[Vision2020] Leaving a few children behind

[Melynda Huskey]

I found this news extremely disturbing . . . I hope others who do so will 
contact legislators and express their concern.  If the Bush tax cuts have 
been so beneficial to the economy, and if we are indeed in an economic 
recovery, why are we reduced to cutting educational programs for extremely 
vulnerable children--programs which would enhance the earning potential and 
productivity, and hence the tax base, of our nation?

Melynda Huskey


AP Wire:

DES MOINES, Iowa - Funding is being eliminated for a federal program that 
pays the children of migrant workers across the country to stay in school 
instead of working in fields.

The Department of Labor program pays some young people minimum wage to stay 
in school while migrating with their parents, who travel across the country 
looking for seasonal farm work.

Coordinators in 31 states and Puerto Rico were told there was no money to 
operate the program this year, leaving them to find alternate sources, 
petition Congress or drop the program.

"This is a remarkable abandonment of the most vulnerable youth," said David 
Strauss, executive director of the Association of Farmworker Opportunity 
Programs. "I don't know what's going to happen to those kids."

Repeated telephone messages left this week for Labor Department officials 
weren't returned.

The Migrant and Seasonal Farmworker Youth Program is designed to combat 
extraordinarily high dropout rates among seasonal migrant youth workers and 
the children of adult seasonal migrant workers. It also attempts to end 
cyclical poverty and low socio-economic levels plaguing that population.

The school dropout rate is understandable, Strauss said. "If you look at 
their lives they're in multiple schools because their families travel to 
work."

Dropout rates among migrant youths are estimated at 60 percent, according to 
the federal Office of Migrant Education in the U.S. Department of Education.

Students are pulled from school early because their parents move to where 
work is more plentiful, disrupting their academic progress and causing many 
to fall behind or become discouraged.

"They're pulled out of school or start back late," said Terry Meek of 
Proteus Inc., a nonprofit organization that oversees the Iowa program. "Some 
of them are here for June, July, August and part of September because 
they're coming to work with seed corn."

Despite the stipends, most of the young people still work because their 
families need supplemental income. The average income of an adult farm 
worker is less than $10,000 a year.

Nationally, more than 2,500 youth ages 14 to 21 participated in the program 
last year. Many came from California, Texas and Florida.

The program also provides job placement, tutoring, mentoring, vocational 
training and career counseling services. It also funds child care and health 
care.

Four years ago, programs across the country were dividing a healthy $10 
million a year. This year, all funding was eliminated and coordinators were 
told to use money from last year until it dries up.

___

On the Net:

U.S. Department of Labor:



http://www.dol.gov/


U.S. Department of Education:

http://www.ed.gov/

Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs

http://www.afop.org/


Melynda Huskey