Trump budget prioritizes war over education, hurts impoverished communities

President Trump's proposed budget would drastically increase spending on the military while making dramatic cuts to numerous social services that mostly benefit impoverished communities. Now with the increasing tensions with Syria and the military actions taken by the Trump administration, the military-heavy budget may pick up some additional political support from war hawk lawmakers. Unfortunately, children from impoverished communities may suffer some of the most devastating effects due to proposed cuts to various education services, such as after-school programs.

Trump budget cuts to after-school programs hurt working families

The proposed budget would increase military spending by $54 billion while cutting $9 billion from education. Not all of the details of the cuts have been released, however $1.2 billion of those cuts would specifically hit 21^st Century Community Learning Centers (CCLC) which provide after-school and summer learning programs, according to The Center for American Progress. The cuts would put an end to these essential programs. This can be highly detrimental to working parents who rely on the programs to allow them to continue working to make ends meet while also providing their children with the extra learning needed for them to succeed in school. Approximately 80 percent of parents who participated in the after-school services claim that the programs helped them maintain their employment. Over 1.6 million students are currently attending the after-school programs.

Trump's alternative facts on after-school programs

Despite these obvious benefits for working families, the Trump administration still claims that there are no benefits to maintaining these programs. The budget justifies these cuts by asserting that there is no “strong evidence” of meeting the objectives of the programs, such as “improving student achievement.” However, Trump is flat-out wrong and ignores large amounts of evidence showing that these programs do make significant progress on their objectives.

An evaluation of high-quality after-school programs, which included CCLC programs, in low-income elementary and middle schools found that regular participation among the 3,000 students evaluated, resulted in considerable improvements in math test scores as well as work habits. The study also showed that after-school programs reduced behavioral problems, according to a fact sheet published by the Afterschool Alliance. Evaluations conducted on CCLC programs in California, Washington and Wisconsin showed improvements for students in many areas, including test scores, attendance, grades, class participation and motivation.

Be sure to contact your local congresspersons and senators and tell them you oppose these cuts to critical public education services, such as the CCLC. Now with the worsening Syria crisis, it is important voters do not allow lawmakers to sneak these devastating cuts under the cover of patriotic war drums. You can automatically connect to your representatives via various means at Phone2Action.