The Center for After-School Excellence at TASC is dedicated to ensuring that during the critical hours beyond the school day, young people are served by well-trained staff in high-quality after-school and summer programs.
We work to achieve this goal by building a professional development system for the field, grounded in robust research and evaluation. Our partnerships with campuses throughout the CUNY system have led to the creation of some of the nation's first credit-bearing professional certification programs, serving both front-line youth workers and their supervisors.
Along with college credit opportunities, we also offer trainings, conferences that help after-school educators develop their skills and learn from peers, and continuing education courses.
After-school and summer programs are vehicles for supporting kids' intellectual, creative and healthy development—and well-trained staff is a key to making this possible. That's why our trainings and college coursework are practical and relevant to daily work, so after-school staff members can more effectively provide instructional and emotional support to young people.
Young adults at risk of under-employment often enter the workforce through part-time or full-time after-school jobs. Training and college opportunities help them acquire real leadership experience and move on to careers in education and social services. Their communities also benefit. They become role models who demonstrate their commitment to lifelong learning, and they circulate their income back into their neighborhoods.
We conduct research and evaluation to improve professional development and give managers the tools they need to run the strongest possible after-school and summer programs for young people.
Drawing on data from tens of thousands of after-school program participants, our research team is identifying strategies which contribute to better outcomes for kids and studying effective staffing practices. We're also working to establish the impact of high quality programs.
The Center helps guide the research agenda for the field by convening leading scholars and making our large data set available to others. We also contract to help individual programs in New York City improve their programs by evaluating their work.
Much of our work wouldn't be possible without our partners at CUNY:
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