Petrilli: When Only Some Kids Can Afford Summer Camp — Why We Must Close the ‘Enrichment Gap’

As Robert Putnam argued in his landmark book, Our Kids, and again in his recent report, Closing the Opportunity Gap, there is a growing social-class gulf in spending on children’s enrichment and extracurricular activities — things like sports, summer camps, piano lessons, and trips to the zoo. As the upper-middle class grows larger and richer, it is spending extraordinary sums to enhance its kids’ experience and education, while other children must make do with far less. (Putnam got the data for his chart from this study.)

Not surprisingly, that gap shows up in participation rates, too. The Census Bureau tracks involvement in out-of-school sports, clubs, and lessons (e.g. music, dance, Hebrew). Here’s what it looks like for sports for children ages six to eleven, broken down by parental education level (a good proxy for social class):

As is evident, not every first grader plays soccer, even if that feels like the suburban norm. Children whose parents have advanced degrees are three times likelier to participate in sports than those whose parents dropped out of high school. The picture looks much the same for clubs and lessons, and for high school students’ involvement in extracurricular activities.

These are enormous differences. As Annette Lareau pointed out in Unequal Childhoods, affluent kids are scheduled to the hilt, awash in activities, while poor and working class kids’ spare time is largely self-organized. Though that kind of “free range” experience brings some benefits, it also means less intellectual stimulation, social development, and basic safety for the have-nots. Years later, the “overscheduled” kids seem to end up better able to navigate college and the adult world. (Of course, they’ve had other advantages, too.)

After school, over the weekend, and during summer are also great times for kids to work on their “identity projects” — passions that propel them to long-term success, as argued by Stefanie DeLuca, Susan Clampet-Lundquist, and Kathryn Edin in their recent book, Coming of Age in the Other America. Such projects usually take the form of artistic/creative/vocational/enrichment activities that give young people meaning and direction (and the option of not being on the street). As DeLuca told me in an email, these pursuits “sparked the grit to stay in school and avoid trouble, and select into better peer groups.”

A growing body of research supports the positive impact of participation in extracurricular and enrichment activities. The evidence is particularly strong for high school athletics, where a handful of studies have been able to establish a causal link between participation and positive long-term outcomes. The most prominent is a brilliant analysis by Betsey Stevenson that examines the impact of Title IX on girls’ participation in high school sports — and found a significant increase in college-going and labor force participation. A trove of correlational studies have also demonstrated benefits for high school athletes, including higher grades, increased graduation and college completion rates, and a decrease in various anti-social behaviors. There are similar findings for students who participate in other extracurricular activities, such as clubs, especially if they play leadership roles or are deeply committed.

There is somewhat less evidence about the benefits of enrichment activities for younger students; as far as I can tell, no one has established a causal link between enrichment and long-term outcomes. But there’s plenty of correlational as well as anecdotal evidence. Mostly scholars have looked at after-school programs. There, too, they find a correlation between participation and positive outcomes, at least where attendance is regular and there’s a strong connection to an adult role model.

What may explain the connection between extracurricular and enrichment activities and student success? We cannot be certain, but mentors are surely part of it. So is the development of those “non-cognitive” and “social and emotional” skills that have everyone’s attention. Sure, you can try to teach “grit” in math class (though there are reasons to be skeptical), but isn’t football or swimming, karate or violin, likely to be at least as valuable a venue?

 

If we could muster the public will to invest serious financial resources, an obvious option is simply to give their parents money. An expanded child tax credit, or more generous Earned Income Tax Credit, would put more cash in moms’ and dads’ pockets, some of which might find its way to after-school activities, soccer leagues, or summer camps.

Another approach is to beef up support for existing after-school and summer programs. The most specific federal investment is via the 21st Century Learning Centers program, which funds afternoon programs at high poverty public schools and currently receives more than $1 billion per year. Grants from the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) can also be targeted to such activities, at least for children up to age twelve. The CCDF gets almost $3 billion in discretionary money annually. States can also transfer a portion of their Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funds into the CCDF, and use it for after-school and summer programs. A variety of targeted programs, housed at the Departments of Justice, Housing and Urban Development, and Agriculture, can also be tapped for this purpose.

Another possibility — Putnam’s favorite — is getting rid of “pay-to-play” policies for high school sports and other extracurriculars. If participation in these activities has positive benefits for students — especially disadvantaged students — why would we erect financial barriers to them?

My own preference is to create “enrichment savings accounts.” Taking their inspiration from health and education savings accounts, the notion is to give parents the equivalent of a debit card to be used for enrichment activities for their children — for sports, dance, summer camps, Boy and Girl Scouts, swim team, and all the rest. Education savings accounts already allow for expenditures on these sorts of things, but they are limited to a few states, and can also be used for private school tuition. The “savings” part is critical, for it encourages parents to be careful, prudential, discerning shoppers, getting the most bang out of their buck, while keeping costs down. Parents could roll over the savings from year to year, and eventually use them for college.

If this is a good idea, there are a million design questions to think through. Should it be universally available, or limited to low- and moderate-income families? What would be allowable under the “enrichment” umbrella? Could schools’ extracurricular activities be funded via these ESAs? (Would that perversely encourage even more public schools to charge kids to play sports?) How much money would be enough to make an impact?

 

But that’s for another day. For now, imagine a world in which the summer, weekend, and after-school experiences of the poor aren’t as radically different as they are today for the rich, and where every American child gets to enjoy the ups and downs of youth soccer, summer camp, and everything else. That is a world I’d like to live in.