Closing the Educational Opportunity Gap

ExpandED Schools was founded in 1998 as The After-School Corporation (TASC) with a challenge grant from the Open Society Foundations (then Open Society Institute). The organization created the nation’s first citywide system of K-12 after-school programs. Today, it reimagines the school day by providing hours of enriching activities—STEM, leadership, the arts, and sports—each day, all designed to close the learning gap for low-income kids. In this GrantStation interview, Lucy Friedman, founding president, discusses the great need in the great city and how they are facing potential cuts.

GrantStation: Many nonprofits rely on a “diversify, diversify, diversify” funding strategy. How does that work for you?

Lucy Friedman, President, ExpandED Schools

Lucy Friedman:  Yes, it’s a strong belief for us as well. I think some nonprofits were thrown by the election. Many were in the middle of strategic planning and had to step back and rethink how to move forward. With the exception of the threat to 21^st Century, which I mentioned, we haven’t seen the impact on the public funding yet but indeed it may come.

We have a policy that requires matching funds so that helps provide a buffer in leaner times. We also advocate for our mission as part of our day-to-day activities. Our communications team works to keep education on the front burner, even in the best of times. We are now asking our supporters not simply to donate money but to contact legislators. The need is always critical but there’s now a heightened sense of urgency. We want legislators to know that voters who care about the education of our children—our future workforce—are watching.

We also see great opportunity for civic education and community service, which is very appealing to middle school kids in particular, and well-suited to after-school or summer programming. Civic education has been effective and successful in schools. Even low-tech tasks like creating asset maps and surveys helps kids, administrators, and teachers identify what they want to change in ways that reap huge benefits in communication, team work, and problem solving, all the skills we think are really important for kids to learn.

GrantStation: What are your top sources of funding? 

Lucy Friedman: It includes public funding from the City Council of New York, the New York Department of Education, the State Department of Education, and some money from the federal government that includes the U.S. Department of Education. We have received generous support from private funders, including the Altman Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the New York Community Trust, the Overdeck Family Foundation, The Pinkerton Foundation, the Robin Hood Foundation, and
The Wallace Foundation.

GrantStation: How do you measure success?

Lucy Friedman:  We measure those things that are predictive of graduation success. We look at attendance rates in our participating schools versus schools citywide. We look at standardized test scores to compare academic growth in math and English language arts. The city also does a survey of parents, students, and teachers on school climate, which is the second largest survey in the country after the census. More than a million people respond and it provides a pretty good measure of things like teacher commitment, quality of curriculum, inclusiveness, respect, and values.

We use quantitative data that we collect on social emotional learning, not as a compliance or accountability measure, but as a way to better understand what kinds of measures of social emotional learning seem to make sense. And I'm a big believer in qualitative data. We have a whole team of program managers who have strong relationships with the schools. They’re constantly going out and observing, looking at things like educator preparedness and engagement, and student engagement.

GrantStation: The schools and parents must be over the moon about these offerings for their kids.

Lucy Friedman: Yes! And we’ve found that if funding gets threatened, our families and our principals will get out and mobilize.