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Home > News >

Save Mentoring Funding: Take Action Now!

July 29, 2009: The Senate Labor/Health & Human Services/Education Appropriations Subcommittee provided some good news yesterday on the mentoring front.

Funding for the Corporation for National and Community Service for the landmark Serve America Act increased to $1.157 billion or $98 million more than the House-approved level – which means more resources may be available to mentoring and other important forms of service.

Unfortunately, the Subcommittee has decided not to provide details until Senate Appropriations Committee markup tomorrow, July 30, about the fate of Mentoring Programs grants in the U.S. Department of Education or Mentoring Children of Prisoners grants in the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. Again, if they follow the House of Representatives and do not recommend at least partial funding for the program, this would mean early termination of the last round of grants made in FY 2008. If you haven't already done so, please call Senate Appropriators to let them know how important it is to keep this funding going.

As background, the House recently approved its FY 2010 Labor/Health & Human Services/Education funding package, recommending nearly $50 million for Mentoring Children of Prisoners in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as in previous years, but following the President's budget request by eliminating funding for Mentoring Programs grants in the U.S. Department of Education. It did note its support for nearly $18 million for new mentoring programs for "youth offenders" under the U.S. Department of Labor's Re-integration of Ex-offenders Program. Even so, we respectfully disagree with the House's decision to end the school-based mentoring grant program.

Earlier, the President's budget justified this termination by citing a March 2009 evaluation of the program conducted by the Education Department's Institute of Education Sciences that found the program to be ineffective. The evaluation showed that school-based mentoring as practiced failed to increase grades or test scores. However, just two years ago, another rigorous evaluation found that teachers reported improved quality of mentored students' school work. Please read more about these contradictory findings in public witness testimony that MENTOR submitted to appropriators in May, 2009 (similar testimony was submitted earlier to House appropriators), and a letter to the editor submitted by Dr. Jean Rhodes of the University of Massachusetts, Boston, that appeared in Education Week.

Instead of eliminating funding for school-based mentoring, the Department should restrict funding to programs that truly incorporate best practices – the kind of programs that have been shown to produce results.

Take Action!
The Senate Appropriations Committee will meet to decide the fate of this funding tomorrow, so if you haven't already called them, Senators must hear from you now. We need to focus on Members of the Senate Appropriations Committee and the Committee staffers themselves, and you can view the Committee Web site here: http://appropriations.senate.gov/members.cfm.

Below are suggested talking points:
Please ask for the Labor/HHS/Education Appropriations Legislative Assistant if calling a Senator's office or Committee staff if calling the Committee, so you can directly make your case (instead of having your message lost in the hundreds of communications these offices receive every day).

• I am calling to ask that a critical program for youth and schools be restored at $50 million in the FY 2010 Labor/HHS/Education Appropriations bill.
• These are school-based Mentoring Programs grants in the U.S. Department of Education that were proposed for elimination in the President's budget and left out of the House Labor/HHS/Education Appropriations bill.
• Please do what you can to save this funding during committee markup July 30.
• These are tough economic times that warrant tough decisions. However, we should not eliminate funding for school-based mentoring but should restrict funding to programs that truly incorporate best practices.
• The solution is not ending programs that currently serve thousands of youth in this country who desperately need of the power of mentoring to continue in their lives.

Thank you once again for making calls! MENTOR will continue to monitor and update you on any developments.