“Education
is a human right!”
The birth of this committee begins at the very nacency of FUREE with 15
women who were ready to take on the City & the Human Resource Administration
to fight for access to the education & training for all public assistance
recipients.The
Education & Training Committee began as a collaboration of
New York City g
roups
such as Make the Road By Walking & the
Urban Justice
Center to draft
a bill that would address all the issues P.A. recipients faced who sought
to find a meaningful exit from welfare through education & training.
For 3 years, FUREE & these groups fought to allow welfare recipients
to have the choice of education & training instead of placement in the
Work Experience Program (WEP), also known as NYC's workfare program. The
drafted bill would allow people receiving P.A the chance to go to full-time
school instead of working off their meagar benefits at a work placement.
After
countless rallies and attending City Council hearings to voice the issues
of the people, April 8th 2003 marked an important day in history,
especially for P.A. recipients in NYC. With a vote of 46 to 5, the New York
City Council voted to pass our bill into law.Now
known as Access to Training & Education Law or Local Law 23,
there are several things that P.A. recipients are entitled to through
this historic law. Most salient of these things is the right to CHOOSE education
& training over work placement. To FUREE, this was the biggest victory
as the right to choose was paramount in our strategy of how to create a
meaningful exit from the oppressive welfare system. Among
this major victory, P.A. recipients have the right to;
-
Get
a degree…
Enroll
in GED, ESOL, vocational education & some 2 year college programs.
Recipients may also count some of their class hours – and in
certain cases- all their class hours, including lab & tutoring,
toward their 35 hour work requirement. In addition, recipients can
count any hours spent in internships, work-study, job-search or paid
job towards their 35 hour work requirement.
-
Get
Child Care & Car Fare While in School…
Recipients
have the right to receive car fare & child care for any child
up to the age of 13 during the time they are in class, lab, tutoring,
internships or work-study.
-
Take
Control of Their Work & School Schedule…
A
recipient’s worker & welfare center must make a reasonable
effort to schedule WEP hours around the recipient’s school schedule
& near the school campus so that the workfare placement does not
conflict with a recipient’s school schedule.
One
year after the City Council passed the bill into law, Mayor Michael Bloomberg,
in the tradition of his predecessor, has refused to implement Local Law 23,
essentially denying P.A. recipients their right to choose education &
training over forced labor. This is the same Mayor who often touts himself
as the "Education Mayor." Invoking
the memory & work of Martin Luther King, Jr. on his day, January 20th
2004, Mayor Bloomberg said, in a packed house at City Hall, that "Education
is as much a civil right as the vote." In the tradition of most politicians,
Mayor Bloomberg failed to elaborate that the right to education was as much
a civil right as the vote for most everyone EXCEPT
for those receiving public assistance.For
over a year, FUREE members have been relentless in our pursuit of the Mayor
& the Human Resource Administration to honor his own words & mean
what he says by obeying NYC law & implementing Local Law 23.To
address the inability of the NYC government to follow the law, FUREE &
the Urban
Justice
Center
have been working together to provied free legal advice to P.A recipients
who choose to go to school but are told they must do WEP instead. Our
legal clinic provides a wide variety of legal support for members every Thursday
at our office from 4:00pm to 6:00 pm. Further,
FUREE & the Urban
Justice Center
, through our Legal Clinic, have been advising members on their rights to
attend school through a lawsuit that was settled by the City. Davila vs. Eggleston
makes it much easier for single parents on welfare to attend school. Below
is a summary of rights made available through this victory.
-
You
have the right to an "assessment" interview before being
assigned
A
worker must usually conduct an “assessment’ interview
before "assigning" a recipient to WEP or any other work
activity. The worker must ask about the recipient's background, needs
& preferences, including the preference to go to school.
-
The
City must honor a recipient's preference for school when assigning
a work activity
During
the "assessment," the worker is supposed to talk to the
recipient about various "work activities"– which are
the activities that one can do to meet their weekly work requirement
(usually 35 hours a week). Examples of work acitivities include WEP,
Job Search, a paid job, work-study, internships or school. After the
assessment, the worker is supposed to complete an "Employability
Plan.”" The Plan lists all possible work assignments for
any give recipient. If the recipient has a preference to go to school,
internship or work-study, the worker must write down this preference
& honor it to the extent possible when making their assignment.
-
A
P.A. recipient can challenge their work assignment & Employability
Plan in a Fair Hearing
The
worker must give you a copy of the Employability Plan. If a recipient
believes that their prefernece for school was not honored, they can
challenge the Plan & work assignment in a fair hearing.
-
A
P.A. recipient has the right to review the HRA Master List of Approved
Training Programs
The
school programs that a recipient attends to satisfy their work requirement
are on the "HRA Master List of Approved Training Programs."
This list contains hundreds of programs. They have the right to review
the list & obtain help from the case worker in using it. The worker
must give you time to find a suitable program to enroll in (10 or
15 business days).
-
A
P.A. recipient can attend vocational education & satisfy past
or all of their weekly work requirement
The
proposed settlement has rules about how many hours of school count
towards the work requirement & for how long school countss as
work. If going to school makes sense, the general rule is that the
recipient may count up to 15 hours a week toward the work requirement
in any "approved" school program. There is no life-time
limit on how long school counts as a work activity as long no more
than 15 hours of school is counted towards to the work requirement
per week. Work-study or internships can be used to satisfy the rest
of the work requirement above 15 hours. For example, if a recipient
has a 35 hour work week requirement, s/he can count up to 15 hours
of class (including lab & tutoring) and 20 hours of work-study
or internship on an ongoing basis to fulfill their 35 hour work requirement.
Racial
Justice Collaborative
The Collaborative
Access to Education Project (CAEP) – a collaboration between Families
United for Racial and Economic Equality (FUREE) and the Urban Justice Center's
Homelessness Outreach and Prevention Project (HOPP) – will work to ensure
that people of color receiving public assistance (PA) in New York City gain
access to the education and training they are routinely denied while they
are forced into dead-end, low wage jobs and "welfare to work" placements.
CAEP will accomplish this by using community organizing and legal strategies
to allow people receiving PA to enroll in and complete educational programs
including adult basic education, English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL),
vocational education, and two- and four-year college.
CAEP will also fight for the implementation of Local Law 23 (passed
April 9, 2003),
which will allow people receiving PA in NYC to attend school full time. Under
this law, the more than 100,000 New Yorkers assigned to welfare-to-work activities
will be able to leave their placements in exchange for education, training,
and the opportunity to pursue the career and life goals of their choice.
