Proposed Budget Cuts & the Impact on Afterschool Programs

 “City Year says Trump’s proposed cuts would devastate popular school programs” read a headline published today in the Boston Globe. When I read about the proposed budget cuts that were revealed last week, I was pretty horrified by the amount of quality programming that is seemingly close to no longer existing. Articles in the Atlantic and the New York Times point to some of the major aspects of the proposed cuts, but as an AmeriCorps alumna myself, I was really struck by that potential loss in particular.

Part of the proposed budget calls for the elimination of the Corporation for National and Community Service, which includes the AmeriCorps program. That program provides millions in funding to City Year and various other programs that work across the nation. In the city of Boston, there are 265 City Year volunteers at nearly two-dozen schools that reach over 10,000 students, and there are over 1,400 national service members overall in over 320 locations. The reach of this work is significant.

City Year in particular has had a noteworthy impact on student gains. The program serves over 200,000 students in 28 cities nationwide, and students coached by City Year volunteers in Boston saw increases in average daily attendance rates with most students seeing increases in reading and math assessments as well. Though 45’s administration argues that it aims to defund programs that don’t work with these budget cuts, there’s data that indicates otherwise. For the president’s budget chief to scoff at funding for afterschool programs because there’s no “demonstrable evidence” that they work is quite honestly just wrong. Citizen Schools, another AmeriCorps program that serves Boston, says its program adds the equivalent of three additional months of learning. It’s unreasonable to say that these programs are not helping our students.

As aspiring educational leaders, we need to be rallying behind AmeriCorps programs like City Year and Citizen Schools. The work they are doing is truly putting students at the forefront and the gains that students are subsequently making benefits students and schools alike.