Senator Barack Obama recognizes BELL in new legislation for children  
August, 2007

Representatives from the office of Senator and 2008 presidential candidate Barack Obama contacted BELL to inquire about our summer program. Senator Obama had heard about the academic and social achievements made by scholars in BELL Summer, and he was very interested in introducing legislation to the Senate that would enable hundreds of thousands of children across the nation to access high-quality learning opportunities such as BELL Summer. This legislation, entitled the "STEP UP Act", was voted into law in August 2007 as part of the America COMPETES legislation designed to increase student achievement levels throughout the country. Read Senator Obama's statement to congress, and the legislation, here.

Johns Hopkins University researchers find evidence that a majority of the achievement gap between low- and moderate- or high-income high school students can be attributed to differential summer learning experiences during elementary years. These early out-of-school summer learning differences in-turn effect the subsequent education opportunities of students, including advanced middle- and high school placement courses and college attendance. Click here to read more about the crucial role high quality summer learning opportunities such as BELL Summer play in the lives of elementary school children.

Ohio State University researchers study factors that influence childhood obesity, especially common among Black and Hispanic school-aged children. Their study finds that children gain proportionally more weight during summer vacation than during the school year. The researchers point to healthy summer learning environments, such as BELL Summer, as effective solutions to combat childhood obesity and increase fitness levels for children during summer and out of school time. (Scholars in both BELL After School and BELL Summer receive healthy snacks and/or lunch and physical activity each day in the program.) View the complete report here.

BELL part of a Strategic Alliance November, 2005

Seventeen leaders from across New England, including former governors, corporate CEOs, foundation and non profit presidents, and a bishop, have joined together in a Strategic Alliance to urge greater collaboration among the six states to tackle the key challenges facing the region, such as energy, health, and education. The Strategic Alliance of New England leaders, which includes BELL CEO Earl Martin Phalen, will oversee and support the New England Futures project, which is seeking to create widespread awareness, debate and action on strategic issues critical to the future of New England.

Council of Chief State School Officers' Annual Policy Forum November, 2005

BELL presented at the Council of Chief State School Officers Extended Learning Opportunities Taskforce meeting. The taskforce seeks to revise the Council's current policy statement on leveraging out-of-school-time to impact children's academic and social achievements, and asked BELL to discuss its programs and their relation to district-wide initiatives in Boston, New York, and Washington, DC.

Grantmakers for Education
National Conference
October, 2005

BELL presented in a "spotlight session" of the Grantmakers for Education national conference titled Closing the Achievement Gap: Can community and after school programs make any difference? The talk focused on how partnerships between schools and after school programs can help advance the academic achievements of children.

Center for American Progress and its conference Promoting Educational Achievement & Opportunity Through
Summer Scholarships
October, 2005
 

BELL was invited to share its impact and success educating children through BELL Summer. The conference seeks to develop national policy that would provide summer scholarships for children from low-income families. Click here for more information.

Closing the Achievement Gap: Fulfilling the Promise of
Brown v Board of Education
Harvard Law School
September, 2005
 

BELL's Chief Program Officer, Tiffany Cooper, was the featured panelist at Harvard Law School's celebration Promises to Keep: Challenges and Opportunities in the 21st Century. Ms. Cooper spoke to nearly 1,000 Black alumni and students about the challenges and successes of educating urban children through after school and summer programs.

BELL Summer featured as
a model program in the
Summer, 2005 issue
of American Educator

American Educator, the national publication of the American Federation of Teachers, featured an article on the summer activity gap. BELL Summer is highlighted as one of the nation's best solutions to impacting the achievements of children during the summer months.

Ireland National Out-of-School-
Time Conference
April, 2005
 

The Ireland-based One Foundation and The Atlantic Philanthropies invited two U.S.-based non-profits - including BELL - to help develop a national strategy for impacting the achievements of children during out-of-school-time in Ireland.

Center for Summer Learning National Conference
April, 2005
 

BELL presented on two panels at the Center's 2005 national conference, focused on "Best Practices", "Evaluating Summer Programs."

Finding Fortune in Thirteen Out-of-School-Time
Programs

The BELL After School program is featured as one of the nation's 13 best out-of-school-time programs in a new compendium of evaluation summaries from the American Youth Policy Forum (AYPF). This compendium contributes to the evidence needed to make reasoned decisions regarding the future of out-of-school-time programming.

Promising Practices in
After School website

BELL After School is featured on the AED Center for Youth Development's website as an example of "best practices" with regard to our model for using evaluation for continual improvement:

"The continuous program improvement model employed by BELL promotes the positive outcomes for children and youth on many dimensions by clearly identifying those outcomes, measuring progress toward attaining those outcomes, holding staff accountable to those outcomes, and ensuring that the program will achieve the same or better outcomes for the next cohort of children."

Out-of-School-Time Commentary

BELL is a national leader in the Forum for Youth Investment's Out-of-School-Time Commentary #5 (Inside the Black Box: Exploring "Content" of After-School, November, 2003) and #7 ( School's Out: A Look at Summer Learning and Engagement, July, 2004).