leaders at a public event last summer to explore partner­ships that leverage technology to give all kids access to learning anywhere at any time. That meeting informed the principles, case studies, and practice and policy recommendations we included in our new white paper on technology-enabled learning in out-of-school time, which we are releasing today.

This work has taught us that the smart use of technology can help schools and their community partners overcome learn­ing and opportunity gaps among students, in part by embracing the passion they bring to exploring and creating through digital media. With the benefit of tech­nology, community organizations have the potential to help schools transform the educational landscape by connecting schools, families, youth-serving organiza­tions, museums and libraries in ways that transcend physical boundaries.

As we rally around digital learning today, let’s not forget the community organizations and educators who work with kids beyond traditional school hours. Some already are on the cutting edge of digital learning—in our white paper and video below we profile four organizations that are maximizing the potential of learning technologies in New York City: MOUSE, Global Kids, Thurgood Marshall Academy for Leadership and Social Change and Institute of Play. Let’s make sure that all educators—and the kids they teach—have the tools, infrastructure and content to do the same.

His objective in de-mystifying the new learning standards, Gregg said, is to help organizations adapt their work to help students meet standards—and also to communicate their value to principals. Principals are overwhelmed by pitches and offers from well-intentioned community and other organizations that want to partner with schools. Those who understand the new standards—and who understand how they will change instruction—have a leg up on getting a principal’s attention and interest.

For those who weren’t at our conference, this NYC DOE library is a good place to dig into the standards and their adaptability to after-school and informal learning activities.

One way community partners can start helping schools right now is to integrate more non-fiction (“informational texts” in edu-jargon) into their literacy activities, Gregg suggested. He asked our group how many of us read non-fiction with our kids as well as fiction. (Not many.) By the time kids are mid-way through elementary school, the Common Core standards call for a 50-50 mix of fiction and non-fiction in the school curriculum. By high school, the mix should be 85-15.

I am significantly less enthusiastic about the after-party: while the notion of an “opposition” response makes me feel like I’m back in Jamaica, I could do without the endless, often absurd news analysis (“how many times did the President say…”) that follows. So I’ll keep my reflections brief:

>    I liked the whole “Built to Last” motif. It definitely invoked the notion of solid American products, but he introduced it with the vision of a country “that leads the world in educating its people.” There is no stronger foundation.

>    I wish he had applied the level playing field analogy that he used for American businesses to American students. We need a unit to ensure equity in our schools.

>    The decision to keep kids in school until they turn 18 struck me as odd, not the type of educational expansion I was hoping to hear about. Longer, richer schools days? Yes. Enriched summer learning? Absolutely. A broader curriculum that recognizes students social, emotional development needs and prepares them for the jobs of the future? Let’s do it! But force schools to hold them until they’re 18? I don’t know. I’m hearing that there’s research to back it up, but it seems to me that our energies would be better spent making school more engaging and relevant so that kids wanted to stay. Enrollment in schools is not the end game as is evidenced by the alarming statistics on chronic absenteeism and its impact on all students in those schools.

>    Immigrant students (DREAMers) deserve a shot at the opportunity that attracted their parents to this country and all young people deserve “an education that encourages talent and ingenuity.” #ExpandED2012.

CBASS hosted a lively discussion on expanded learning with Elena Silva, Senior Policy Analyst at Education Sector and co-author of the report Reimagining the School Day: More Time for Learning, yesterday afternoon. We joined the discussion and posted a transcript here.

Some of the points Elena made during the chat:

• There’s huge variation in approaches to expanding learning time. The National Center on Time and Learning database cites over 1,000 that have added at least 30 minutes to the day.

• An extra 30 minutes of remediation a day is not better learning. It is adding instructional time, which can be good or bad.

• Partnerships and principals are key to expanding learning time. Good partnerships need clear shared goals and expectations, individual objectives, shared data about kids’ well-being, and strong leaders.

• We need a broader set of outcomes for students if we incorporate a youth development framework into expanded learning.

• Funding streams for expanded learning time are varied and complicated. But schools and organizations can braid funding sources (private and public) to support their work.

• Expanded learning time has never been systematically tracked or studied. We don’t really know cost or long-term effect.

• Expanded learning time for tweens is “a study waiting to happen.”

• Time is a resource, a tool that can be used well if you have the right foundation. First, you need leaders with vision, educators who are great for and with kids (in and out of school), and a strong curriculum. Time can’t be the vision, or the goal, not even an objective. It’s a way to improve what’s good, if it’s used well.

Participants also shared the following resources with the group:

• A new report that looks at the secrets behind successful charter schools, which include more time for learning. (via @expanding_time)

• Our report on how schools and community partners can draw on diverse funding streams to support expanded learning time.

• A Wallace Foundation report on Making Summer Count. (via @CBASS_National)

• Another Wallace report that profiles promising approaches to data sharing, Hours of Opportunity. (via @jessicadonner)

We found that the hour went by way too quickly, so please help us keep the discussion going by continuing to use the #timechat hashtag. Thanks @CBASS_National, @EducationSector, and @WallaceFdn for getting it started.

The Collaborative for Building After-School Systems (CBASS) will host a Twitter chat today, January 24, 2 PM to 3 PM EST to grapple with those questions and others raised in The Wallace Foundation’s recent report Reimagining the School Day: More Time for Learning. We’ll be on the chat, along with our CBASS partners and other organizations profiled in the report.

Elena Silva, Senior Policy Analyst at Education Sector and co-author of the report, will share her findings and answer questions.

Never Twitter chatted before? Have no fear. To join the chat and see what others are saying:

1. Search Twitter for the hashtag #timechat once the chat starts.
2. To join the discussion, use the same hashtag in each of your tweets so that others can see them.
3. You do not need a Twitter account to follow the chat, but you do need one to comment or ask questions. If you need to set up a twitter account, you can join at http://www.twitter.com. It’s free to join and only takes a minute.
4. Each tweet is limited to 140 characters (including the hashtag # timechat) but feel free to multiple tweets to pose a question or respond to a comment. (Just remember to include the hashtag #timechat in each of your tweets.)

About the guest:

Elena Silva

Elena Silva has researched and written on a wide range of educational issues while at Education Sector, including public school staffing and school design, scheduling, assessment, and the role of teachers unions in reform. Reimagining the School Day: More Time for Learning recaps a two-day conference hosted by The Wallace Foundation to discuss expanded learning time, identify the barriers to realizing it and forge a way forward.

Shania Green's expanded learning day included an internship at a local sports camp.

What does a re-design of the school day for high school students look like? We‘ve been working with a small group of New York City High Schools to begin to answer that question. Each school works with a partnering community organization, and the teams all came together recently at TASC to update each other and share successes and challenges. While each school-community team is offering a unique set of opportunities to their students, their overall goals are similar: to offer students robust, relevant learning experiences that go beyond traditional classroom instruction.

They all agreed that adults who guide learning activities must be content experts and also able to develop connections to the students. (Many of the team members noted that someone who can’t personally engage with students can’t maintain high student attendance.) And while, right now, each school team may only be able to offer these special learning opportunities to a small number of students or only in a narrow content area, using the lens of expanded learning has helped to transform their partnerships. Many of the teams noted that they have stronger relationships now as a result of thinking about their work within the expanded learning time framework.

It reminded me of a comment I heard from the executive director of a community organization that partners with a K-8 school in Brooklyn that is part of our ExpandED Schools national demonstration. She described an “invisible line” that separated her from the principal of the school where she’d been offering activities for years. That line was erased when they moved to the ExpandED Schools teamwork approach. These traditional invisible lines are respectful separations, built on a notion of each entity doing its own job to support kids, and the coming together can be messy—questioning each other’s plans, developing a shared view of how children should be treated, having a role in hiring and training a blended workforce. And yes, it takes time and space to meet, plan, and collaborate.

But it was clear to me in our meeting that high school expanded learning has at its core school-community partnership. And part of the evolution to full implementation of expanded learning is the evolution of that partnership—as one attendee put it—from honeymoon to real marriage. In just a few months of “real marriage,” the six teams represented at the meeting have been able to offer students richer in-school academic experiences; better guidance on what it takes to get into and then, even more important, succeed in college; enrichments that are fun, authentic, and challenging; and a stronger network of supportive adults who ensure that kids don’t fall through the cracks. The policy wonk in me saw that the cost-efficiencies and sustainability of these efforts seems to have gone up as well.

We’re continuing to develop our approach to high school expanded learning, but a big thank you goes out to these teams who are already showing us what good marriages look like, and what impact they can have on young people’s lives.