After-School Programs Feel Heat From Congress, Critics

Education Week: Brent Cummings' goal for the 400 low-income, at-risk students in the after-school programs he directs in Walla Walla, Wash., is to kindle their interest in learning with the same spark that lit his imagination years ago, when his high school chemistry teacher kicked off a unit on the periodic table of elements by filling a balloon with pure oxygen and igniting it.

Now, the programs in Walla Walla and at more than 11,000 other schools and community centers across the country are in limbo because of a congressional tussle over federal funding for after-school programs.

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