Like many parents, Lois Combs Weinberg got involved in reading instruction when her son made it to third grade without knowing how to read.
The Weinbergs traveled from their home in Hindman to Louisville for training that taught parents how to tutor dyslexic kids with the appropriate materials. She found 15 parents in Knott County whose kids were having similar problems. Mike Mullins at the Hindman Settlement School let them have a building free of charge, and in 1980, the after-school tutoring began.
“One thing led to another because there was a great need,” Combs Weinberg said.
The parent programs spread to five other counties, and it actually worked. There are generations of students in Knott and surrounding counties with varying degrees of dyslexia that have been helped by the Hindman program.
It worked so well that grants from the federal Americorps program funneled its volunteers to work in the program, giving them vital training and allowing the program to accept more kids.
But the Hindman program was caught up in the Elon Musk dragnet, and in April, DOGE decided to cut Americorps reading and math intervention programs. They’re programs that now serve nearly 1,000 children with learning differences in 25 schools in five counties in Eastern Kentucky.
“I’m angry this administration doesn’t care about children who are talented, entrepreneurial, and deserving,” Weinberg said. “This support is very essential all over Kentucky.”
No one doubts there’s a great deal of waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government. But cutting programs that serve our neediest, and objectively work, then it becomes clear that fraud and abuse are just stalking horses to decimate government programs whether they work or not. (The only things not studied by DOGE are Elon Musk’s big government contracts.)
One parent told reporter Valarie Honeycutt Spears the Hindman tutoring programs had been essential to her son, now 12.
“I don’t think my little boy would have learned to read had it not been for the services he received from Hindman Settlement School,” said Brittany Fields of Hazard.
DOGE cuts with chain saw, not scalpel
This is why it’s hard to thoughtfully cut the size of government; you need a scalpel, not the chainsaw now wielded by Musk and the Trump administration.
If they were being thoughtful, Trump officials might have thought about how these cuts would hurt needy children. While compassion is not exactly a hallmark of this administration, they might instead think about how these cuts would hurt needy children of Knott County where voters supported Trump in November 2024 by more than 60 percentage points.
The Americorps program, which works with kids’ programs all over the nation, will see cuts of more than $400 million overall. Many of those programs are after-school and summer learning programs that are vital to COVID learning loss.
In a national news release, Jodi Grant, executive director of Afterschool Alliance, said: “The $400 million in cuts to AmeriCorps announced late last week are hitting many of our country’s after-school and summer learning programs hard, at a time when many are already unable to meet the demand due to rising costs and inadequate funding.”
“AmeriCorps and AmeriCorps VISTA programs have long been an essential component of after-school and summer learning,” she added.
It’s possible these cuts could be reversed. Kentucky is one of 25 states suing in federal court, contending that dismantling Americorps is unconstitutional and should be stopped.
Kentucky, represented by Gov. Andy Beshear, is one of 25 states in late April that filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Maryland against AmeriCorps. The lawsuit is asking that the court declare the Trump Administration’s dismantling of AmeriCorps as unconstitutional and to vacate the dismantling of AmeriCorps.
But what a stupid, pointless waste of time to cut, then possibly restore employees and funding. All the while we’re in a race to help students get ahead with their education.
Hindman will prevail
Hindman Settlement School was founded in 1902 as the first of the settlement schools created to educate mountain children. Combs Weinberg said the core of the dyslexia program will continue through the traditional fundraising the school has always done, and longtime supporters like Daughters of the American Revolution.
“We at the settlement school know how to put our shoulder to the wheel and keep it rolling to get back to the initial level of service,” she said. “That will be a challenge, but our core program will continue.”
Combs knows a little about education funding. Her father, Gov. Bert Combs, represented 66 property-poor school districts in the groundbreaking legal case that ended with the Kentucky Education Reform Act. Among many other things, KERA equalized funding between rich and poor districts.
“We’re in a very troubled time,” she said. “The need for public education comes straight from my grandmother to my daddy to me as essential to our democracy so we can be discerning thinkers and readers.”
It doesn’t take much discernment to realize that Trump’s plans — cutting funding to public schools, to Medicaid, to food stamps — are going to hit hard in Eastern Kentucky, a bastion of Trump support.
“The awareness is coming about what’s really happening,” Weinberg said. “Not only does this administration not care about kids, it doesn’t care about socioeconomically challenged kids, whether here or around the world.”
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Written by Linda Blackford. Cross-posted from the Herald-Leader.
