After-School Care May Get Fund Boost

President Clinton is expected to unveil a plan today to triple, to $600 million, federal spending on the government’s primary after-school program.

Clinton is disclosing the plan as part of a series of announcements leading up to his planned presentation this month of the State of the Union address and, in early February, his budget.

The program is one of the more popular, and less controversial, education programs supported by Clinton. It focuses on the needs of children and teenagers who would otherwise be unsupervised during the after-school hours when such risky behavior as criminal and sexual activities and drug and alcohol use most often occur among juveniles.

The program, known as the 21st Century Learning Center Program, began in fiscal 1997, when $1 million was allocated to it, and it grew in the current fiscal year to $200 million.

The expansion is intended to help local school systems pay for after-school programs for 1.1 million of the nation’s 28 million children with one or both parents in the work force, said Bruce Reed, Clinton’s chief domestic policy advisor.

“This is one of the top priorities in education and one of the most dramatic increases in any program,” he said.

“Clearly, there’s a huge need,” said Joyce Shortt, an assistant director of the National Institute on Out-of-School Time at Wellesley College. “There’s a real groundswell of support for these programs.”

The program’s popularity was demonstrated last year when 2,000 school systems applied for 286 grants.

Reed, disclosing Clinton’s plan in a telephone interview, declined to say how the administration would pay for the increased spending. Under budget-balancing rules, increased spending for such domestic programs must come from reductions in other programs or increased revenue.

“All the details will come out at the end of the month,” Reed said, referring to the State of the Union message, which Clinton is scheduled to deliver Jan. 19, and to the budget, due two weeks later.

Under the most recent round of grants, announced in November, communities in California from Eureka to San Diego were awarded $5.5 million.

More than $1 million was earmarked for the San Bernardino City Unified School District, for an after-school program known as Prime Time, and for Saturday and summer activities. In Long Beach, Washington Middle School won $196,451 for an intensive tutoring and activities program and to expand parent education.

Clinton’s proposal gives priority to after-school activities run by school districts operating comprehensive programs to end social promotion, which is the practice of promoting students from one grade to the next regardless of their academic skills.

The after-school programs provide more than safe environments for children who would otherwise have no adult supervision after classes. Some provide music lessons, sports and academic enrichment.

“Some of the most successful efforts to end social promotion are in communities with summer school and after-school programs,” Reed said.

Family welfare experts have found that the care of children after school is one of the chief problems facing working parents as they balance the demands of their jobs and the needs of their families.

“The streets have never been safe for young kids, but they are less safe now,” said Shortt, of the Wellesley center.

According to the White House, at least 5 million children, and possibly many more, are home alone each week. Statistics cited by the White House indicate that most juvenile crime occurs between 2 and 8 p.m. And 35% of 12-year-old children regularly care for themselves after school when their parents are working, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

A Newsweek magazine poll in April found that 71% of the parents surveyed said it was important that schools remain open all day, not just during the hours when classes are meeting, and 35% said they have difficulty providing after-school supervision for their children.