496 Head Start is a Dead End for Children

Strengthening “Head Start” is under Bush’s budget plan if he is re-elected. The program is nearly 40 years old and has shown no appreciable long term results for education. Children have been immunized, families have been linked with various social service agencies, and a huge number of people have been employed--about 27% of them parents of the children. A program that started out planning to cost $17 million the first year (but cost $100 million), had ballooned to 1.4 billion in 1991 under Bush 41, and about 8 billion in 2004 under G.W. Bush. That’s about $7,362 for each of the 910,000 enrolled children.

The Head Start program is administered by the Head Start Bureau, the Administration on Children, Youth and Families (ACFY), Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).

Grants are awarded by the ACF Regional Offices and the Head Start Bureau’s American Indian and Migrant Program Branches directly to local public agencies, private non-profit and for-profit organizations, Indian Tribes and school systems for the purpose of operating Head Start programs at the community level. (DHHS web site)

Using Google, it’s practically impossible to find an independent assessment of this program. If a politician votes to freeze the program at current levels, he is accused of “dismantling it.” Here’s an example from New Hampshire--I have no idea who Charlie Bass is, but this statement called “Voting to Dismantle Head Start,“ shows the problem:

"[Charlie] Bass voted for a bill that dismantles some of the high-quality standards and comprehensive services that have made Head Start a successful early childhood education program for New Hampshire’s toddlers. Current funding only allows 3 out of 5 eligible children to be served by Head Start, but Bass froze current funding levels and cut enrollment in Head Start for the first time in history. It also created block grants that provide no standards for minimum class sizes, child-teacher ratios or curriculum effectiveness. Bass’s vote was decisive - it passed by 1 vote, 217-216. [GOP Head Start Reauthorization Bill - Passage, H.R. 2210, Vote #444, 7/24/03. Adopted 217-216 (R 217-12; D 0-203)]" http://www.nh-democrats.org/Blog.asp?id=49 6/8/04

Unfortunately, Head Start has no high-quality standards, and it has no high-profile “graduates.“ Funding requests just call for more money to expand the failed program and to hire more degreed teachers--as though that were the problem all along. The NCLB of President Bush created great controversy when it attempted to test the program and was criticized for testing pre-schoolers.

After 40 years shouldn't we be seeing improvement in scores, behavior and over-all quality of inner city and minority districts? The “jewel” of the Great Society is made of paste--library paste, it seems. If you know of a study that claims that Head Start is a success, that isn’t written by someone who takes it to the bank, I’d sure like to hear about it. I think our children deserve better, but no one knows how to do it.