Taking Care of Business (Sorta)

This week's blog post is the last in our series about the effects of last year's budget cuts (FY'11) on youth this summer. This week, our friends at Urban Alliance were kind enough to let their Chief of Staff, Sean Segal have a few spare moments to guest blog for us. Special thanks to Sean for gracing our blog with his writing and sharing his thoughts on this year’s Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP)!

Year after year, SYEP has been plagued by cost-overruns, poor management, and a lack of youth development principles. While providing jobs for youth is a noble and needed goal for the District government, in the past, SYEP has hurt more than it has helped and done a disservice to District youth – often teaching youth that a “job” means getting paid whether or not you work.

With all this in mind, the changes implemented for the summer of 2011 are both encouraging and long overdue. To make the program more manageable, SYEP is being scaled down by 10,000 youth. Youth are being required to invest their own time and energy in a more detailed application process. All work supervisors have been required to attend training in youth development principles and DOES has talked about being stricter when it comes to placements so that youth have a real opportunity to gain valuable work experience. While there have still been some logistical problems – such as announcing a change in the maximum number of hours youth will be allowed to work just this week (even though it was legislated last year) – SYEP IS moving in the right direction.

With changes, however, always come unintended consequences. This year, 10,000 fewer youth will have the opportunity to participate in SYEP. With the youth unemployment rate currently over 50%, it is not as though young people can easily go seek out alternative employment opportunities. Further, when you consider the new steps youth had to take to register, and the fact that the program was full in less than 5 days, you can easily guess that the youth who did not register were the youth that had no one pushing them, did not have internet access, or had some other extenuating circumstance that prevented them from registering. These disengaged youth are the ones who need programs like SYEP the most. Making SYEP a smaller, more targeted program that offers real job skills is the right move. But this move MUST be paired with strategies, and with appropriate funding, to engage the disconnected youth population.

It would be hypocritical not to acknowledge that DOES implemented many of the recommendations that the provider community has given in the past few years. However, the aforementioned externalities of these decisions highlight the fact that despite DOES' attempts to improve services for youth, the larger District government has made no comprehensive plan for youth employment or youth engagement. When you combine the cuts to SYEP, with cuts to funding for youth programming city-wide, thousands of youth will be on the streets with nothing to do this summer.

The DC Council needs to recognize that youth programs are interconnected and are most effective when they are well coordinated. When funding is cut for programs like SYEP and agencies like CYITC (the Trust) and DCPS, earmarks to non-profits are eliminated, and human services funding takes an additional hit, you are cutting services to the same youth over and over again. When youth have nowhere to go this summer, and additionally have nothing to do, no one should be surprised.

Thanks to Sean AGAIN for sharing his thoughts with us! For more info on the numerous cuts to youth programs this summer please look over our previous blog posts. WAMU 88.5's Kavitha Cardoza also did a short piece on the crisis in which DCAYA's Executive Director was interviewed it is available here.

For more information on The Urban Alliance please visit their website.

Individuals interested in being involved with DCAYA's advocacy and policy work around youth workforce development may contact Anne Abbott: anne(at)dc-aya.org

The Heat Goes Up and the Funding Goes Down

Our first two posts centered on the reasons cutting funds for summer school would have such a negative impact on DC’s student population. However, DC summer school has never been funded at a level that would allow it to accommodate anything more than students who needed credit recovery. In short, summer school is meant to prop up students who are already failing or in need of remediation. There is no space for students seeking enrichment, or anything above basic credit recovery.

The Children and Youth Investment Trust Corporation (often simply referred to as the “Trust”) in contrast, funds year-round after school activities, as well as, summer enrichment activities for thousands of DC’s children and youth every year. In FY’10 the “Trust” had an operating budget of 10.6 million that they used to serve approximately 3,300 that summer. However, after last fall’s emergency budget gap closing the “Trust” was left with a total budget of just 4.6 million for FY’11.

The result? For this summer the “Trust” received 6 million dollars worth of requests for funding, but only has 1 million to grant out.

Programs like Beacon House, Asian American LEAD and Kid Power, all long time Trust grantees, will be forced to cut back. Beacon House will serve 30 fewer children ages 5-13 in their main camp and will be unable to employ older youth as junior counselors. In previous years the junior counselor program gave up to 50 older youth viable employment opportunities. Kid Power will have to reduce its elementary summer camp slots from 100 to 35 and Asian American LEAD will be unable to provide services to one of its age brackets. This summer applicants for Trust funds were only allowed to apply for grants in one age range. This means programs that aim to serve children and youth across the age spectrum and provide continuous services as children and youth grow up cannot do so.

Now that FY'12 Budget Hearings have wrapped up, we can only wait and see if the "Trust" will be funded at a level that allows for higher levels of programming next year. This summer, however, will be a tough one. The examples we gave are just a few of the MANY programs that have had to cut back as a result of heavy reductions to the Trust's operating budget. There are programs out there that,thought they have received funds for summer programming in years past will not receive any this year and may not be able to offer services at all.

The lack of summer school opportunities coupled with large budget cuts to the "Trust" force a situation on DC's children and youth that leaves many of them without positive opportunities for summer learning and enrichment. Children and youth from economically disadvantaged families are disproportionately affected by this occurrence because without programs like those funded by the "Trust", parents and guardians will likely not be able to afford to send their children to full-cost camps or enrichment opportunities. The summer learning loss that occurs because of this will be devastating to the long term academic progress and success of these young people.

While drastically changing the government's agenda about funding youth programs for this summer is probably not a tenable goal, there is still time for parents and youth to tell members of the DC Council that summer programming is critically important. DCAYA will be doing a Walk-Around to various Council Member's offices on Monday May 23, 2011 at 3:30pm in the John A. Wilson Building to speak with Council Members and their staff about these issues. If you are interested in participating please contact DCAYA Policy Analyst Maggie Riden by either phone or email. Her contact information is below.

This is one of the last opportunities advocates and concerned community members will have to speak with decision makers before they vote on the budget late next week. Make sure your voice is heard.

Maggie Riden

email: maggie(at)dc-aya.org phone: 202.587.0616 (ext. 36)

For more information on Trust programs that are operating for Summer 2011 click here.

For more information on other summer programs offered by DPR, MPD or other government agencies click here.

Summertime and the Learnin' Ain't Easy!

Earlier in the week, we blogged about why it is so important for District high schoolers to have Summer School as a viable way to recover credits necessary for grade promotion and/or graduation. Having this option available to all students who need it is essential to stemming the District’s current drop-out crisis. If our government is serious about fixing the education system then divesting in Summer School is a curious way to go about it.

Equally important to re-funding opportunities for high school students is restoring funding for middle-school and elementary students – albeit for very different reasons. Not only is Summer School for younger students vital to ensuring that they form a path to graduation in the first place, it also helps build the bridge to post-secondary educational opportunities. Researchers at Johns Hopkins found in a study of 800 Baltimore students that roughly two-thirds of the high school freshmen who chose not to pursue a college preparatory curriculum did so because of the academic losses they sustained during the summer months.

The educational losses younger students sustain during the summer months can be severe and the situation is especially dire for low-income students. Statistically, economically disadvantaged students start school with lower achievement scores than their peers, but during the school year they progress at about the same rate as other students. However, this progress can be quickly negated during the summer months. While research shows that most students across the socio-economic spectrum lose approximately 2 months of grade-level equivalency in math over the summer months, low-income students also lose 2 months of reading equivalency while their middle-class peers tend to make slight gains (National Summer Learning Association). All children and youth are susceptible to “summer slide,” but for already low-performing students, the lack of Summer School options makes basic educational achievement nearly impossible.

Summer School provides structure and continued skill development to those students in need of academic recovery in addition to prevention of summer learning loss. In 2010, DCPS enrolled roughly 5,000 elementary and middle school students in Summer School. However, this summer, 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th graders in DC have a severely diminished number of slots with a maximum of 175 slots available. Elementary student slots are now capped at 3,600. This leaves over 1000 students without critical academic support and at an extreme risk of falling even further behind.

Limiting the number of summer slots for thousands of DCPS students is an unacceptable way of balancing the DCPS budget. Investing in a robust education system that accounts for the educational attainment of all children and youth is the only way that we can attain truly improved outcomes. To accomplish this, DC must keep the doors to education open during the summer months, not shut them in the faces of our cities' children and youth.

This is Part 2 of a series of blogs about the effects of the FY'11 Budget Cuts on children and youth in DC. Stay tuned over the next two weeks as we give you the rundown of how cuts have already started to erode progress made in the District in areas like positive youth development programming, education, health and juvenile justice.

If you are interested in guest blogging about a specific issue please contact Anne Abbott, DCAYA's Membership and Communications Coordinator at anne(at)dc-aya.org.

It's a Cruel, Cruel Summer

Among the many budget casualties in FY’11 was the drastic cut in funds for DCPS Summer School. While some young people spend during the summer months watching TV or hanging out with their friends, many youth depend on Summer School to help improve academic skills or to get ahead in their coursework for the next year. Yet, others rely on Summer School in order to be promoted to the next grade level or to even recover enough credits to graduate on time.

Last year, DCPS maintained open enrollment for all high school students who needed to attend summer school, resulting in an average daily attendance of 3,800 students. However, for Summer 2011, the number of high school spots faces a drastic reduction due to budget constraints. This summer, DCPS will only offer Summer School for high school Seniors who are within three credits of graduation. And unlike in years past, summer classes will only be offered at Ballou, McKinley, Coolidge and Eliot-Hine High Schools.

The lack of academic opportunities offered by DCPS this summer comes as an especially tough blow given the low levels of educational proficiency that exist across the District. DCAYA’s joint report with Critical Exposure and the John Hopkins Everybody Graduates Center revealed that 48% of the nearly 1,000 youth surveyed reported failing one or more of their classes. 22% reported failing between two to four of their classes and nearly 25% of high school students surveyed reported that they had repeated a grade.

Although high school students in the District are largely on par with national trends in their Summer School attendance (about 21%, National Center for Education Statistics), the need in the District for expanded opportunities for ninth, tenth, and eleventh graders is far greater. In 2007, 73.4% of DCPS’ drop-out population came from the ninth grade, 14.6% came from the sophomore population, and 6.5% came from high school juniors. This means that almost 95% of youth who dropped out of school in DC did so before their senior year--- a rate far above the national average of 75.2%.

By limiting District high school students’ ability to regain credit during the summer months, DCPS will severely stymie the ability of thousands of high school students not just to graduate on time, but to graduate at all. Though there is little that can be done to help rectify the situation for Summer 2011, there is still time to ensure that the summer of 2012 does not provide the same bleak landscape of educational opportunity to DC’s high school students.

This is Part 1 of a series of blogs about the effects of the FY'11 Budget Cuts on children and youth in DC. Stay tuned over the next two weeks as we give you the rundown of how cuts have already started to erode progress made in the District in areas like positive youth development programming, education, health and juvenile justice.

If you are interested in guest blogging about a specific issue please contact Anne Abbott, DCAYA's Membership and Communications Coordinator at anne(at)dc-aya.org.

New Blog Series

In the heat of the FY'12 Budget Season, it's tempting for DC's advocate community to fixate on what lies ahead and to lose sight of current challenges the city faces. With a looming budget gap of nearly $300 million for next year, it’s easy to forget that DC residents are already feeling the effects of reduced services and fewer programs from last year's budget gap closing.This is certainly true for DC's youth population.

While DCAYA has been guilty of this "future focused" mentality the last few weeks, we mean to make amends. To start we will be writing a new blog series that highlights the current state of affairs in the District's programming for children and youth.

We'll lead off the series with a closer look at the DCPS budget and the effect of cuts to summer school so be sure to check out our first post tomorrow morning!Our second blog in the series will be coming out on Friday (04/29/11) and then we'll have another post early next week!

Follow our posts over the next few weeks as we examine how budget cuts in key areas are already negatively effecting the lives of young people and be sure to leave comments and feedback if there is an area you would like to see us examine in greater depth.