A Path to Destruction
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos' budget cuts would harm vulnerable kids and families.

( John Moore/Getty Images)
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos spent two decades defunding and destabilizing public schools in Michigan, and now she wants to spread that same agenda to every town and city in America. How else do you explain the cruel and craven cuts she and President Donald Trump have proposed to funding for after-school and summer programs, child nutrition programs, class-size reduction, community schools and the supports kids need and parents rely on? How else can you rationalize the White House budget director claiming that there's no evidence that feeding hungry children helps them do better in school? These are programs essential to meeting the social, emotional and academic needs of children. We can't go back and undo what DeVos did in Michigan, but we can and must stand up and stop her from pushing this anti-public school agenda across the country.
Public schools enable opportunity and a pathway to success for kids, but these cuts drive a stake through the heart of public education and destroy the promise and potential it offers our children.
By eliminating after-school and summer programs, Trump and DeVos are telling working parents: Either work and leave your young children unsupervised for several hours a day, or stay home with them and lose the job you need to pay the rent and grocery bills. For many children with tough situations at home, school may be the only safe sanctuary they can count on, or the only place they reliably receive a meal each day; this budget would rob them of that safety and security. These cuts would leave kids hungry and unsupervised, and force them into potentially dangerous situations.
According to the YMCA, teens who don't participate in after-school programs are nearly three times more likely to skip classes or use drugs, and are more likely to drink, smoke and engage in sexual activity.
Every $1 invested in after-school programs saves $9 by increasing kids' future earning potential, improving their performance at school, and reducing crime and welfare costs, according to a study by the Rose Institute at Claremont McKenna College. Studies have shown that regular participation in after-school programs and community learning centers increases achievement in math and reading, school attendance, homework completion, class participation, improved classroom behavior and lower dropout rates. And 8 in 10 parents say after-school programs help them keep their jobs.
Many after-school programs also provide snacks or dinner, and millions of children would go hungry if summer programs were eliminated. Simply put, hungry kids don't learn. Even with our current child nutrition programs, 3 out of 4 teachers say that students regularly come to school hungry. Providing meals to students results in better attendance, less tardiness and fewer behavioral problems.
These programs aren't just about making sure kids have a safe place after school. Rebecca Tucker, a middle school teacher in Marysville, Ohio, notes that her afterschool program offers tutoring and time for students to complete their homework, get involved in sports and work on team projects ranging from cooking to soapbox derby racing. During the summer, the program holds discovery camps and students create presentations, which they share with the community, that show what problems they investigated and what they learned. She says the program gives students a place to meet new friends, develop social and team-building skills, try new things, and learn in nontraditional ways.
The Trump-DeVos budget would also eliminate funding for community schools, like the Community Health Academy of the Heights, in New York City, which helps meet students' physical, emotional and social needs. Nearly all of CHAH's 650 students live in poverty. The school offers a full-service community health clinic, vision screening for every student and free glasses if needed, annual mental health screenings for students, and access to social workers and a full-time psychologist. CHAH stays open until 9:30 p.m. to offer adults GED and English as a second language classes, as well physical fitness and health classes. And the school has a food pantry and a parent resource center. All of this bolsters student achievement. CHAH reduced the number of students reading at level 1, the lowest level, by 37 percent between 2013 and 2016.
Students in high-quality community learning center programs also have better achievement and school attendance, and fewer disciplinary incidents. Many of these community learning centers are in some of the highest-need districts in the nation. The program in McDowell County, W.Va., the seventh-poorest county in the country, provides 900 children with a variety of learning and enrichment opportunities. These cuts would be a huge setback for a community struggling to survive.
Trump and DeVos also want to eliminate funding to reduce class sizes and improve teaching quality. What parent is clamoring for more-crowded classrooms and less individual attention for his or her child? What parent wants his or her child's teacher to go without the support the teacher needs to continually refine his or her craft? Toledo, Ohio, could lose funds it uses to train teachers in an intensive reading program for students who are not reading proficiently by third grade – which research shows puts them at greatly increased risk of not graduating from high school. Classes that have implemented the program have shown 50 percent increase in reading proficiency. Escambia County, Florida, could lose a peer mentoring and assistance program that pairs accomplished teachers with first-year and struggling teachers. In addition to improving teaching quality, the high level of support has been an effective recruiting tool.
The Trump-DeVos budget does invest in one area, expanding private school vouchers and for-profit school ventures, even though the evidence is clear that these programs have not helped children and have, in fact, hurt them. The Louisiana voucher program has led to large reductions of kids' reading and math scores. A Fordham Institute study concluded students in Ohio's voucher program did worse than children in traditional public schools. Private voucher schools take money away from neighborhood public schools, lack the same accountability that public schools have, fail to protect kids from discrimination, and increase segregation.
PHOTOS:
The Big Picture – April 2017 ]According to DeVos, this budget protects "the nation's most vulnerable populations." But the reality is the opposite: It eviscerates equity investments that have worked to help vulnerable kids and families, and it diverts $1.3 billion to failed strategies that hurt kids. The good news is that the American people understand the threat this budget poses to our schools and kids. According to a recent Quinnipiac poll, 83 percent of Americans oppose cutting funding for after-school and summer school programs.
When DeVos was nominated, parents and teachers sounded the alarm based on her harmful record in Michigan. We warned that she was an anti-public education ideologue with no knowledge about what kids or schools need and no experience in public education outside of trying to demolish it. Her actions during her first months in office, and her attempt to take a meat cleaver to public education, prove that our fears were well-founded. Exposing the potential consequences is the first step in averting them.
Tags: Donald Trump, Betsy DeVos, Department of Education, education, education policy, school vouchers , public schools, federal budget, students, children's health