The Playworks program, an initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, places full-time coaches in low-income schools to provide opportunities for organized play during recess and throughout the school day. Using random assignment, Mathematica and the John W. Gardner Center for Youth and...

Describes the program, framework and design for the national evaluation, and data and methods to be used in the implementation and impact studies.

The first-year findings reveal that while the 21st Century Community Learning Centers changed where and with whom students spent some of their after-school time and increased parental involvement, they had limited influence on academic performance, no influence on feelings of safety or on the...