|
USAction Education Fund believes that every child deserves a quality public school education. To this end, we support full funding of federal education initiatives, promote greater access to afterschool programs and work to ensure every child's right to a quality public education regardless of his or her background.
USAction Education Fund supports full funding of education legislation like the No Child Left Behind Act as a down payment on the national commitment to invest in our schools and our children. Without full investment in education, we are putting our children, our neighborhoods, our economy, and our society at risk.
 USAction Education Fund is a partner in the Afterschool Alliance's Afterschool for All: Project 2010.
The country's most influential individuals and organizations are coming together to promote universal access to afterschool programs. Partners of Project 2010 include educators, students, youth advocates, policy makers, faith-based leaders, parents, business leaders, law enforcement and judicial experts, entertainers, and others who realize that afterschool programs are a necessity for young people, families and communities. More leaders are signing on every day.
Partners of Project 2010 embrace its important and popular goal: to ensure that all children and youth have access to high-quality, safe and enriching afterschool programs by the year 2010.
USAction Education Fund opposes education reforms or public policies that disenfranchise any racial, cultural or ethnic group and otherwise deprive them of the public education to which they are entitled. We support proposals like the DREAM Act, to promote access to education for immigrant children who have been raised and schooled in our communities.
Brought to the U.S. at a young age, many students graduate from high school only to find the doors to college and the American Dream closed to them through no fault of their own. Although they have been raised and schooled in our communities the majority of their lives, these students – many of whom are Presidential scholars, honor roll students, and star athletes – are forced to pay out-of-state tuition rates, lack access to state, federal, and most private financial aid, and are unable to go to college. Due to our current immigration laws, many of these students are also unable to access the path to U.S. citizenship and face, on a daily basis, the prospect of deportation to countries that they barely know.
Unless the "DREAM Act" passes, some students will likely be deported before Congress reconvenes next year:
Marie Gonzalez, who is about to graduate from Helias High School in Jefferson City, Missouri, was brought to the U.S. from Costa Rica at the age of 5. Now 18 years old, Marie has a 3.4 GPA at one of the state’s best schools, is a member of the National Honors Society, is on the school track and tennis team, and was one of five members of the homecoming court this fall. Despite these accomplishments and her flawless English, a judge ordered her deported last December. Marie’s case is on appeal but a summary denial could arrive in the mail any day now, which could require her departure within 30 days.
|
Public Education