Welfare "reform" and one community college.

I tend to think of community colleges in general, and my own in particular, as a "Last Chance Saloon," a bastion of equal opportunity in a society that increasingly rewards those born rich and powerful. Community colleges serve not only women on welfare, but the laid off worker, the disabled, the poor, the returning veteran, the immigrant, the "displaced homemaker," people of all ages, ethnic, and economic backgrounds. Even Republicans claim to want people to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps," which may be why President Bush feels obliged to pay lip service to our nation's community colleges all the while under-funding and de-funding their programs.

In a burst of ideological fervor, I once viewed my own college as "the salvation of the working class," much as I had previously viewed revolution as bringing that salvation. Through my years as a political activist--starting with the Civil Rights movement in 1962 and on through the anti-war and women's liberation struggles, and then nine years of working and organizing in factories--I had pretty well burned out, with trying to change the whole world. By the time I began teaching in a community college, I thought maybe I could change just a little piece of it. Even working there on what seemed like a limited, winnable reform--helping welfare recipients gain access to education and training, and allowing those activities to count as work--proved to be a daunting, six-year-long task, as the political climate deteriorated and funding for all sorts of services disappeared.

Even so, some truth remains in the idealized image I originally brought to my teaching job at North Shore Community College. We continue to serve immigrants, laid-off workers, and displaced homemakers. We still offer an education at far lower cost than public four-year colleges. We still are the place where students who never dreamed of going to college find an open door to college life, from ESL and basic language courses, to upper level college courses that transfer to prestige colleges. We still provide a welcoming, supportive environment for students who face the greatest obstacles, both psychological and economic.

However, my rose-colored glasses have become somewhat clouded with the years, as my college (like others) has taken serious hits: anti-affirmative action at the federal level resulted in the elimination of our excellent Minority Engineering Program, Project Interlock; cuts in state funding and increases in tuition and fees have left many of our poorest students shut out; immigration reforms have made it ever more difficult for immigrants to attend college; and, finally, welfare reform (termed "welfare deform" by women who have experienced its effects), bringing with it a work first, anti-education philosophy, has disastrously reduced the number of welfare recipients we serve. From a high of nearly 900 before welfare reform, time limits and work requirements have brought us to a present welfare population of around 100-120. As one recipient activist put it, "How are we supposed to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps when we don't have any boots and they don't have any straps?"

A SHORT HISTORY OF STATE AND FEDERAL WELFARE REFORM *

In 1995 the state of Massachusetts passed its own welfare reform plan, bringing a two-year time limit (24 months out of 60) and work requirements that explicitly excluded education and training. How such a restrictive plan came about in a relatively liberal state is a cautionary tale for progressive activists. Briefly, after years of legislative work on a moderate welfare reform plan that would have allowed education to count as work, our Republican governor, the wily William Weld (who until recently touted his "successful welfare reform" plan in his failed attempt to run for governor of New York) managed to persuade two of our most liberal, but tragically naive, state senators, Dianne Wilkerson and Lois Pines, both of whom opposed welfare reform, to cast decisive votes against the legislative package, promising that he would improve the plan. Why they believed the word of a millionaire Republican, who had long proven hostile to any sort of social program, remains a mystery to this writer. However, their votes effectively killed the more moderate plan. Incensed legislators who had worked for years to craft the compromise, simply threw up their hands and allowed Weld to substitute his own, far harsher proposal.

The result: a plan that placed a two-year time limit on the receiving of welfare (the federal plan has a five-year time limit), and the imposition of 15-20 hours a week of work requirements, which was later pushed to 24 or 28, depending on the age of the youngest child, and is currently being raised even more. These requirements could be met by paid work or community service, but not by education or job training. In response to this, I, along with Erika Kates, long time researcher and advocate for welfare and education, together with a group of welfare recipient students (mainly from our state's community colleges), legal advocates, teachers, researchers, and activists, founded an organization, WETAC (Welfare Education and Training Coalition). In conjunction with many other statewide organizations, we struggled for years to pass legislation that would allow education and training to count as work. Just last year, as I had all but given up hope, such a measure did pass, surviving a veto by yet another Republican governor, Mitt Romney. Job training, basic education, and community college could count. Four-year college, however, would no longer be permitted, thus cutting off the welfare recipients who attended the University of Massachusetts, some of whom became welfare activists in WETAC and in the excellent campus-based organization Survivors Inc. Although community college now can count, the two-year time limit remains daunting for community college students, few of whom complete programs in two years (the average among our students is three and a half years for a two-year degree).

After Massachusetts implemented the plan, Republican governors Cellucci and Swift, along with their appointed directors of the DTA (Department of Transitional Assistance) continued the harsh, work-first philosophy. "Get a job, any job" was their mantra. In short, our students (most of whom had worked minimum wage jobs during their lives) were now to be taught the value of hard work. The major flaws in this argument are as follows: 1. Raising children is hard and worthwhile work. 2. Education is necessary if poor women and men are ever to rise out of poverty. (Endless research data affirms the obvious: education leads to better jobs, higher return in taxes, and better lives for the women and their children--for example, the children of women who go to college are more likely to go to college themselves). 3. Minimum wage jobs will never pay for quality (or any) childcare, which, in our state, is in short supply. One of my students said, "It's pretty ironic, isn't it. They'll pay to put my kids in day care during the summer so I can work. But they won't pay me to spend time with my own kids!"

Just as we advocates were making headway, especially with our mainly Democratic state legislature, we received a crushing blow. In 1996, Democratic president Bill Clinton announced with pride his own federal welfare reform plan, including a five-year, lifetime, limit on assistance (the state plan at least allowed people to return to welfare if necessary after two years off) and a mere 12 months of vocational training that could count as work. Over 40 states applied for waivers from the plan, including Massachusetts, though some did allow more education and training. In 2003, the Republican Congress and President Bush passed further restrictions, allowing only three months of vocational training and specifically excluding any higher education. In short, both in the nation and in the state of Massachusetts, the message was out. Go to work; forget school. The impact on the political climate and on my own community college was dramatic. Now welfare deform was bipartisan, and welfare recipients were on their own.

NORTH SHORE COMMUNITY COLLEGE

North Shore Community College is based in Lynn, Beverly, and Danvers. It serves a diverse population, especially in Lynn, historically the home to many immigrants. It was once the center of the worldwide shoe industry, and has had a long, proud working-class tradition. It still has one of the few large factories left in Massachusetts, GE Lynn. At present, our immigrant students come from Southeast Asia, Haiti, Latin America, Africa (especially Nigeria), and Russia, among others. Some of our students are political refugees. I have taught a Tutsi student who was jailed and tortured, a Haitian student whose father was shot in front of him by the military dictatorship, and many Cambodian students who served time in forced labor camps, as well as Vietnamese "boat people."

We serve approximately 7,000 fulltime students a year in a variety of academic and career programs, as well as thousands of students taking non-credit courses. Many of our students take two years of Liberal Arts courses that apply for transfer into four-year college (provided the student maintains a C average). While most of our low income students transfer to state colleges such as Salem State and the University of Massachusetts, some, especially from our Honors Program (which has always included a number of welfare recipients), have gone on to prestigious four year colleges--Smith, Wellesley, Mt. Holyoke, Brandeis, Tufts and Boston University among many--on full four-year scholarships.

Our career programs, including Nursing (rated the best nursing program in the area), Engineering, Legal Administrative Assistant, Early Childhood Development, and Criminal Justice have sent out students who have almost immediately found relatively well-paying jobs with benefits, and sometimes even with child care. When more liberal state and federal welfare laws still permitted women to go to school, receiving paid child care and transportation (their college tuition was never paid for--they received Pell grants and student loans, just like other students), they flourished.

In addition, our college offers three separate programs--Challenges Choices and Change, Women in Transition, and Motivation to Education--that provide special support systems, including counseling and tutoring to low income women both on and off welfare. One program is state funded, one funded by our own college, the third by a federal grant. Some of the women teaching and counseling in these programs are themselves former welfare recipients. Toni Hatfield in CCC and Carellen Brown in Motivation to Education not only supported the women in their programs, but became advocates for WETAC. Finally, thanks to the activism of one of our former recipient students (she went on to get her MA in English at Simmons), who around ten years ago organized a sit-in in our college president's office to highlight the need for on-site child care, we now have a Head Start Center right in our Lynn campus building.

The results of this are hundreds, if not thousands of success stories. To name but a few: D., a single mother living in a homeless shelter, graduated from NSCC's Honors program with a 4.0 grade point average, received her four-year college degree at Wellesley, went on to get her Ph.D. in engineering at the University of Michigan, and now does cancer research. Last year she was the inspiring Commencement speaker at our college. L., abandoned by her cocaine-addicted husband with five children under the age of five (he stole the car and cleaned out the bank account), graduated from NSCC and went on to get her MA in History from Suffolk University. When last I heard from her, she had a good job in the Suffolk administration. N. graduated from our legal administrative assistant program and immediately got a well-paying job with benefits and child care. Many have graduated from our nursing and other health professions programs and immediately found jobs. C., abandoned by her husband, went through our college, became active on our school newspaper, The Pennon, and went on to become a full time staff writer for a Beverly newspaper. She helped found a student club, WE-CARE, that provided support for single mothers receiving welfare Another student, M., is now a successful businesswoman who gives public talks about the critical importance of her NSCC education.

In short, North Shore Community College offers a warm, supportive environment for women who are poor, abused by both the men in their lives and the welfare system itself, and lacking in self-confidence. It is not a cliche to say that they have been empowered by these programs to continue their educations and become successful.

EFFECTS OF "WELFARE REFORM" IN OUR COLLEGE

Although the effects of state welfare reform on our student population were dramatic, they were not uniform, or immediate. At first, confusion and fear reigned. Women literally cried in the hallways at the specter of losing their hopes. Students who had gone onto welfare before a certain date (January 1995) were technically able to be grandfathered in, permitted to pursue their education until completion. Some students were aware of this; others were not. Massive confusion at our local welfare offices continued throughout the years of other changes wrought by welfare reform. Welfare workers often did not know the rights of the women or, sometimes poorly educated themselves, resented their clients' getting an education. They were also under pressure from Claire McIntire, director of the DTA under Weld and subsequent Republican governors, who had considerable leeway in her interpretation of the state law. She was explicitly hostile to the cause of education and training, and added her own restrictive regulations to the system. It did not help matters that in the next couple of years, cutbacks caused the layoff of welfare workers and the shutting down of the Lynn welfare office. Student recipients from Lynn were forced to go to Salem (a hardship for those without cars) to face overworked, ill-informed, and often grouchy welfare workers.

Advocates had to inform students of their rights, because welfare offices did not. The case of our student L. is particularly sad. The law explicitly states that a mother caring for a handicapped child is exempt from both time limits and work requirements (as we speak, Governor Romney is trying to change this humane provision). L., young mother of three children, had been encouraged to enter NSCC under our Women in Transition program. She had already enjoyed a year of school and was very happy, fulfilling a long held "dream." She had one severely disabled five-year-old child, who could not walk or talk, and was in a special school. This child was disabled because his father had beaten L. within an inch of her life while she was pregnant. Obvious case for an exemption, right? Wrong. Her welfare worker insisted that since her child was five years old (then the point at which the work requirement went into effect; now it is when the child is three) and "in school," she needed to go to work. With the aid of a sympathetic attorney, she could have fought the case. I encouraged her to do so, but this was a woman who had been beaten. She was afraid to take on her abuser. So, she decided to drop a out of school and take a job at Boston Market. Unfortunately, although her employers were sympathetic, she was too often late to her job because she had to take her disabled son to his special school. So she had to quit, and was therefore cut off welfare for "noncompliance." "What will you do?" I asked her. "I'll be all right, "she told me. "We grow vegetables in the back yard for food, and I'll give quilting classes. Besides, when I was little, my family lived in a school bus. I know how to survive." Her enduring spirit moved me, but I was terribly sad that she had to give up on "her dream." Her story was so poignant that when Ann Withorn, activist-professor at the University of Massachusetts / Boston, asked if I had any recipient students who could attend her class that was meeting with a Boston Globe reporter, I asked L. if she would come with me, suggesting that it would help other women if she could tell her story to the public. Though very shy, she finally agreed and we drove together to U. Mass. However, the reporter insisted that she be allowed to use the woman's real name in the article. Fearing her abuser's retribution, she refused.

Another young student attended one of our campus WE-CARE meetings. She was facing homelessness and needed advice. She also was pregnant, but about to be penalized under the "family cap" provision of state welfare reform. That is, if a woman has more than two children, the third child will be denied any benefits. (This measure passed under the faulty premise that women were having lots of children simply to obtain the munificent sum of $90 a month per extra child. In fact, statistics show that the average number of children of women on welfare is two, like that of the general population.) The young woman whispered in our meeting that the child was a result of rape, but she didn't believe in having an abortion. When we asked why she didn't tell her welfare worker about the rape, she said, "Because I was raped by a cop." This young woman did drop out. Heaven only knows what happened to her.

Another of my students was living in a homeless shelter, where new regulations required her to drop out of school and spend her time in "structured job search" instead. This new DTA policy made women without jobs spend 30 hours a week looking for minimum wage jobs and learning things like "how to dress for success," rather than obtaining education or real job skills.

Some of our students did fight back. One was told that with only a month to go before she obtained her nursing diploma (and a virtually guaranteed nursing job), she should drop out and work for minimum wage. The insanity of this proposition was obvious to virtually every legislator I lobbied, including Republicans. But the student said, "I'm staying in school. I don't care what they do. I've worked too hard for this. I'm not going to give up." And she didn't. She worked, went to school, took care of her kids, and got her degree.

K., for a time the student head of our WE-CARE club, was informed by her worker that she owed the DTA thousands of dollars, because they had "overpaid" her. I still believe that this was the result of harassment, because K's photo and her comments against welfare reform had appeared in the Lynn Item. Luckily, she had saved all her receipts, proving that she owed them nothing. She also brought me to the Salem welfare office to back her up. I believe that both these factors forced the officials to back down. In many cases, either I, or our sympathetic Dean of Students Cheryl Finklestein, a strong supporter of women on welfare, called the DTA and made them back down when they unfairly tried to deny childcare or transportation to our students. Caring legal advocates from Neighborhood Legal Services in Lynn (Laura Gallant), Greater Boston Legal Services (Melanie Malherbe), and Mass Law Reform in Boston (Pat Baker, Deborah Harris) also helped our students (and me) with crucial legal advice. Some came to our college to give workshops on the complex ins and outs of Welfare Reform law. Our WE-CARE newsletter also tried to inform women of their rights to an education. Some of our students attended hearings, and visited legislators at the State House to testify for our cause, even though they were scared to death. Generally they were well received, although when one unsympathetic legislator implied that poverty was my student T.'s own fault, I thought she was going to punch him out.

Some women do manage to juggle work, school, and children. But it is very hard. When M., an outreach worker for WETAC, testified at the State House about the difficulties of her life, she proudly stated that she was managing to raise five children, attend U. Mass. / Boston, and work as a social worker, this testimony was used against her. Some said, well, if she can do it, why can't all of them? Activism can be a double-edged sword for women on welfare.

One NSCC student, excited at a sympathetic interview she had been given by The Christian Science Monitor, decided she would offer another interview to the North Shore Weekly. Unfortunately, this newspaper was hostile to welfare recipients. After she had given the interview, she called me, sobbing, "they came to my house, and all they did was trash me." The reporter looked around her house suspiciously, then said, "Well if you're on welfare, how come you have a car?" She wanted to rescind her interview, but it was too late. The article managed to smear not only her, but me, suggesting that the only reason I was helping welfare recipients stay in school was so I could keep my own job. To a tenured English professor, this argument was ludicrous, but it shows how the media can twist the stories of those who are brave enough to speak out.

WHERE WE ARE NOW

As stated above, just last year the Massachusetts legislature did pass an amendment allowing education and training to count ms work. This positive measure was offset, however, by a dramatic increase in work requirements. Now, under pressure from more stringent federal laws, there is a push to increase this to 40 hours, and to increase the mandatory participation rate to 70 percent (mothers with handicaps and those caring for handicapped children will be required to participate). The increased pressures of life, work, and education have brought a definite decline in activism among students on welfare. Our club WE-CARE eventually died for lack of attendance. There were simply too few hours in the week for women to attend meetings. WETAC, too, ultimately collapsed, due to lack of funding, internal conflicts, and, I believe, the difficulty of involving over-extended welfare recipients as activists. The Family Economic Initiative, a coalition in which we worked, continues to advocate at the State House for the cause of welfare recipients. Mainly they are trying to block ever harsher measures from being passed.

It is obvious that for most single mothers, responsible for their households, their children, work, and education, welfare reform has been daunting. We do still have some welfare recipients at North Shore Community

College, though far fewer; we still have our wonderful Challenges, Choices, and Change and Women in Transition Program (I have had the privilege of teaching the English classes in CCC this past year, and will continue to do so), but the obstacles for women getting that all-important education are enormous. Cleaning, cooking, working, driving their children to doctor's appointments, all the while studying for tests and trying to keep up the high standards they have set for themselves academically: this is the life of women who, according to those in power, "need to be taught the value of hard work." Maybe they should tell it to our nation's President. Oh, I forgot. He's on vacation.

* For a detailed overview of federal welfare reform, see Vivyan Adair, "Last In, First Out," in Radical Teacher #73.