Every Child Achieves Act

Floor Speech

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Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I want to take this time to thank Senators Alexander and Murray on the bill that is before our body, the Every Child Achieves Act. It is so important that we focus on this area of education.

Two important provisions I asked to be included have been included in the bill. I want to specifically talk about those and again thank both Senators for including those important initiatives in this important bill.

One of them is the reauthorization of afterschool programs--something I have worked on my entire life in Congress. It goes back a very long time. Another one is on e-cigarettes, which I believe are endangering our Nation's youth.

Senator Murkowski was very instrumental in the committee, working with Senator Murray to make sure my bipartisan After School for America's Children Act was incorporated in the bill. I thank her.

In the Senate, I first introduced my afterschool bill in 1997. I worked with Senator Ensign at that time. The Federal Government at that time only funded small afterschool pilot programs. When we got to 2001, I saw an opportunity to take that pilot program and turn it into a real, funded authorization for afterschool programs. The bill we have on the floor today and next week will modernize that afterschool program. It is the 21st Century Community Learning Centers Program, which incorporates afterschool. It will help States support quality afterschool programs. It encourages parental engagement and involvement and ensures that afterschool activities complement the academic curriculum. Our kids don't stop learning just because the clock strikes 2 or 3 or 4; they keep learning. So the afterschool activities are very important.

Most important to me is that this bill preserves the stream of funding that is necessary to protect the afterschool programs because, to be quite honest, we have had a lot of issues with people trying to grab those funds and use them for something else. Let me tell you why we cannot do that. We now serve more than 1.6 million children of working families every year through this afterschool program. That is progress. Think about 1.6 million children. Think about all of their parents and the relief it brings to them to know they have their children in a quality afterschool program.

But there are still 11.3 million children left unsupervised when the day ends. In other words, one in five children is unsupervised from 3 to 6 p.m. Those are the hours where juvenile crime peaks and risky behaviors are most likely to occur. Law enforcement and mayors have been telling us for years that afterschool programs reduce crime. It truly is a no-brainer. Our kids need a safe place to go after school. Our parents need to make sure their kids are safe after school because most parents work in today's world.

No matter what leading candidates for the Republican nomination say, today my understanding is Jeb Bush

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said our workers don't work hard enough. He said that our workers don't work hard enough. Just talk to the parents of these kids. They are working hard, sometimes multiple jobs. They need to know their kids are safe.
I want to talk about one student, Gerardo Rodriguez, who grew up in poverty in Los Angeles. He dealt with the threat of violence and the allure of gang life. While he was at Carson Middle School, he chose to join an afterschool program that was run by the Boys and Girls Club instead of a gang. Gerardo went to an afterschool program instead of joining a gang. In statistics, he would be told he was likely to be a dropout. Instead, he graduated from Carson High. In 2012, he obtained $3,000 in college scholarships. He is in his second year at California State University, Long Beach, and he is majoring in engineering.

We need to save kids like this. Yes, the parents are working hard, many hours, and they need afterschool help. This bill helps those kids. I would like to do more for more children, but I am thankful we are preserving this program.

Our working families need to know their kids are safe because there are more than 28 million parents of school-age children who are employed, including 23 million who work full time. These parents miss an average of 5 days of work a year because they don't have afterschool care and their child gets sick. We all know that. We have all gone through that. Our children have gone through that. So it was 30 years ago when I started to work on this issue.

I again thank Senators Alexander and Murray for preserving afterschool care for our children.

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