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Evidence Matters | Expanding our Understanding of the School Day
by Cathy Stevens
When thinking about education in America, we naturally think about the traditional school day from roughly 7 a.m.-3 p.m. Often overlooked, but also critical to children’s success and development are afterschool and summer programs.
At The Riley Institute, we have long been invested in improving the entire education ecosystem, including how afterschool and summer programs can support school day outcomes and lifelong success for young people. We believe that for children, schools, and families to succeed, we must rethink how we understand the school day—and invest funds, time, and energy accordingly.
In fall 2025, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) released a new detailed report examining the impact and effectiveness of afterschool and summer programs, referred to as “Out-of-School-Time” (OST) in the report. The report encompasses the work of many researchers and studies as the profession has grown and formalized, and it highlights just how vital these OST programs are to young people’s learning in ways that support, complement, and enhance the traditional school day.
What they found across the board is the tremendous effectiveness of OST programs in supporting both students’ academic success and social well-being. Additionally, the report emphasizes that high-quality programming is often backed by city- or state-level systems and highlights the importance of these systems in advocating for programming, training the workforce, and responding to the needs of the populations being served.
As communities across the country think about how to improve educational outcomes for students, afterschool and summer programs must be considered as a legitimate part of the ecosystem. Some highlights from other recent studies include:
- Findings from a 26-year longitudinal study reveal that a lack of opportunities can impact educational attainment and earnings for low-income youth. High-quality afterschool and summer programs can help close opportunity gaps that wealthier families often pay for—like private tutoring, academic summer camps, extracurricular enrichment, college prep, and travel.
- In addition to academic gains, these young people participating in these programs display improved social skills and positive relationships with peers and adults, higher civic engagement and pro-social behavior, healthier adult lifestyles, and reductions in risky behaviors, substance use, and arrests.
Recognizing the importance of afterschool and summer programs as a significant part of the school day is a first step, but it must be met with meaningful investment in order for OST to live up to its full promise for students and communities.
As the NASEM report highlights, investment and infrastructure must address concerns about access to programs and needed quality improvements, as well as support the OST workforce with compensation and opportunity for advancement. Despite strong evidence linking program quality to student outcomes, professional learning remains “under-resourced, lacking infrastructure, and fragmented in its approaches.” The broader education establishment will need to begin thinking more intentionally about career pathways, educational opportunities, quality training, and leadership pipelines. The profession will only be as strong as its leaders.
Afterschool, before school, summer programs, and community partnerships are making a tremendous positive impact on the young people who have access to them. It’s essential that we increase support for these programs financially and politically and further recognize them as part of the formal education system to support students and families in the most comprehensive, consistent way. The sooner we think beyond the traditional 7 a.m.-3 p.m. August-May conception of our education system, the sooner we’ll reach new heights in our potential to educate children and prepare them for the world that awaits them.
Cathy Stevens is a senior associate with The Riley Institute. Prior to serving as senior associate, Stevens was the director of the White-Riley-Peterson Afterschool Policy Fellowship for 11 years. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s degree in higher education administration. She was also named among the Top 50 Women Leaders of South Carolina for 2024. She can be reached at [email protected]