The 'sequester': how three Americans see it working so far

So far at least, wide swaths of America haven't been reeling from the 'sequester.' But more budget cuts are taking effect this summer, and in all, $85 billion is slated to be slashed from the federal budget this year alone. Here are three examples of how Americans are starting to feel the sequester.

1. Head Start scales back

Andrew D. Brosig/AP/The Daily Sentinel
Jamarion Anderson plays at the Greater East Texas Community Action Program Head Start in Nacogdoches in April of this year. Head Start programs are facing budget reductions as part of sequestration.

Pam Bernstein can already see the domino effect that the “sequester” is having on low-income children.

The federal cuts that kicked in March 1 required her to cut 5.27 percent of her budget as Head Start director for Lakes & Prairies Community Action Partnership in Moorhead, Minn., which serves Clay and Wilkin Counties.

The most immediate cuts amounted to $89,000. After consulting with a governing council that includes parents, she ended Head Start classes May 9, three weeks early. That meant 258 children lost out on preschool, meals, and other supports, and parents scrambled for alternative child care.

To absorb another cut of nearly $88,000 for the coming school year, she eliminated one program altogether – the only Head Start classroom in rural Breckenridge, Minn., which served 17 children and had a waiting list.

That closure is “very hard on the community,” Ms. Bernstein says. “The social services director in the county is very concerned because he anticipates that child out-of-home placements will increase and social services caseloads will increase.” And many of the kindergarten classrooms will see children who aren’t as ready to start school.

Eliminating the classroom also meant letting go of a lead teacher, an assistant teacher, and a clerical support person.

Since the Head Start programs wrapped up early, Bernstein has heard from parents who say, “We’re having to access the food pantries more often, because kids are home and they’re hungry.” She adds, “They’re seeing some behavior problems; some mental-health issues are starting to arise.”

Such scenarios will repeat across the United States, with the federal Office of Head Start estimating that the first year of the sequester could eliminate services for 70,000 children.

President Obama’s proposal to better support early-childhood development gave her hope, Bernstein says, but with across-the-board cuts “it’s very hard to stay positive.” 

– Stacy Teicher Khadaroo, staff writer

1 of 3

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.