The Importance and Difficulty of Disciplined Adherence to the Educational Reform Model

Policymakers, researchers, educators, parents, and citizens alike recognize the need for quality programs that address the pressing developmental and learning needs of our youth, particularly those most at risk. Community-based youth programs are being viewed increasingly as a productive means to facilitate the successful physical, social, emotional, and cognitive development of adolescents (Girod, Martineau, &; Zhao, 2004). To address the challenges of growing up in unhealthy environments where high-risk behaviors such as smoking, drinking, experimentation with drugs, physical violence, and unprotected sex can lead to profound negative outcomes, carefully organized and supervised after-school programs have been developed to provide a positive alternative to such problematic adolescent activity (Riggs &; Greenberg, 2004). Notwithstanding, research evidence of program effectiveness—academic and otherwise—is scant, which sets the stage for underresearched after-school programs to be eyed with greater fiscal scrutiny.