If you are keeping track, you can add after-school programs to your list
of things being squeezed by recent state and local budget shortfalls.
And President Bush is letting the federal shoe drop: He requested $400
million in cuts from 21st Century Community Learning Centers, the federal
government's funding stream for after-school programs. The cuts will be
felt by hundreds of thousands of children.
But there is a glimmer of hope. Despite the absence of support from the
top, local elected officials and community leaders around the country
are building innovative partnerships from the ground up with educators,
private funders, and citizens to ensure that high-quality after-school
programming doesn't become a thing of the past.
The efforts are testimony to the value communities place on organized
after-school activities. For children, the programs offer educational,
athletic, and other extracurricular opportunities they may not have at
home. For parents, especially those making the transition from welfare
to work, the programs also provide safe child care and supervision of
teenagers -- a vital service if parents are to hold down steady jobs.
And for communities, ensuring that young people have productive ways to
spend their after-school time helps reduce dangerous and anti-social behavior.
A model program in Los Angeles is called LA's BEST (Better Educated
Students for Tomorrow). It has managed to grow, even as California confronts
a $36 billion budget shortfall that has forced Gov. Gray Davis and the
state Legislature to make deep spending cuts. The reductions include a
$390,000 slash in state support for LA's BEST, a 43 percent reduction
from the previous state commitment of $905,000. That cut threatened activities
in two of the schools where LA's BEST operates, forcing it to find alternate
funding.
But the diversity of LA's BEST funding sources has been the secret of
its success. In addition to federal and state funds, the program has developed
strong ties to foundations and corporate supporters. The program's roster
of underwriters ranges from Verizon and Home Depot to the Amateur Athletic
Foundation of Los Angeles and the Hollywood Charity Horse Show. The most
generous contributor has been the Broad Foundation, which pledged $1.7
million in August 2001. Six months later, the program had hired and trained
over 200 new staff members and opened 23 new sites from North Hollywood
to South Central Los Angeles.
LA's BEST is a collaboration between City Hall and the LA Unified School
District. The program started in the late 1980s with 10 sites. It now
serves 18,000 students in 105 elementary schools. Regular programming
includes the usual supports -- homework assistance and tutoring -- along
with such special-interest activities as a science club, a drill and dance
team, and conflict resolution training. Since the autumn of 2001, LA's
BEST has significantly expanded its use of computers, launched a tutoring
program with older students helping younger ones, and opened a site dedicated
solely to children with special needs.
But, while LA's BEST has been able to expand because of the diversity
of its funding sources, recent cuts in federal and state money are causing
strains. The program is scrambling more than ever to find support from
nonprofit foundations and corporations. "These hard times always
remind us how vulnerable the programs really are," said LA's BEST
President and CEO Carla Sanger.
The LA's Best model has been copied elsewhere, notably by Sacramento's
Students Today Achieving Results for Tomorrow (START) and San Diego's
Six-to-Six Program.
In Boston, Mayor Thomas Menino joined forces with stakeholders from across
the city to streamline a wide array of existing after-school programs
and allow them to share resources through the single After-School for
All Partnership. The goal is to bring together those who want to support
after-school programs, those who have the will and skill to run them,
and those who have the innovative ideas to sustain them -- service providers,
parents, teachers, trainers, policymakers, and private funders.
The effort has received widespread support. Since 2001, private funders
such as the Boston Foundation, Nellie Mae, and Mass 2020 have pledged
$24.1 million in new funds to support the collaboration.
One of the early collaborators in the partnership was Citizen Schools.
It pairs small groups of children in "apprenticeships" with
local volunteer teachers. Citizen Schools President Eric Schwarz says
the After-School for All Partnership supports after-school services more
effectively than the individual participants could do on their own. In
the end, the main beneficiaries are young people. "The focus is on
seeing after-school as an investment in the long-haul," said Schwarz.
"We're working to put kids on the track to success."
