Clinton Dispenses Funds for After-School Programs

With the Clinton administration’s proposed $21.9-billion child-care package largely scuttled by Congress, the president on Thursday unveiled what Congress had passed and appealed for more.

In a White House event attended by school officials and day-care advocates, President Clinton dispensed $60 million in new funds to establish or expand after-school programs in 600 schools in 44 states, including California. Almost $5.5 million is slated to go to California school systems from Eureka to San Diego.

More than $1 million will go to the San Bernardino City Unified School District, which plans to launch a program called Prime Time with after-school, Saturday and summer activities and services for local youth. In Long Beach, Washington Middle School won $196,451 to bring an intensive tutoring and activities program to students and to expand parent education.

The money is part of $200 million earmarked by Congress for after-school care in the budget agreement passed last month. The funds established the 21st Century Community Learning Center Program, which is expected to help about 250,000 children who attend after-school programs.

But Clinton said millions of children whose families are eligible for child-care subsidies still do not get them, and he blamed GOP stinginess.

“In spite of what we come to celebrate today, the truth is that when it comes to raising our children in this new era, we are not there yet. . . . On any given day in America, as many as 15 million school-age children are left to fend for themselves--on the streets or alone at home.”

The program that Clinton celebrated Thursday was one of a small number of child-care initiatives sought by the president and passed by legislators in this session of Congress. But in the last year, lawmakers firmly rebuffed the president’s proposal for a five-year increase of $7.5 billion to subsidize child care for low-income families and an additional $5.7 billion to extend child-care tax credits for middle-income families and companies that help their employees with child care.

Beyond that, Congress turned down a $3-billion program aimed at increasing and improving the quality of infant and toddler care.

In the budget negotiations last month, Clinton pressed hard for the $200 million for after-school programs, which he touted both as an education reform and as a juvenile crime-prevention initiative. Four of five Americans expressed strong support for after-school programs in a recent poll and lawmakers went along. After this year’s expenditure of $60 million, the remaining $140 million is to be spent next year.

“Hillary and I are, I think it’s fair to say, virtually obsessed with the idea of expanding after-school programs and affordable child care,” Clinton told his White House audience Thursday.

Helen Blank of the Children’s Defense Fund, a Washington-based group active in lobbying on behalf of children’s causes, called Thursday’s announcement “an important first step” that will help build political momentum for government support of after-school programs. But she chastised lawmakers for producing a budget that was “stingy to kids, though not to everyone else.”

Clinton also won congressional approval for $182 million aimed at improving training and education for child-care providers and boosting licensing enforcement. In addition, lawmakers agreed to $172 million to fund quality improvements for child care and provided $313 million to fund Head Start programs for low-income preschoolers.