What is the After-School Partnerships Improve Results in Education (ASPIRE) Act?

The current ASPIRE act S 2785, is a bill that was introduced to the Senate on November 17^th, 2009 and was referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. Its' goal is to provide federal grants to improve after-school interdisciplinary education programs, and for other educational purposes.

Studies show that over 15,000,000 students in the United States have no place to go after school hours, which is associated with high rates of juvenile crime and high risk students consistently cite a lack of interest in core curriculum and a lack of relevancy to future careers as the major reasons for dropping out of high school.

Therefore, it is in the best interest of the United States to ensure students are qualified to compete in the global economy. Studies have shown that students involved in after-school programs have significantly higher school attendance rates, score higher on mathematics and writing assessments, and are more likely to graduate from high school than those who are not involved in such programs;

The ASPIRE Act will provide funding to support the following types of programs:1) NATIONAL MODEL AFTER-SCHOOL INTERDISCIPLINARY EDUCATION PROGRAM (a national model after-school interdisciplinary education program' means a high-quality, multisite, after-school program that operates in not less than 5 States).

2) State programs targeting students from low-income families, located in a rural, sparsely populated area.

The positive aspects of this act is that it emphasizes funding for diverse after-school activities which include mathematics, science, language arts, music, writing, reading, history, geography, or social studies activity, business and career technical education activities.

It also includes a provision for a peer-review process to assist in the review and approval of grant applications submitted. It also provides funding for technical assistance/execution of programs and evaluation of the effectiveness of programs and activities as well as encouraging the sharing of best practices among grant recipients under this Act.

This Act does not address the lack of funding that exist in the core curriculum of such high risk students and does not provide a rational analysis of whether additional funding to strengthen the core curriculum would improve student performance versus providing supplemental funding to after-school programs.

With the overcrowding schools across the country and poor teacher to student ratios in classrooms, one would argue that from a funding priority perspective, it would make more sense to allocate additional funding to mandate better teacher to student ratios and funding of a diverse school curriculum (e.g. such as ensuring physical education, arts and music are part of the daily core curriculum) as opposed to attempt to remediate the situation in an after school environment.

www.opencongress.org