Sometimes I think that at the end of the day a lot of the goals in terms of helping the most disadvantaged kids are capacity constrained simply by % of hours in

Sometimes I think that at the end of the day a lot of the goals in terms of helping the most disadvantaged kids are capacity constrained simply by % of hours in school out of the year. I mean you're already covering 2 out of 3 meals per day, and in places like NYC the free meals continue through summer when school is out of session. Kids spend ~7hrs/day, ~180 days/year in school. Deducting 8hrs/day sleep, kids spend 22% of their awake time in school. Aggressive 3hrs/day before&after school programs gets that up to.. 30%. Add a 30hr/week x 10week summer program and we are at.. 35%. Add a half day weekend program while school is in session and you barely hit 37%. For a middle/upper middle class kid, they go home to a structured enough environment, get food, shelter, attention and discipline. So the other 70-89% of the time is neutral to beneficial. For disadvantaged kids, their home life may be mayhem and actively detrimental to their development. I'm not sure what you can do with 20-30% of their hours to counteract the other 70-80%. I'd wager most of the marginal improvement you can get is less about making the in-classroom hours X% better, but, sadly, minimizing the % of hours spent in troubled households. So focussing more on redirection of after hours & weekends to Boys&Girls Club, academic clubs, in-school after school programs, mentorship, etc. This is of course much more expensive, and morally, potentially brings in problematic conflict between the state & parents, etc... in terms of who is ultimately responsible for raising a child. The number of dollars & hours to substitute a stable household is staggering, and the parents may not ultimately want it.