Blogs on After-School Learning

When New York City's 1.1 million public school students return from summer vacation, they can look forward to rolling up their sleeves and getting busy improving the world, or at least their corner of it.

This is the second part of a two-part entry. Read part one.

Sports teams have booster clubs -- people who straddle the formally regulated school funding arena and private enterprise. This means they are able to act like entrepreneurs -- go for what they want or need, rather than having to convince somebody else (like a principal, a technology director, or a school board) of the worthiness of their idea.

The TechBridge program is alive and well at the Chabot Space & Science Center, in Oakland, California. Selected in 2005 by the National Science Foundation as a model program, TechBridge is an out-of-school program that engages girls in science, technology, and engineering activities. Since its inception, TechBridge has served more than 1,500 girls in five school districts through after-school and summer programs.

The TechBridge program is alive and well at the Chabot Space & Science Center, in Oakland, California. Selected in 2005 by the National Science Foundation as a model program, TechBridge is an out-of-school program that engages girls in science, technology, and engineering activities. Since its inception, TechBridge has served more than 1,500 girls in five school districts through after-school and summer programs.

Year after year, we debate numerous reforms to improve our educational system. Yet we are continually hampered by the conventions of our thinking about -- well, everything. We fall into the same old trap of tinkering around the margins and trying to reform an education system with an ever-increasing number of policies, programs, and regulations piled on top of each other. Even the words we use to talk about improving schools -- school reform -- seem worn and out-of-date.