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<p>U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta may have been one of Donald Trump&#8217;s earliest and staunchest supporters, but the Republican from Hazleton was quick to criticize one aspect of the president&#8217;s first budget: Elimination of federal funds that support an after school program Barletta has rigorously championed in Luzerne County.</p><p>The day after Trump unveiled a spending proposal that completely cut the $1 billion 21st Century Community Learning Centers program, Barletta joined Rhode Island Rep. David Cicilline, a Democrat, in singing a letter to Trump urging him to reverse course.</p><p>The reason: 21st Century Community Learning grants have been a critical part of funding for the SHINE after school program in Luzerne County. Barletta and state Sen. John Yudichak, D-Nanticoke, teamed to bring the program &#8212; run for a decade in Carbon County &#8212; to local schools.</p><p>The two appeared at a media event to announce their success in December 2014, and since then together or separately they have regularly visited SHINE events to keep the spotlight on a program that expanded each year to serve more students in elementary and middle schools.</p><p>Short for School and Homes in Education, the program focuses on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) projects with students who come to schools that host the program four days a week. The program is a public-private partnership that quickly raised about $2 million from various sources, the biggest by far of which has been grant money from the 21st Century program. As of March last year, the federal program had provided $1.2 million to SHINE.</p><p>In the letter Barletta and Cicilline sent to Trump&#8217;s Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, the two representative &#8220;express deep concern&#8221; over elimination of the program, noting it was &#8220;reauthorized on a bipartisan basis in 2015 under the Every Student Succeeds Act, a federal education law that replaced the 2001 law known as No Child Left Behind.</p><p>&#8220;The program assists working families who rely more and more on after school and summer learning programs to effectively balance maintaining a job while raising children in a safe environment,&#8221; the letter to Mulvaney said. &#8220;These after school programs provide not only academic enrichment for students, but also teach critical life skills, and provide healthy meals and snacks.&#8221;</p><p>The letter notes the Afterschool Alliance estimated 1.16 million children would lose access to after school programs nationwide if the money were cut from the federal budget.</p><p>The letter quickly garnered national attention, with Education Week publishing an article online Thursday titled &#8220;Trump Ally to White House: Don&#8217;t Cut After-School Funding.&#8221;</p><p>The article notes that Mulvaney quickly fired back during a briefing with White House reporters, admitting he wasn&#8217;t familiar with SHINE &#8212; and, EdWeek suggests, may not have been familiar with the 21st Century grant program. But Mulvaney insisted after school programs don&#8217;t work.</p><p>&#8220;They&#8217;re supposed to be educational programs, right?,&#8221; Mulvaney said, according to the EdWeek article. &#8220;They&#8217;re supposed to help kids who don&#8217;t get fed at home get fed so they do better in school. &#8230; Guess what? There&#8217;s no demonstrable evidence they&#8217;re actually doing that.&#8221;</p><p>When they introduced the program in 2014, Yudichak cited data from the Carbon County version of SHINE as proof it works: &#8220;A 96 percent promotion rate, 92 percent increase in school attendance, 86 percent increase in family participation in a child&#8217;s education.&#8221;</p><p>In the letter to Mulvaney, Barletta and Cicilline warned that demand for after school programs has grown, and &#8220;many learning centers are being forced to reduce services, increase fees, or even shut their doors because they do not have the resources to meet the needs of the community.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Congressman Lou Barletta chats with Brianna Gray during a visit of the SHINE afterschool program at the Wilkes-Barre Area Career and Technical Center in this file photo from February, 2016. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/web1_TTL021716barletta1-2.jpg</photo1><caption1>Congressman Lou Barletta chats with Brianna Gray during a visit of the SHINE afterschool program at the Wilkes-Barre Area Career and Technical Center in this file photo from February, 2016. </caption1><photoCredit1></photoCredit1></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Mark Guydish</p><p>mguydish@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Barletta urges Trump to scale back cuts and save after-school program