School Program's: Investor Information Evaluating

¶ … school Program's: Investor Information Evaluating a program's success and areas of improvement for investors is essential to ensuring a steady flow of income and donations. While many organizations are delighted to donate money to worthy causes, it is essential to present valid figures and information about the program to reassure those investors annually that their funds are being properly allocated and that the program is making an impact. It is these forms of question and evaluation methods that this report will describe.

The first area that requires evaluation in this instance is the actual necessity of this program to the community. The investors must realize how essential this program is and why it should continue for another school year. The data for this question should revolve around the marriage/divorce statistics in the community, the amount of latchkey children in the neighborhood, and the most recent figures regarding the amount of children involved in the program.

The next area of information that must be presented to the program's investors is the overall design behind the program. As with any non-profit, there must be a specific target group that the organization is helping and a particular plan as to how the program will run. Ideal data gathering for this information would include sample scope and sequences for a typical day in the program, a schedule of activities, and a list of resources used on any particular day by the program.

The next area of reporting is overall performance and success rates of the program. This area of reporting is, according to most resources, the most difficult to track. In fact, according to an article posted by the Campaign for Educational Equity, after-school programs, "may lead to small gains in academic outcomes...Our ability to draw causal conclusions about the academic benefits of after-school programs is limited by methodological shortcomings in the extant literature." (Gardner, 2009).

In other words, there is very little data to back the actual success of the students who participate in the programs, so this area should focus, instead, on the success of the teachers in meeting their goals. Data collection of this area could include number of days that the after-school teachers complete their lesson planned goals, academic improvement (if any) of the students participating in the program, and percentages of the previously identified latchkey population that participates in the program.

Another area that can be discussed in this section is the evidence of improvement in other after-school programs throughout the country. According to a study conducted by the University of California, A two-year longitudinal Study of Promising After-School Programs examined the effects of participation in quality after school programs among almost 3,000 youth in 35 elementary and middle school after school programs located in 14 cities and 8 states.

New findings from that study indicate that elementary and middle school students who participated in high-quality after school programs, alone or in combination with other activities, across two years demonstrated significant gains in standardized math test scores, when compared to their peers who were regularly unsupervised after school. Further, regular participation in after school programs was associated with improvements in work habits and task persistence. (Vandell, 2007) The final area that investors are particularly interested in is whether their funds are being used responsibly.

The data reporting for this area is best achieved with two particular charts. The first chart should specifically touch on the monthly purchases being made for the program. This list should be very detailed, all the way down to pencils and crayons. The second chart should graph out the amount spent each month, comparing month-to-month.