Publications > Legacy Resources

Explore the reports, books, and other publications produced by the QTurn team and provides a foundation of our work and passion.

December 23, 2014
Charles Smith, Tom Akiva, Gina McGovern, and Stephen Peck

This research article discusses efforts to define and improve the quality of afterschool services, highlighting areas of agreement and identifying leading-edge issues. We conclude that the afterschool field is especially well positioned to deliver high-quality services and demonstrate effectiveness at scale because a strong foundation has been built for continuous improvement of service quality.

October 1, 2008
Charles Smith and Laurie Van Egeren

This paper, published in the Fall 2008 edition of Afterschool Matters: Occasional Paper Series, describes community partnerships in Michigan’s 21st CCLC programs.

October 1, 2012
Nicole Yohalem, Elizabeth Devaney, Charles Smith, and Alicia Wilson-Ahlstrom

This guide offers case studies that explain how cities and intermediaries can work with afterschool providers across a neighborhood, city, or region to build quality into the programs that are part of an afterschool system.

January 1, 2012
Charles Smith, Tom Akiva, Samantha Sugar, and Thomas Devaney

The David P. Weikart Center for Youth Program Quality conducted a three year intervention study to examine the Youth Program Quality Intervention (YPQI). The YPQI is a data-driven continuous improvement model for school and community-based sites serving youth during afterschool hours.

January 1, 2017
Charles Smith, Ph.D., Ravi Ramaswamy, Katie Helegda, Barbara Hillaker, Ph.D., Poonam Borah, and Stephen Peck, Ph.D.

This paper describes implementation and outcomes for QIS in school-based summer learning programs in multiple cities.

March 1, 2017
Charles Smith, Ph.D., Leanne Roy, Stephen Peck, Ph.D., Gina McGovern, and Katharine Helegda

This paper describes validity of QIS performance measures and longitudinal change over four years in Oklahoma 21st CCLC programs.

December 1, 2017
Charles Smith, Leanne Roy, Stephen Peck, and Colin Macleod

This report exemplifies use of the suite of SEL measures and benchmarks in the American Youth Circus Organizations network.

March 27, 2015
Charles Smith, Karen Pittman, Stephen Peck, and Gina McGovern

In this policy commentary, we do some reasoning about how 21st CCLC produces value and discuss the limitations in one particular way of seeing that value – the intent-to-treat impact evaluation design.

January 1, 2010
Tom Akiva, Lee M. Pearson, Samantha Sugar, Stephen Peck, Charles Smith, and Anne-Sophie Denault

This paper uses pattern centered methods to describe the association between the quality of instruction available and youth’s level of mental engagement with that instruction.

January 1, 2009
Charles Smith, Lee M. Pearson, Stephen C. Peck, Anne-Sophie Denault, and Samantha Sugar

This paper uses pattern centered methods to describe the association between the quality of instruction available and youth’s level of mental engagement with that instruction.

January 1, 2013
Charles Smith

This paper uses pattern-centered methods to increase the usefulness of information available from survey-based skill measures, with a focus on using survey-based skills measures to detect skill change over time.

December 1, 2013
Charles Smith

This paper introduces the nomenclature of performance-based accountability systems (PBAS) to the expanded learning field, provides a policy case study for a countywide system in southern Florida and uses data from that system to explore the issue of quality thresholds. We present an expanded design standard to guide development and improvement of PBAS policies and further develop a theory of lower-stakes accountability to guide effective use of incentives of various types. Findings suggest that (1) the PBAS framework defines critical concepts and improves our ability to describe existing quality improvement systems, (2) the Youth Program Quality Assessment (Youth PQA) can be used to produce a program rating of sufficient reliability for use in a PBAS, and (3) that the Palm Beach County PBAS design is an exemplar for expanded learning policies.

January 1, 2008
Charles Smith, Tom Akiva, Juliane Blazevski, and Lisa Pelle

A presentation of baseline and post-pilot program quality ratings for 38 after school programs participating in a pilot quality improvement system in Palm Beach County, Florida.

January 25, 2016
Charles Smith, Gina McGovern, Stephen C. Peck, Reed Larson, Barbara Hillaker, and Leanne Roy

This technical report describes methodology and findings for (1) best-practice SEL standards, (2) validation of a suite of SEL performance measures for use in QIS, and (3) performance benchmarks for out-of-school time programs focused on building SEL skills with vulnerable children/youth.

January 1, 2016
Charles Smith, Gina McGovern, Reed Larson, Barbara Hillaker, and Stephen C. Peck

The guidebook describes SEL standards and organizational and curriculum features for a set of eight exemplary SEL programs.

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