NEW YORK— A Nov. 28 Addendum proposed by the Bloomberg administration drops funding to just under $70 million for the 2013 year, a cut of $20 million from this fiscal year and $47 million cut from the start of the Out-of-School Time (OST) program two years ago, according to a news brief from The Center for New York City Affairs.
Programs will cost more per student because of more stringent requirements in the Addendum, according to Cathleen Collins, deputy chief of staff at the Department of Youth and Community Development, which distributes funding for the OST program, reports the news brief.
After-school and summer programs are the latest education sector to face budget cuts after 672 education employees were laid off in October. Reduced budgets have forced schools to take action, including compounding classes and additional layoffs.
According to a slew of reports this year focusing on the relationship between funding and education, the availability of resources deteriorated quickly from just a few years ago.
For instance, in November the Alliance for Quality Education released “Back to Inequality: How Students in Poor School Districts are Paying the Price for the State Budget.”
It found that in poor districts a cut of $843 per student equaled about $21,000 per classroom—more than triple the size of cuts in wealthy districts.
Approximately 46,000 slots for youth in after-school programs, or “Out of School Time” (OST), were lost over the past four years due to $8.5 million in budget cuts, according to Kevin Douglas, policy analyst for United Neighborhood Houses.
Positive Impact of Programs
A Policy Studies Associates (PSA) Report from March examined the first five years of 10 after-school programs, and found that students participating in them say they are more apt to “always” want to do well in school, always do their homework, and work hard to do their best in school.
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