Sprockets is honored to have helped inform this work and excited to see it shared nationally!

What kinds of outcomes should out-of-school system leaders think about measuring, and how? Every Hour Counts, a national coalition of citywide organizations that increases access to quality learning opportunities, particularly for underserved students, provides some answers to that question in its new measurement framework and companion guidebook, Putting Data to Work for Young People: A Guidebook for the Every Hour Counts Framework for Measurement, Continuous Improvement, and Equitable Systems.

Drawing from research by The RAND Corporation and piloted by three different intermediaries—one each in Boston (Boston After School & Beyond); Providence, R.I. (Providence After School Alliance); and St. Paul (Sprockets), the new resources can help out-of-school time (OST) system leaders and providers better understand how to gather and analyze data to develop stronger afterschool programs. The framework and accompanying guidebook explore why data is important for OST systems, providing direction on identifying what information to collect, why to collect it, and how to use it. Using a model set of ideal outcomes for the system, program, and youth levels, the framework evaluates ways to measure progress on all three, with a particular focus on using data to advance equity in OST systems.  

Organizations can use the framework to set goals, conceptualize their work and communicate its impact, and continuously improve their support for program quality and youth engagement and development.

The measurement framework and guidebook were developed with support from The Wallace Foundation and Charles Stewart Mott Foundation.