Posted on 03/05/2007 10:08:52 AM PST by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO – An initiative sponsored by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2002 to help launch his political career finally took effect this year, providing enough new money to double the number of after-school programs in the state.
Despite that impressive debut, Proposition 49 was able to fund only half the schools that want after-school programs, which advocates say help children stay out of trouble while providing homework aid and cultural and recreational activities.
An official with the Afterschool Alliance, a nonprofit group in Washington, D.C., said the $428 million in additional annual funding provided by Proposition 49 strengthened California's position as a national leader in after-school programs.
“I think the shocking news is that it's still not enough,” said Jodi Grant, executive director of the Afterschool Alliance. “There was a much greater demand than the state could meet.”
Proposition 49 was unable to meet the demand for new programs because much of the additional money went into existing after-school programs, raising their payments and replacing some federal funding with state funding.
Legislation last year gave existing programs a 50 percent rate increase costing $170 million. The payment was boosted from $5 an hour per student to $7.50 to cover inflation, improve program quality and match federal payments.
The federal government ruled that federal funds for after-school programs should not be used to replace state funds. So a number of existing programs switched from federal to state funding, costing the state nearly $70 million.
Proposition 49 provided funding for 2,000 new after-school programs, doubling the existing 2,000 programs whose funding had been split evenly between state and federal governments.
The state was unable to provide funding for requests for 1,900 new after-school programs costing about $200 million, said John Malloy, after-school administrator for the state Department of Education.
“We have a $550 million pie,” said Malloy, referring to the $428 million added by Proposition 49 to more than $120 million in previous state funding. “But the pieces got bigger, and therefore there were fewer slices.”
Malloy said the state was able to meet its top priority of funding all requests from schools in low-income areas – those where at least half the students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches.
San Diego County has a widespread after-school program that has been pushed for nearly a decade by Sandra McBrayer of the Children's Initiative, former San Diego Mayor Susan Golding, several county supervisors and others.
As a result, only 17 of the 2,000 new after-school programs funded this year are in San Diego County because most of the schools in low-income areas in the county already had a program. The county has 340 programs.
“I don't know how to say it. . . . It's almost like we are the victims of our own success,” said Steven Amick, after-school coordinator for the San Diego County Office of Education.
A number of the 17 schools selected from 200 applicants in San Diego County are charter schools that had not yet been formed during the last round of after-school funding several years ago.
The King/Chavez charter school, which has a kindergarten-through-fifth grade after-school program, received funding for an after-school program for the sixth grade.
Fanno Academy charter school was awarded after-school funding by the state but was found to be ineligible because of low enrollment, said Christiane McPhee of the San Diego Unified School District.
The African-centered charter school will continue to operate a volunteer after-school program from 3:30 to 6 p.m. five days a week, said Kadumu Moyenda, the Fanno Academy administrator.
After-school programs are said to be particularly valuable for children whose parents do not come home from work until the evening, leaving students unsupervised for several hours after the school day ends.
“Too many of those kids engage in risky behaviors such as using drugs, joining gangs or engaging in inappropriate sexual activity,” the Afterschool Alliance's Grant said as she issued a survey of after-school staff last fall.
“After-school programs keep kids safe, inspire them to learn and help working families – but we don't have nearly enough quality after-school programs in the United States today,” Grant said.
In San Diego County, improved student test scores and fewer reports of contact with police are evidence of the value of after-school programs, said McBrayer of the Children's Initiative.
The ballot pamphlet argument for Proposition 49 signed by Schwarzenegger said studies show that after-school programs cause grades to go up, crime to go down and the return is “approximately 3 dollars for every 1 tax dollar invested.”
Schwarzenegger, already a world-famous body-builder and actor, was looking for a well-publicized way to enter the world of politics and public policy-making.
He first considered an initiative that would provide a subsidy for health insurance for all children, according to a book published last year, “The People's Machine” by Joe Mathews, an authoritative inside look at the early years of the Schwarzenegger administration.
Schwarzenegger later chose funding for after-school programs, which had become part of the Inner City Games that he had been backing in cities nationwide for a decade.
In an early example of the “post-partisan” politics he is now advocating nationally, the future Republican governor circulated drafts of the initiative to various special-interest groups and worked with the powerful, Democratic-leaning California Teachers Association.
Proposition 49 received 56.7 percent of votes cast in November 2002. The main opponent, the League of Women Voters, objected to automatically giving up to $550 million a year to after-school programs without the need for annual legislation, a rare “continuously appropriated” status.
To ease the strain on other parts of the state budget, a provision in the initiative delayed the big increase in after-school funding until state spending not covered by the Proposition 98 school guarantee increased $1.5 billion above a target year, fiscal 2001-02.
The amount of state after-school funding finally triggered this year under Proposition 49 is capped at a total of $550 million a year and will not grow.
The state has asked for new applications for $70 million in federal after-school funds, most of which became available when existing programs switched to the new state funding provided by Proposition 49. Half of the new round of federal funds are earmarked for high schools.
Malloy said the state Department of Education also is seeking an additional $200 million from the Legislature for the 1,900 schools that applied for after-school programs under Proposition 49 but were not funded.
A spokesman for Schwarzenegger's Department of Finance said a request for increased funding for after-school programs would be considered when the governor issues a revised state budget proposal in May.
“I wouldn't rule it in, I wouldn't rule it out,” said H.D. Palmer, the department spokesman.
$428 million: Amount of additional state funding provided under Proposition 49
2,000: Number of new programs financed by that money, bringing the total to 4,000
1,900: Requests for new after-school programs that could not be funded
200: Requests for new programs in San Diego County
17: New programs funded in San Diego County
340: Previously existing programs in San Diego County
Oh, forget the idea of fixing the liberal-destroyed government school system --- just add more dysfunctional pork to it --- yeah, that will fix it.
An official with the Afterschool Alliance...said the $428 million in additional annual funding provided by Proposition 49 strengthened California's position as a national leader in after-school programs.Who's shocked??“I think the shocking news is that it's still not enough,” said Jodi Grant, executive director of the Afterschool Alliance. “There was a much greater demand than the state could meet.”
This is liberalism in a nutshell. California's schools and academic performance continue to deteriorate, despite the grand visions of "liberals" who take more of our money to pursue utopia.
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