
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 26, 1994                   TAG: 9401260243
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

SOME KIDS MUST STAY IN SCHOOL TO GET WELFARE

Children and teen-age parents in Oklahoma will be required to stay in school as a condition of collecting welfare under a federal demonstration project approved Tuesday.

The demonstration, which required a waiver of federal regulations governing Aid to Families with Dependent Children, will begin Feb. 2 and continue for three years. It was approved by Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala.

It is the latest in a string of state experiments with welfare reform that seek to force children and teen-age parents on welfare to stay in school or up to date on their immunizations. Other demonstrations attempt to encourage work and training or to discourage additional births to women already on the rolls.

According to the state's waiver application, the purpose of Oklahoma's Learnfare is to encourage and promote school attendance for AFDC children and teen parents from the time they reach age 13 until they turn 18, graduate from high school, or obtain a GED equivalency diploma.

- Associated Press

by CNB