The Children's Aid Society

Testimony to NYC Council Commission on the Campaign for Fiscal Equity

December 8, 2004

Testimony of Philip Coltoff, Chief Executive Officer, The Children’s Aid Society
Prepared for the New York City Council Commission on CFE
December 8, 2004
Good afternoon. My name is Philip Coltoff and I am Chief Executive Officer of The Children’s Aid Society, New York City’s oldest and largest child welfare and youth development organization. Through much of the Society’s 151-year history, early childhood and after-school programs have figured prominently in our comprehensive array of services, and these services have become even more central to our work over the past decade. Today the Society provides early childhood programs to over 3,000 young children each day at 10 locations throughout New York City; and we currently provide after-school programs to 7,385 children and youth at 20 locations in schools and community centers.
The Society’s commitment to this work is rooted in our knowledge of the importance of early childhood and after-school programs to children’s healthy development—and our recognition of the especially critical nature of these experiences to the healthy development and life chances of poor children. Without intervention, poor children enter school with fewer vocabulary words, fewer social and emotional skills, and less exposure to pre-literacy activities than their more affluent peers. And, without intervention, poor children fall further behind wealthy children throughout their schooling, with the well-documented achievement gap growing each year. This achievement gap—coupled with solid knowledge about the positive effects of children’s participation in high quality early childhood and after-school programs—constitute the core of the argument that these interventions must be considered part of a sound basic education for New York City school children.
In our work with children in New York City, the Society bases its programmatic strategies on established research about the results of children’s participation in early childhood and after-school programs:
• For example, we have based our decades-long investments in early childhood programs on the Perry Preschool study conducted by High/Scopei and, more recently, on studies of the Chicago Parent-Child Centers.ii In short, these and a host of other studies have clearly demonstrated the academic, social, emotional and health benefits of young children’s regular involvement in comprehensive and balanced early care and education programs.
• Similarly, researchers have documented the benefits of young people’s regular participation in high quality after-school programs. For example, educational researcher Reginald Clark found that economically disadvantaged children who participate from 20-35 hours per week in constructive learning activities during their free time get better grades in school than their more passive peers. These activities include discussion with knowledgeable adults or peers, leisure reading, writing, homework, strategy games (such as chess, checkers, Scrabble), museum visits, and sports.iii
• Clark’s ideas are corroborated by other research that examined the results of children’s participation in organized after-school programs. For example, in several studies spanning more than a decade, University of Wisconsin researcher Deborah Vandell and
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colleagues have shown that a host of positive benefits, including better grades, work habits, emotional adjustment and peer relations.iv
• Teenagers as well as younger children benefit from participation in high quality after-school programs. Stanford University professor Milbrey McLaughlin found that adolescents who participate regularly in community-based youth development programs (including arts, sports and community service) have better academic and social outcomes, as well as higher education and career aspirations, than other similar teens.v
In other words, there is a very solid basis for considering increased public investments in early childhood and after-school programs and for recognizing their value as components of a sound basic education.
Finally, there is increasing evidence about the added value of an approach that integrates early childhood, after-school and other supports and services with the core business of public schools—that is, the core instructional programs. Promising and proven models exist, through a strategy known as community schools. The Society has been a pioneer in developing and implementing a highly successful community school model in new York City since 1992, which combines a wide array of enrichment programs that expand child and family learning opportunities with a set of services—medical, mental health and social services—designed to reduce barriers to learning and development. A rigorous six-year evaluation of this work, conducted for the Society by Fordham University, showed excellent results, including improved academic achievement, dramatic increases in parent involvement, increases in student and teacher attendance, and improved school and community safety.vi
As New York City’s educational and political leaders examine the meaning of terms like “adequacy” and “sound basic education,” I urge you to approach your work confidently in the knowledge that there is a solid body of research and program experience on which to build successful strategies. On behalf of New York City’s citizens, especially our children, I thank you for the work you are doing and for your consideration of the Society’s ideas.
i
ii A. J. Reynolds, J.A. Temple, D.L. Robertson, and E. A. Mann, “Long-Term Effects of an Early Childhood Intervention on Educational Achievement and Juvenile Arrest: A 15-Year Follow-Up of Low-Income Children in Public Schools,” Journal of American Medical Association, 285 (2001). 2339-46.
iii R.M. Clark, Critical Factors in Why Disadvantaged Children Succeed or Fail in School, New York: Academy for Educational Development, 1988.
iv D.L. Vandell and L. Shumow, “After-School Child Care Programs,” The Future of Children: When School is Out, Volume 9, Number 2, Fall 1999, David and Lucile Packard Foundation, pp. 64-80.
v M.W. McLaughlin, Community Counts: How Community Organizations Matter for Youth Development, Washington, DC: Public Education Network, 2000.
vi Helene Clark and Robert Engle, Summary of Research Findings: 1992-9, New York City: ActKnowledge at the Center for Human Environments of the City University of New York, 2001.