Another government shutdown looms. Unified power in Washington and Republican legislators are still scrambling, unable to reconcile competing impulses. President Trump appears to be conceding on border wall funding at this point, yet remains steadfastly confident, naively so, that eventually, Congress will cave.

Only two days remain to finalize and pass this budget bill. Unless some back-door bargaining takes place, Republicans intend to slice a host of programs vital to the success and growth of public schools. Among drastic cuts to domestic discretionary funding overall, Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney called last month in a “budget blueprint” to eliminate AmeriCorps and the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program.

Trump also intends to suspend supplemental educational opportunity grants, a move which even National Review admits would prevent many low-income households from sending their children to college.

Scrapping these valuable institutions will harm school districts, burden parents, and further disadvantage children from already struggling families. And to what end? What justifies this injurious and flippant proposal, their 13-and-a-half percent chop at education funding?

Prioritizing another stealth warplane purchase over maintaining educational opportunities for millions of children is reprehensible.

Any legislator standing silent, lips sealed over this pending blow, should be ashamed. Speak up. Do your job.

Trump supposably justifies these cuts to Republicans by promising support for a voucher system. Instead of encouraging middle-class families to pump money into the deceptive, fraudulent, for-profit structures which Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos champions, how about instead we improve public schools? After all, they educate more than 80 percent of American kids between kindergarten and 12th Grade.

I am an incredibly fortunate young man because of my parents and my public school education. Public schools should be palaces of learning. Nothing less. We should be nourishing young minds in these classrooms, supporting passionate teachers, and finding innovative ways to incorporate digital materials including educational videos and web content into statewide curriculums. Education ought to represent, as Herbert Croly wrote one hundred years ago, the “bloom of democratic social achievement.”

1.6 million innocent students would lose access to essential afterschool programs as a result of cutting 21st Century Community Learning Centers, including my two sixth grade scholars at Kelly Miller Middle School, Christian and John.

Three years ago, as a freshman undergrad at The George Washington University, I began mentoring with Higher Achievement, a nonprofit afterschool program which partners with underfunded, understaffed and underperforming schools in DC, Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania.

HA would be unable to survive without these two programs. They receive $700 thousand annually from DOE and rely on 11 dependable AmeriCorps members and VISTA volunteers in order to produce results. On average, after four years of receiving homework coaching, learning life skills, and pairing up with mentors like myself, 95 percent of HA scholars go on to graduate high school. Comparatively, while improving, less than 70 percent of students District-wide graduate within four years.

A vital component of HA culture is understanding four social justice pillars: freedom, justice, solidarity, and voice. Having used my voice, I now ask that you use yours. Contact your member of Congress. Implore them to use their influence to protect organizations like mine.

Millions of ambitious students across the country are vulnerable to losing their best chance at obtaining a diploma and matriculating to college. You have the power to stop them.