Across the decades, links have been found between school success and various non-school factors, including poverty, race/ethnicity, family structure, child health, parenting approaches, and peer influences. In some cases—poverty, for example—the links suggest a cause-and-effect pattern; but breaking that pattern is difficult and expensive, requiring change at the level of the society or the economy. Other non-school factors, such as the influence of peer groups, appear to be easier to change, but research as yet offers little guidance on how or how much they can determine school success or whether these factors can be altered. Finally, research has identified some non-school factors that both appear to have a cause-and-effect relationship to school success and are malleable. The experiences of programs that have been rigorously evaluated and found to have significant impacts on educational outcomes are instructive in this regard.

This Research Brief brings together findings from a variety of research resources, including rigorous program evaluations, to identify 10 actionable, feasible goals involving non-school factors that affect educational outcomes and can be addressed through out-of-school-time programs.