Representative Augustus F. Hawkins, the California Democrat who chairs the House Education and Labor Committee, is expected to introduce legislation this month to promote youth and community service.
The bill will incorporate elements of several youth-service proposals adopted by subcommittees during the past year.
House aides say the bill will seek about $175 million to encourage service programs for students in kindergarten through college.
It would also establish several full-time national youth corps, which would focus on community service, conservation work, literacy training, and tutoring.
Financial incentives, such as deferment or forgiveness of college loans, would be offered to young volunteers, an aide said.
The legislation is similar to a bill introduced last summer by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts.
The Senate bill, which is expected to be taken up by the Labor and Human Resources committee this month, calls for $330 million to promote youth service in schools and colleges; to set up a national youth corps; and to create a National Service Board to distribute grants for demonstration projects.
The Senate last week unanimously approved a $225-million literacy bill that would increase funding ceilings for adult-education programs and the Even Start program for disadvantaged preschoolers and their parents.
The bill, S 1310, would also create a college literacy corps, a research center, an interagency council to coordinate federal efforts, state literacy councils, and a “families for literacy” program similar to Even Start.
Amendments were added to require the appointment of teachers to the state councils, and to allow Indian tribes to apply for Even Start grants.
The House is expected to begin consideration soon of a companion bill, HR 3123.
Children and other family members of aliens seeking to become naturalized citizens will be allowed to remain in the United States, under new Immigration and Naturalization Service guidelines.
The changes in the agency’s “family fairness” guidelines, announced this month, will enable the spouses and children of newly legalized immigrants to stay and work in the United States while their relative seeks permanent-resident status.
An agency spokesman said the policy clarifications were necessary because the “family fairness” program had been unevenly implemented, with some alien family members being deported and others being allowed to stay in the country.
The rules apply only to illegal immigrants who have resided in the United States since Nov. 6, 1986, when the amnesty program created by the 1986 immigration-reform law took effect.
The Education Department this month will launch a year-long study of the educational difficulties faced by Native Americans.
Secretary of Education Lauro F. Cavazos called for the study in October at a meeting of the National Indian Education Association. (See Education Week, Oct. 18, 1989.)
Some of the study panel’s members have yet to be chosen, he said last week at an international conference on at-risk children.
In a related development, Secretary of the Interior Manuel Lujan Jr. was expected this week to open the first of two conferences aimed at setting educational goals for schools operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
The two-day session was scheduled to be held Feb. 19 at the Santa Fe Indian School in New Mexico. The second meeting is scheduled for March 12 in Rapid City, S.D.
