One in five New Mexicans, or about 20.7 of the state’s population, are on food stamps, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The Wall Street Journal reports that 428,642 New Mexico residents use the federal food stamp program, known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and the state has had a 10.5 percent increase in recipients over the past year.

New Mexico is one of five states, including Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee and Oregon, where one in five residents use SNAP. Mississippi, where 21.5 of the population uses food stamps, has the highest proportion of recipients of any state, and New Mexico has the second highest proportion.

Stagnating income, persistently high unemployment, and natural disasters like Hurricane Irene all contributed to an 8.1 percent national increase of in SNAP usage in the past year. The program was used by about 15 percent of Americans in August, a total of 45.8 million people.

SNAP usage accelerated rapidly with the onset of the recession, but growth rates have slowed relative to the high increase of previous years.

Earlier this year, a New Mexico program that supplemented food stamps for the elderly and the disabled was imperiled due to lack of funding, but the Legislature re-funded it during its emergency session. The program ensures a $25 per month minimum for New Mexicans who qualify for it, an increase over the $16 per month required by the federal government.

The Center for American Progress recently estimated that SNAP is keeping about 5.1 million people out of poverty.

A press release from Wells Fargo, which picked New Mexico as one of the five states where the bank planned to roll-out a trial debit card fee program, reads:

“As we adjust to changes in our business, we will continue to stay attuned to what our customers want,” said Ed Kadletz, head of Wells Fargo’s Debit and Prepaid Cards. “This means understanding their needs as we continue to deliver the world-class service, convenience, and value they have come to expect from Wells Fargo.”

But the bigger news is Bank of America allegedly eying a dramatic rescaling to their proposed fee program, in which bank customers would pay $5 to use their debit cards. Only customers with accounts that have minimums of $20,000 and $50,000 would be spared.

Here’s the scoop from CNN Money:

Now, under proposals being considered by the bank, Bank of America would offer customers new ways to avoid having to pay the fee.

Currently, only customers with certain premium accounts would be exempt from the fee.

Under the new plan, customers would be able to exempt themselves by having their paychecks deposited directly with Bank of America, maintaining minimum balances or by using Bank of America credit cards.

Earlier today, JPMorgan Chase announced it too would drop its debit card fee program after running a trial version in two states since February.

Chase and Bank of America, the number one and two banks in the U.S. in terms of holdings and branches, togther hold over $4.5 trillion in total assets.

Bank of America’s double-take comes after a bevy of bad press aimed at the bank and industry as a whole. Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.), a member of the Financial Services Committee, introduced a bill earlier in October to bar banks from levying mulcts from customers seeking to close their accounts. In a press release, he said, ““As megabanks flirt with menus of new fees, an increasing number of Americans will want to switch banks.

“That is the way things work in a competitive, free market as unrepentant banks are still trying to rake in vulgar profits from their customers.”

Facebook groups organized customers to switch from Bank of America to local banks or credit unions–financial firms that tend to avoid mega-bank fees.

Bloomberg explained the impetus for the new charges last month:

The [Federal Reserve] capped debit-card swipe fees at 21 cents starting Oct. 1. It will let issuers tack on five basis points, or 0.05 percent, of each transaction, or almost 2 cents based on the average debit purchase of $38, and a conditional 1-cent adjustment for lenders that follow fraud-prevention standards.

[…]

The cap, mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act, replaces a formula that averages 1.14 percent of the purchase price, or about 44 cents. The limit may reduce annual revenue at the biggest U.S. banks by $8 billion, data compiled by Bloomberg Government show.

In general, banks are finding new methods of warding off low-value customers who use savings accounts but avoid higher yield financial services. With economists stoking fears of a second dip into recession throughout the summer months, commercial bank holdings have increased at blistering rates due to individuals in search of a safe place to park their money.

However, with every new dollar under a bank’s management, that’s additional federal fees the bank has to pay, like deposit insurance premiums, also known as FDIC. And with interest rates near zero, and a dearth of expensive loans being issued, the financial firms have little to gain from the additional holdings. During the financial boom years preceding the economic collapse, banks were hungry for cash holdings to better leverage the high number of mortgages issued.

Of the 13 sixth-grade girls asked to explain why they want to take part in an Alexandria, Virginia-based after-school program called SOHO, Katherine Ivette Cuellar Moreno was the only one who typed her response. The rest were hand-written, and one was submitted in pencil.

Moreno, like the other girls, then participated in a trial session for one day where she had to display her enthusiasm to take part in the program for the rest of the school year. While meant to help students in need, the kids need to demonstrate they want the help.

SOHO stands for Space of Her Own, a joint venture between the local Court Service Unit and the non-profit Art League. The program meets once a week, and has two locations in Alexandria and one in Richmond. Depending on the location, fifth- or sixth-grade girls are paired with a mentor and an art instructor.

“First of all I LOVE to make things with my hands and i look for things to make i have made a crane, a heart, a wallet, a heart bracelet, and a gift box,” writes Moreno.

“I love to do things that are outdoors and I have never learned how to ride a bike and I am excited because i love to learn about new things even phisical things.”

The after-school sessions in Alexandria are also small in number — each site enrolls 11 girls.

From around 3 p.m. to 8 p.m, the pre-teens have a fixed schedule of completing homework assignments, enjoying a healthy meal and learning about proper nutrition. The girls meet with their female mentors and talk about school, personal aspirations and help mending through the anxieties of late adolescence. Afterwards, the girl and her mentor meet with a volunteer artist who helps the student work on art projects that will eventually appear in her bedroom. Colorful wall-mounted collages, intricate and bright tapestries hanging over the window sill, and other crafts projects to spruce up usually-drab bedrooms are worked on throughout the school year.

Amy Cable, a social studies teacher and the director of a SOHO site at Hammond Middle School in Alexandria, says the point is to target an at-risk population. “It could be that they’ve been deemed girls who are in need of an adult female mentor,” she said. “We get a referral from guidance counselors or principals” for those who need additional attention, said Cable in an interview with The American Independent.

Hammond is Title I eligible, but the superintendent of the district chose not to participate in the federal program that offers poor districts additional dollar assistance. Still, the girls at SOHO must be eligible to receive free and reduced lunch — a government subsidy for students of low-income households.

Prime Time for Juvenile Crime

Many after-school programs focus on low-income students who need a safe haven from their poverty-stricken and often chaotic neighborhoods. The troubles that plague these kids can be gritty, and the hours between when a child gets out of school to when the parents come home are called Prime Time for Juvenile Crime for a reason.

These principally state-funded activities are part of a nexus of tools in play that combine a focus on academics and lifestyle improvements for young children that are long lasting.

TAI has taken in-depth looks at extended classroom learning throughout the year and summer learning initiatives that fuse academics with outdoor activities. While similar to these additional learning projects, after-school programs go beyond learning and offer enrichment services to complement a child’s regular time in the classroom by “trying to address [their] academic, social, and emotional needs,” according to Cable.

That wide-ranging goal to touch the girls’ lives in manifold ways resonates with the mentees.

“Having a mentor who will help you, talk to you. Have a friend that is older than you, that has experience in life. Someone that bonds with me shares ideas. Tells me tips of how to be non-shy,” writes Melanie P., another sixth-grade Alexandria student hoping to enter the program. “My mom also suggested that I should get in this program cause it will keep my mind occupied in something.”

Although unique in its approach, SOHO is not alone in scope. As it stands, many students are left to their own devices when classes end for the day; according to the Afterschool Alliance, 24 percent of K-12 youth in California are responsible for entertaining themselves in the late afternoon and early evening. That percentage is consistent nationally, affecting some 15 million students.

Interestingly, research from the Alliance shows that 26 percent of students who qualify for free and reduced lunch are by themselves after school. The rate is higher for students who don’t qualify for the federal lunch subsidy—29 percent.

Jen Rinehart, vice president of research and policy for Afterschool Alliance, says the counterintuitive set of percentages is the result of “wealthier households…able to put together a variety of activity for kids, like soccer practice or guitar. They’re putting together their own activities,” she said.

Of course funding is an issue, in no small part because only one federal program exists in allocating dollars for before- and after-school programs — the 21^st Century Community Learning Center. It was passed during the Clinton administration, with the bipartisan support under a Republican-controlled Congress, but money earmarked for the federal set of formula grants is just over $1 billion.

“There are many more kids who would participate, says Rinehart, “but when a state runs a [grant] competition, they’re able to fund only one in four requests that come in.”

After-school programs are shown to be successful

One after-school program in Chicago, called Project Exploration, offers science, technology and math services to students in the under-performing district. Still, according to a University of California at Berkeley study, students passing through Project Exploration graduated high school at nearly twice the rate — 95 percent – compared to other Chicago public school students.

The largest after-school non-profit in California is called LA’s BEST, and operates in over 180 campuses serving 28,000 students in the City of Los Angeles through the local school district.

In 2005, a University of California, Los Angeles study determined active participation in the program among students leads to a 20 percent decline in the likelihood a child will drop out of high school. Since LA’s BEST works with elementary school students, the program’s effect is felt long after a child moves on to higher grade levels.

The renowned research university’s interest in LA’s BEST lends the after-school non-profit some gravitas. Cable of Alexandria said SOHO is also moving towards more long-term data collection. “Tracking the girls is challenging. A number of girls who [we mentored] are no longer in Alexandria,” and looking at court lists to cross reference former mentees is a difficult process, said Cable.

In another 2007 study examining LA’s BEST, UCLA concluded participation in the program decreases a child’s chance of getting caught up in juvenile crime by 30 percent.

Catherine Stringer, vice president of communications and public affairs for LA’s BEST, says on average, 90 percent of the students they serve qualify for free and reduced lunches. According to her, LA’s BEST won’t enter a campus where the rate is below 70 percent.

Some 75 percent of LA BEST’s funding comes from a mix of federal, local and state dollars, with the rest made up of donations. Of all the public contributions, a California state expenditure called ASES contributes most significantly to LA BEST’s budget.

Stringer chalks up the success of LA’s Best to their staffing during in an interview with TAI. “We attribute it to a community based staff,” she said. The after-school personnel is by and large made up of college students from the local neighborhoods earning degrees in education, child development or social work. “They make connections and engage in such a way that students are getting the most of what they can out of it,” said Stringer.

The learning experience is a cognitive one: using a framework called three-and-a-half beats, the late afternoon and early evening hours these elementary students spend at LA’s BEST are dedicated to homework help, sound nutrition, athletics and other enrichment activities.

Just like at SOHO, the snacks are nutritious, and lessons are designed around education children on the merits of healthy eating. Both Cable and Stringer mentioned rising rates of child obesity as a determining factor in filling in part of the children’s day with lessons on sound nutrition.

Meanwhile, the cognitive exercises focus on learning activities that add to, but do not repeat, the instruction they received while in class.

“We’re viewing kids as individuals to be developed, not problems to be solved,” said Stringer.

More recent positive press for LA’s BEST points to the organization’s role in upping test scores: as participants move on to the middle school level, their standardized test scores in the major subjects improves. Students are also more likely to take algebra in the eighth grade when most students enter a year later.

Scarce funding compromised

“The first goal of getting kids to improve is to have them show up to class,” says Rinehart of Afterschool Alliance. By making these after-school programs fun, engaging and led by adults the kids can relate to, there’s an incentive to show up to class just to take part in the after-school services that come later.

Pressed for a legislative fix, Rinehart said what worries her recently is a congressional and White House drive to use dollars earmarked for after-school programs for expanded learning time and summer learning programs. That’s a possible reality following new language to the just-proposed bill to replace No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and in the Obama Administration’s waiver process so states can opt out of NCLB.

“We oppose this,” said Rinehart. “Longer school days should be done well and shouldn’t come at expense of proven services that are valuable for kids and families.”

Weiland, 39, is a former reporter for the Lansing State Journal. She was laid off in June along with 700 others across the Gannett News system. It was the latest in a continuing process of scaling down by the news giant designed to strengthen faltering stock price returns. Weiland was called into the offices of the publisher at about 5 p.m. on June 21.

“We found out that morning that there would be 700 layoffs,” Weiland said. “I was told about 5 p.m. So they got a full day out of me.”

Weiland’s eight years of service were rewarded with eight weeks of severance pay, she says — one week for each year. But for the former reporter, what really burned was that Gannett CEO Craig Dubow retired in October, walking away with a $37.1 million retirement and disability agreement.

“If you divide that by 700 people, you get about $50,000 — that was my annual salary,” Weiland says.

Meanwhile, Weiland is now struggling to pay the bills. She is behind in her mortgage and facing foreclosure. When she was laid off, her credit cards, mortgage and bank accounts were all owned by different banks. But now, they are all owned by Bank of America. Unable to find a job even with her recently earned masters’s degree from Central Michigan University, she called Bank of America to ask for assistance. They ignored her pleas for help, she says.

“I’m upset with them because they got all this money from the government,” she says of the banking giant. “They drag these out for months and months, making people jump through all kinds of hoops and still they get foreclosed on.”

And that is why the former-journalist picked up a sign and a stack of “Occu-bucks” and marched three blocks through downtown Lansing. She and six others stood in front of the bank branch, holding signs such as “end corporate greed, help people’s needs,” “Honk if you support the 99 %,” and “born in the U.S.A. — will die in a third world country.”

The protest was closely monitored by at least two Lansing Police cars and a security guard in the lobby of the Bank of America.

Among the passersby were state lawmakers, and Ari Adler, spokesman for House Speaker Jase Bolger, stopped by the Bank of America ATM to withdraw money. He did not engage with protesters.

For Weiland, she continues to receive unemployment, but has lost her food assistance. The state authorized a whopping $16 in benefits for her, but when new rules kicked in earlier this year requiring those receiving the benefits to prove they did not have more than $5,000 in assets, Weiland gave up. To get the banking documents to provide her case worker, her bank would have charged her $15.

“It would not have been worth it,” she says. “I am not looking to game the system. I just don’t want the game rigged anymore.”

“It’s like America hates its own people,” she says of welfare cuts and tax realignments the state implemented earlier this year. “We seem to denigrate our own people, and I don’t know why.”

She says her experiences of covering poverty in the Lansing area were nothing in comparison to living in poverty. She has turned her dining room table into a food pantry, she says, lining the table with canned foods.

“When you are in it, you are exposed to it in a very different way [than when reporting on poverty],” she says.

In an interview with Michigan Messenger, Ciccone explained why so many homeless people from throughout the region have flocked to the northern town of about 14,000.

“This is a unique system with the churches here,” Ciccone, 55, said over a roast beef dinner served by volunteers at the Faith Reform Church on Front St. “You won’t find this in too many places.”

The churches in town have collaborated to put on a meal each night that is free and open to anyone in the community. There is a church-run house that provides warmth, showers, laundry, food, computers, telephone and other services for four hours most days, and in the winter the churches take turns hosting people who need a place to sleep. They also provide breakfast.

“This is one of the only places where there is a meal every night,” said Richard Tomey, a street outreach worker for Goodwill Industries. His mission is to help the homeless survive.

In late September, he said, there were several dozen, if not a hundred, homeless people sleeping outdoors in Traverse City.

“The word getting out about Traverse City attracts a lot of people … [from] Ypsilanti, Detroit, Grand Rapids, where they are getting hit real hard and there’s only two type of people on the street, the predators and the victims.”

“They’re coming up here,” Tomey said, “and we are trying to do the best we can.”

Ciccone said he’s been among the city’s homeless for a year and a half since losing a job at his father’s vineyard and winery in Suttons Bay. He said that it annoys him that some people are amused that a person from such a high profile family would end up sleeping, as he does, under the Union St. bridge.

“My family turned their back on me, basically, when I was having a hard time,” he said. “You think I haven’t answered this kind of question a bazillion times — why my sister is a multibazillionarie, and I’m homeless on the street?”

“Never say never,” he said. “This could happen to anybody.”

“I don’t have any income, I’ve got to go collect bottles and cans, do odd jobs.”

Despite the uncommon community effort to help the homeless here, there are gaps, and Ciccone was among several locals who got cold-related injuries last winter.

“They can’t do everything all the time for everybody, they just don’t have the resources,” he said. “These people that run these things are all volunteers, they don’t get paid to to do these things.”

In the cold seasons the church shelters usher people out at 8 am and city rules against camping and camp fires make staying warm difficult.

“Where do you go at 8 o’clock on a Sunday morning and you have no money in your pocket?”

If you spend enough time on frozen concrete without proper insulation you will get frostbite, he said. “You have no idea how gruesome it is.”

“You get nerve damage. That’s the milder stage, in the severe stage you have tissue damage, that is when you lose parts of your body.”

“I got frostbite on my feet last winter, Ciccone said. “A friend of mine lost all ten toes. Several have died of hypothermia.”

“You go and find a place to stay warm like the lobby at the jail, or you take a walk to get your feet warm and go to Meijer’s and sit in the lobby there.”

This situation has developed at a time when Gov. Snyder and the Republican-led state legislature have slashed funding for social services and reduced the number of people eligible to continue receiving public assistance. Cuts in local revenue sharing have also forced local municipalities to make deep budget cuts.

As more and more people become ineligible under new rules government unemployment benefits, food stamps, cash aid and heating assistance, the number of people struggling to stay off the streets is only likely to increase.

According to a survey by the National Center for Time and Learning (NCTL), some 1000 schools in the U.S. have an expanded schedule.

In Chicago, the Longer School Day Pioneer Program is trying to catch the Windy City up with what many schools are doing — expanding the time of instruction in public schools and adding a few more days to the year. The city’s goal is to tack on 90 more minutes per day of school time, giving teachers more time to explain math sets, literacy tropes, and compositional writing rules.

More school time has its greatest impact on low-income students, since the cultural accoutrements that middle-class homes can offer to their kids are usually priced-out for most poor families. While out of school programs that promote literacy and educational engagement are effective, expanded time advocates feel schools can do their part, as well.

“A lot of it is understanding what the kids aren’t getting,” said Chris Gabrieli, chair of NCTL, in an interview with TAI. “With regard to academic instruction, there’s more time to individualize the needs of students.”

A report by NCTL released last month looked at 30 schools — eight elementary schools, 11 middle schools, and 11 high schools — from 11 different states that incorporated the concept of expanded time to improve student performance. Their average school year in hours was 1487, compared to 1170 nationally, and many schools posted double digit gains on state standardized assessments compared to nearby schools with standard school time.

The range in improved student performance was wide, with one school outpacing nearby schools by 2 percent, while others did better by over 50 percent. An Achievable Dream High School in Newport News, Virginia led the pack with the most school hours, 1680, but had only a two percent gain on surrounding schools. Still, in math and English Language Arts, over 90 percent of students were at or above proficiency.

The schools were also noted for the relatively high percentage of students deemed low-income: campuses ranged from 62 to 91 percent with pupils on free and reduced lunch — federal lunch subsidies for economically disadvantaged children.

The extra time also allows students to peel off from the rigors of the classroom — more recess comes with expanded learning time program — which helps the young learners mentally refuel. There are health benefits, too, that come with more playtime. While many schools can gain from more student time spent on the playground, Chicago’s case is unique; the city has much shorter recess and lunch periods for students, and sometimes the freetime is spent inside. From the Chicago News Cooperative:

Tracy Moran, a researcher at the Erikson Institute, a graduate school focused on early childhood development and education, said the requirements were important for young children to develop healthy lifestyles to prevent conditions like high cholesterol, Type 2 diabetes and hypertension.

The lack of recess could “certainly stunt any progress made early on,” Moran said.

There’s also debate among supporters of expanded time over whether more hours are useful during summer vacation when students are out of school for two months or more.

“We think more time is needed through out the year, but we focus on the summer due to the learning loss that occurs,” says Jeff Smink, vice president of policy at the National Summer Learning Association in Baltimore in an interview with TAI. “High poverty kids fall behind in reading and math because kids are not engaged in the summer.”

A 2007 study shows unequal access to summer learning opportunities accounts for more than half of the achievement gap between lower- and higher-income youth; that lag also contributes to a drop off in high school graduation among poorer students. Many other studies indicate increased summer enrichment programs can stanch summer learning loss for lower-income students, so much so that Sec. of Education Arne Duncan stressed the exigency of a targeted policy effort focusing resources on this demographic during an expanded learning time conference last month.

“Summer programs for kids that may or may not be in school,” said Smink. “They’re outside, they’re doing enrichment. It’s not just keeping kids in their seats for the summer.”

Programs in Baltimore and Providence take out at-risk students for boating trips, sometimes with a school instructor and an adult from a partnering group.  The group activity isn’t as important as the actual period of applied instruction. Smink says the added attention is crucial because it allows students to connect concepts they learned with experiences they’re sharing with adults.

The Wallace Foundation and RAND conducted studies that showed similar, positive results.

Both the National Summer Learning Association and NTCL stress the power of engagement, agreeing the extra time can be used towards instilling a love of learning, and inviting community players to have a greater stake in the academic improvement of at-risk children.

Expanded learning time cannot take credit for everything, however.  Gabrieli of NTCL told TAI, “students who show very strong value-added outcomes in 6th grade go on to generally continue to have impressively high value-added [indicators] in 7th grade and 8th again, demonstrating that they are not one-time wonder scores.

“This is evidence that success can accumulate, not proof that it always will or that expanded learning alone is responsible.”

Teachers are on board with the research, as well. In Massachusetts, a state that developed an extended learning time initiative with sound results has forged a strong relationship with union leaders to find more time in the calendar despite stretched budgets. A survey of instructors found that they view time as the most important condition for promoting learning, yet fewer than 40 percent feel they have enough time to fit in the required instruction in the standard school day.

“Teachers really get this. They just can’t get it done with out additional time, “ added Jennifer Davis, president of NCTL at a September expanded learning time seminar in Washington, D.C. “Staggered scheduling, partners coming in, teachers being given a contractual rate—there are all different innovations that are unfolding.”

She added: “The union’s right at the table with this.”

“I think the evidence of the longer day as a principle tool is quite compelling,” said Gabrieli. “There’s value in a longer year, and I do not know of compelling evidence that shows the obverse to be true.”

Put simply, too much attention is centered on in-school matters, and the brick and mortar operations to keep kids from going astray after-hours are strapped for funding.

The Baton Rouge-based service project that Hammatt helped kick start, Reinforcing the Rewards of Reading, Building a Better Baton Rouge (3R’s for 3BR), part of the Kiwanis Club of Baton Rouge, has a few thousand dollars on hand to do what after-school programs, summer, and private daycare programs promise to achieve with much bigger price tags: boost literacy among low-income students.

“For a much lower cost per child, we can increase the entry scores for students significantly,” said Hammatt, a former teacher of the year finalist, instructor on education at Louisiana State University, and founder of 3R’s for 3BR. After three years of planning, his program launched last week with financial backing from The Kiwanis International Foundation.

The local Baton Rouge Kiwanis branch will provide three years of funding for 3R’s for 3BR, contributing tens of thousands of new and used books to households with young kids straddling the poverty level. Book shelves will be set up in community areas–so far there are four, including a regional medical center where many young adults bring their kids due to limited babysitting options. Parents, or guardians, will be able to read to their children with free books, and then have the opportunity to take the tomes home.

Home library as effective as summer school, college educated parents

This is not a program that is likely to be effective for middle-class pupils. The various reasons under-privileged students lag in performance indicators–lack of access to safe, public spaces, the greater likelihood of a college educated guardian, limited access to after-school and weekend entertainment due to household finances– do not encumber wealthier students. As John B. King Jr., New York state’s Education Commissioner, said in response to a TAI question at an extended-learning hearing in Washington D.C., “Affluent families are doing lots of things for their kids outside of schools, its just poorer families can’t afford those things.

“Tomorrow is Saturday and I’m taking my daughter out to dance class… and I have the means to do that,” King said.

3R’s for 3BR is geared at younger readers for a reason: poor students already trail considerably their wealthier peers — three months at the kindergarten level to three years at the fourthgrade level in the achievement gap between rich and poor pupils. More recently, in 2010, a Annie E. Casey Foundation report showed 83 percent of poor students who took NAEP in fourth grade were not proficient in reading, compared to 55 percent of moderate to wealthy students.

For the lower rungs, a bevy of research suggests targeted efforts to give poorer students the tools that boost reading can make up for those limited household resources.

An Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report that examined over 20 countries concluded (PDF) socioeconomic factors outside the classroom are the most significant variable in a student’s success.

And studies like this one show simply putting a book into an economically disadvantaged child’s hands can galvanize reading scores, since often poor families have few, if any, books in the house. The study concluded overcoming one of the greatest symptoms of lower-economic status, the summer reading slide, takes nothing more than spending $50 on books per child for the summer.

That’s an inexpensive stopgap to a problem in which poor students enter the fall three months behind their wealthier peers each year. For added measure, the co-author said a home library was “equal to the effect of summer school.” Summer school is usually for remedial learning—increased access to books might obviate the need for additional instruction in the first place.

And what about the suspicion poorer families lack the commitment or interest to read to their children? As far Steve Bialostok–an early childhood literacy professor at the University of Wyoming–is concerned, there’s little to undergird that truth.

“I’ll just say that there’s a folk model among those who are middle class…that poor(er) families – even given the resources such as books – don’t read to their kids, either due to lack of time, desire, or both,” Bialostok begins. “I simply do not believe this is true.”

Hammat doesn’t shy away from the social imperatives 3R’s for 3BR represents. “We cannot ensure that the books will continue to be read once they leave our sites,” he says. That said, Hammatt says there are a lot of parents who relish at the opportunity to read to their kids when given the chance, and as this USA Today article from 2010 indicates, that’s usually half the battle. In the first days of the program, bookshelves at two of the four site locations are nearly empty—for now, parents want them.

3R’s for 3BR also offers tips to parents whose reading skills may not to be up to speed, designed by Hammatt’s sister-in-law who’s a retired kindergarten teacher. If a parent of guardian is unfamiliar with a particular word, they’re encouraged to ask the child where the plot might turn to next. Pointing out colors and counting objects is also recommended, and stressing relational terms is key–words like bigger and smaller.

Zeroing in on domestic factors affecting child learning, a 27-country study released in 2010 the International Sociological Association Research Committee found that:

Children growing up in homes with many books get three years more schooling than children from bookless homes, independent of their parents’ education, occupation, and class. This is as great an advantage as having university educated rather than unschooled parents, and twice the advantage of having a professional rather than an unskilled father.

Data from the biennial National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) — the gold standard in evaluating student learning administered by the U.S. Department of Education — underscores the link between volume of books in the house and student achievement. The chart below compares fourth grade performance in reading with books in the home.

Looking more closely at urban schools, 100 books in an underprivileged child’s home catches up that student to a wealthier child with 25 books. With 3R’s for 3BR projecting 100 books will cost roughly $350, the academic effect is equivalent to adding several thousand dollars to household income.

For Hammatt, who falls on the side of the education debate that views out of school factors as far more influential than school campus matters in a child’s education, greater access to literacy is his attempt to make socio-economics a moot issue.

Back to Baton Rouge

In the relatively poor and mostly black school district of East Baton Rouge Parish, inexpensive alternatives meant to improve student learning can’t come soon enough.

Louisiana’s early education initiative, LA4, which enrolls four-year-olds into pre-k education services, has seen per pupil spending drop off even as the program’s popularity has increased. The Pelican State spent $5,700 per Pre-K student in 2002 and only $4,706 in 2010 while participation increased from 12 percent to 32 percent of the state’s four-year olds, according to the most recent National Institute for Early Education Research report on early education funding.

In the 2011-2012 school year, of East Baton Rouge Parish’s 42,700 students 88 percent were non-white and 80 percent received free and reduced lunches.

To get more of the community involved, 3R’s for 3BR has reached out to sororities of historically black colleges to volunteer as on-site readers. Currently, the majority of the volunteers are white. “By and large, the parents of young Black children ARE the program,” Hammatt says. “We are simply making the books available.”

In her testimony, Smith argued that such limits will discourage people from saving money and do little to reduce fraud:

Therefore, the Michigan League for Human Services is opposed to the implementa­tion of a $5,000 asset limit for food assistance. If Michigan imposes any asset limits on food assistance, it would be going against the national trend of eliminating asset tests to help families get back on their feet during this economic downturn. Twenty-nine states do not have any asset limits for food assistance.

We certainly agree that food assistance benefits should only go to those who need them and that lottery winners should not receive benefits. However, there is no reason to paint such a broad stroke. Food assistance cases have been skyrocketing since the beginning of the recession. Michigan has led the nation in unemployment, years before employment declined in other states. In 2009, there were 10 unem­ployed people for every job opening. Even now, there are more than 4 unemployed people for every open job in Michigan…

We need to be prudent in the use of our tax dollars. Implementing an asset limit for food assistance will cost Michigan money. While the federal government funds 100 percent of the food assistance benefit, administrative costs of the food assistance program are shared with the state, approximately fifty-fifty. Caseworkers already manage an average of 900 cases each, and with more than 2 million people on food assistance in Michigan, the additional work of verifying assets seems unfathomable and could increase the workload of DHS caseworkers tenfold. Overburdened staff could also affect error rates and other important outcomes on which the state is audited. The more administrative hurdles we erect, the more the state will pay. Last time that Michigan made a major policy change to their food assistance program, a federal audit was triggered and Michigan was fined $65 million for not meeting program requirements.

The incidence of abuse in the food assistance program is minimal. DHS reports 5,000 prosecutions a year for fraud in ALL assistance programs; that is less than one in 500 participants—about the same odds as catching a ball at a Major League Baseball game. Nationwide, 50,178 of 33.5 million recipients were disqualified from the Food Stamp Program in 2009 for abuse, less than one-tenth of one percent.

This move to impose asset limits was sparked by reports that a man who had won the lottery was receiving food stamps. The MILHS supports an alternative bill that would require information sharing between the lottery and the Department of Human Services, which they say would “specifically address the problem at hand without subjecting everyone to unnecessary and punitive policies.”

In a press release, the ACLU says:

The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan and the University of Michigan Innocence Clinic are representing Selesa Likine, who lost her job and custody of her three children after being diagnosed with a severe mental illness.

The ACLU of Michigan and the U of M Innocence Clinic will argue the trial court violated Likine’s constitutional rights by not allowing her to prove to the jury that she was unable to pay her assessed child support. Last year, a judge adjusted Likine’s child support payments to $25 a month; however, she still owes tens of thousands of dollars in back payments.

In 2005, Selesa Likine was diagnosed with Schizoaffective Disorder and Major Depressive Disorder. After a lengthy hospital stay, she was terminated from her job and has not been able to work since. In 2007, despite the fact that her only income was the $603 a month she received in Social Security benefits, the court increased her child support payments from $181 to $1131 a month. The Friend of the Court mistakenly recommended the larger amount because of a commission Likine received in a one-time transaction selling real estate. It was her only sale and her real estate license lapsed in 2006 because she couldn’t pay for renewal and continuing education costs.

For years, Likine attempted unsuccessfully to have the child support payments modified. In November 2008, Likine was arrested and jailed for failure to pay. She was convicted in Oakland County Circuit Court and later sentenced to probation for failing to pay the amount owed.

The ACLU has made such cases, which they say are becoming more common in the middle of a long economic downturn, a priority.