Cal-Learn will die under new budget

The Cal-Learn program will be "basically eliminated" under the '12-'13 Brown budget, according to legislative advocate Tim Fitzharris, writing in the bulletin of the Child Development Policy Institute. (The program had been suspended for '11-'12 by the Legislature.)

A program developed out of the California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) legislation, Cal-Learn is for teen parents, overwhelmingly the mothers, who have not completed high school. (At left, is a Sacramento Cal-Learn client, Dana Wollensack, 19, with her son, Darris Williams.)

Case managers have worked with the girls to receive education and health services; payments necessary for child care, transportation and other educational expenses have been arranged; and bonuses (and sanctions) have been used to encourage completion of school (and good grades). (Bonuses amounted to a possible four $100 a year and a one-time $500 for graduating or earning a GED.) Sanctions of $50 or $100 are given for each report card with an average below a 1.0 (D, on a 4.0 scale).

Teen parents (or pregnant teens) who receive CalWORKs funds are required to participate in Cal-Learn if there are under 19 and have not completed high school. The cohort was expanded in 1998 to include the opportunity for teens over 19 to continue voluntarily in the program until they earn a diploma or GED, or turn 20.

The program has also included teaching parenting skills, pre-and postnatal care and nutrition advice, relationship facilitation between the parent and the non-custodial parent, and assessments of the "suitability of the teen's living situation."

In any month, the average state caseload has been 15,000.

 

Comments

[Charlene Clemens, MPA]

This is a travesty. The Cal Learn program addresses two generations, promoting positive developmental outcomes for both teen and child concurrently. Someone should check the data at the end of 2011; the secondary prevention indicators for the teen parents and the primary prevention outcomes for the children of Cal Learn teen parents was stellar. Here is a program with outstanding data but whose participants are too young to vote and thus low hanging fruit for cuts - against many other programs the state runs that cannot prove their efficiency and effectiveness through data collection and case histories. The State is breaking what works - not what is broken.

[Paul T]

In Kern County, about 8% earn high school diploma through this program. 8 out of 100 teens. It might not be cost effective to have this program. Those 8 probably would have earned their diploma's without the program.

[Wendy Lestina]

Since they are single teenage mothers, it is doubtful they would have earned the diploma without the program (participation in which was a requirement to receive public assistance). Further, if one believes that a mother influences a child, it is in the public interest for the mother to have at least the minimum education of a high school diploma -- both for employment reasons and for reasons of social mobility for the parent and child.