THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 19, 1995 TAG: 9502190052
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long : 200 lines
It's time for math at Whitcomb Court Model Elementary School, and in some classrooms the new ``teachers'' are taking over.
In a first-grade class, Stephen Hundley, a Virginia Commonwealth University senior from Newport News, uses a time-honored method to help a girl with her subtraction.
He puts up eight fingers; then three come down. ``Now how many do you have left?''
``Five.''
``Now that's your answer,'' he says, before moving on to another student and another question.
Next door, Carolyn Rider, a VCU sophomore from Virginia Beach, is having a bit more trouble getting a kindergartner to write her numbers correctly. Patiently, softly, Rider goes over the numbers, but the girl isn't getting them.
``That's a really good nine,'' Rider encourages her, ``but it's not a four.''
The experiences of Hundley and Rider reflect the mixed fortunes of the program they're in: Americorps, the national service project launched by President Clinton last fall.
Clinton styled Americorps as a domestic 1990s version of the Peace Corps, simultaneously rejuvenating the nation's community spirit, helping low-income children and neighborhoods, and cutting the college costs of the volunteers. In his State of the Union speech, he touted it as ``citizenship at its best.''
When Clinton floated the idea during his presidential campaign, he was sure to get an enthusiastic burst of applause. When Americorps finally got rolling, it attracted wide praise and few objections. But now, newly ascendant Republicans in Congress have targeted it as yet another example of bloated government, and they want to cut its funding altogether.
House Speaker Newt Gingrich has described Americorps as ``gimmickry'' and ``coerced voluntarism.'' Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who has asked the U.S. General Accounting Office to investigate the program, said it ``pays 20,000 young people to do what 2.9 million others their age already do free of charge and without reward.''
Cutting the Americorps program won't go far toward balancing the budget. Clinton wants $828 million to double the number of volunteers in 1996. That is less than one-thousandth of 1 percent of his proposed $1.6 trillion budget. But by slicing it, Republicans could score big philosophical and political points, University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato said last week.
``The significant reason is that it's Bill Clinton's signal program,'' Sabato said. ``If the Republicans torpedo this program, in their minds they revoke Clinton's mandate.''
However, many more people than Clinton would be hurt, say the volunteers and beneficiaries of Americorps. ``Without it, the children would suffer, their grades would suffer, I would suffer,'' said Valerie Farnum, the first-grade teacher whom Hundley is helping.
Rider, an 18-year-old psychology major, said: ``I don't think the world would come to an end, but I think for the children it would be a tragedy.
``They're responding to us.''
About 20,000 students are in Americorps, more than ever served in the Peace Corps at one time. They are working at more than 350 programs across the country, helping immunize children in Texas, working with Navajo Indians in Arizona to improve their drinking water, serving as police cadets in New York City.
Virginia has 124 volunteers at four sites: VCU, George Mason University in Fairfax, the Northern Virginia Urban League in Alexandria and Southwest Virginia Community College. Most work in schools, tutoring youngsters and helping teachers, but the students in Alexandria are getting more physical - helping renovate buildings in a low-income neighborhood.
Hampton Roads has no sites because ``we didn't get any applications'' from organizations or colleges in the region, said B.J. Northington of the state Office of Volunteerism. But Northington said the area could be represented next year if the program is expanded, as Clinton hopes.
Penny Craig, assistant director of student employment at Old Dominion University, said ODU was interested in joining last year. Craig said she called Washington after getting the first materials on Americorps last summer, but learned that it was too late to apply: ``I was told the sites were already selected; what they wanted was people to sign up.''
Most of the VCU volunteers are part-timers, working 20 hours a week. They get the minimum wage, up to $3,820 a year, and a $2,363 stipend to help cover tuition or pay off college loans. Full-timers get twice that amount, as well as health benefits and, if needed, a reimbursement of up to $2,100 for child care. The university covers $77,000 of the $281,000 annual cost.
Some students say the financial benefits aren't what lured them to the program.
``At first, I didn't know about the money,'' said Nichole Canada, a 19-year-old sophomore in early education from the Northern Neck who helps second-graders at Whitcomb Court. ``If the money wasn't there, I'd still want to do it; it would be good experience.''
But a few acknowledge that without the money, they would be working at a part-time job, instead, to pay for college. ``Since it pays, I can put in a lot of hours here,'' Ryder said.
Some appear to have captured the civic zeal that Clinton promised would flourish with Americorps.
``When I heard about the program, it really made me feel bad,'' said Hundley, a 23-year-old criminal justice major in the ROTC who plans to become a second lieutenant in the Army. ``It put me to shame because I realized I easily could have fit the time into my day.''
Rachel Braxton, a recent VCU graduate from Charlottesville, said: ``When Clinton first said it, I thought, `That's what I need to be doing. I'll be getting money, but I'll be doing something for public service.' I wanted to get back to the community.''
Braxton, 25, works at an after-school enrichment program at the recreation center next door to the elementary school, which is across the street from a public housing project in the city's East End. The other day, she cradled one fifth-grader's head, massaging his forehead, as she helped him figure out the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s age when he was shot.
``Sixty-four?'' asked Isiah Barrett, 12, with a twinkle of mischief in his eye.
``He didn't live to be that old,'' Braxton responded.
``One?''
``Do you want to go to the circus?''
``One hundred and thirty-nine?''
Finally, he got it. ``I told you it was 39,'' Isiah said triumphantly.
Braxton didn't give an inch: ``That's not what you said'' at first.
The after-school program is among several in the city run by the Garfield F. Childs Memorial Fund, a nonprofit foundation. Its educational director, Michael Carren, said the 12 volunteers had enabled the program to expand from 300 to 350 students this year.
At Whitcomb Court Elementary, Farnum, the first-grade teacher, said Hundley's presence gives her more time to plan and to focus on the children who most need her attention.
``I told one lady the other day, especially on this grade level, we need all the help we can get,'' she said. ``Sometimes I can't reach all the children.''
It is too early to say whether VCU will meet its goals for the program, such as a 10 percent increase in test scores at the elementary school. But the volunteers already can point to examples.
Brenda Taylor, 38, a junior psychology major who works at the after-school program, feels that she has reached one boy who never used to do his homework. After she talked to him and his mother, ``he pretty much straightened out.''
``Letting them know someone cares about them makes a difference,'' she said. ``I sometimes don't think they get that at school, because the teachers are overwhelmed.''
Ryder says the fact that the kindergartner who puzzled over the numbers is even in school represents a success.
``The first half of the year, she hardly came to school. But after the holidays, she's coming back a lot. I think she's latched on to me. She always asks if I can help her when I come in.
``She needed somebody.''
Scott Bullock personifies the obstacles to Americorps that seemingly have arisen out of nowhere. An attorney for the Institute for Justice, a Washington nonprofit law firm that seeks to limit government, he is dead set against Americorps.
Bullock echoes the arguments coming from the Republicans in Congress.
First, it's a waste of money. ``Americorps is absolutely unnecessary, especially at a time of fiscal austerity,'' he said. ``The private sector and volunteering are already flourishing in this country.''
Second, ``it's a perversion of voluntarism. You have people who are volunteering (for Americorps) not because they want to, but for other reasons, like the lure of government goodies. You have a very real threat of corrupting the spirit of voluntarism.''
Cathy Howard, an assistant psychology professor who heads VCU's program, rejects the arguments. Americorps programs, she says, will provide ``long-term savings'' by keeping kids off the streets and improving health care.
She also dismisses the idea that the volunteers are closet capitalists.
``You can't call minimum wage a lot of money. They could make more money waiting tables, so they're making some hard choices to do this. And once they're involved, I think they will continue to be involved in some activities after they leave the program.'' Hundley already has begun delivering free firewood to low-income neighborhoods.
Sabato, the U.Va. professor, said Clinton's penchant for diving from issue to issue has hurt him in the debate because he did not adequately promote Americorps until the Republican onslaught.
Once it was approved, ``he crossed it off his list and went to 4,700 other things. Reagan would have cited it three times a week until everybody was aware of it.''
Sabato predicts a compromise: Funding will be cut, but the program won't be eliminated. Marshae Roberson, a teacher who runs the after-school program at the rec center, hopes she won't be affected.
``These people, I love them. You don't have to light a fire under them. They're already going. I want it to go on forever.'' ILLUSTRATION: TAMARA VONINSKI/Staff color photos
Brenda Taylor, a junior at Virginia Commonwealth University, tutors
Vernecia Goffney, 9, left, and Kim Carlyle, 10.
Stephen Hundley, an Americorps volunteer, tutors a first-grade class
at Whitcomb Court Model Elementary School in Richmond.
Graphic
VOLUNTEER SITES
Virginia Commonwealth University
George Mason University
Northern Virginia Ubran League
Southwest Virginia Community College
Photo
TAMARA VONINSKI/Staff
Rachel Braxton, 25, a recent VCU graduate, works at an after-school
enrichment program at a recreation center near Whitcomb Court Model
Elementary School.
by CNB