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Expanded Learning for California’s Children

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Over the course of its seven-year investment in improving after-school and summer learning programs (also known as expanded learning programs) for California’s K–12 students, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation invested in three linked strategies: creating models of high quality summer learning programs, cultivating a statewide network of technical assistance (TA) for expanded learning, and engaging stakeholders to champion expanded learning in local and statewide policy.

Throughout this investment, Informing Change worked with the Foundation to understand how this theory of change played out in reality, and in this report, we detail our findings, including a number of key successes: The problem of summer learning loss is now at the forefront of many state and local education conversations, as is the solution of summer learning programs. Stakeholder groups—from program providers to district and state education leaders—now have shared language in the form of quality standards for summer learning programs, as well as TA systems to support programs. While these successes are not widespread throughout the state, they are encouraging indicators that California’s expanded learning system is growing and improving.

Find the executive summary here.