Measuring What Matters: Meeting the high-stakes accountability challenge on our own terms.

Increasingly, leaders of large after-school initiatives are being held accountable for the results of their efforts. How is the expenditure of unprecedented sums of public and private money benefiting children, youth and families? Are projects delivering the outcomes they promised? Measuring the impact of initiatives that operate within complex and often daunting social conditions, however, is not easy. As expectations mount for projects to demonstrate results leaders must learn to master a balancing act that satisfies the public’s desire for immediate benefits with the need to find authentic and effective ways to measure, track, and report on their efforts.