President wants to overhaul Head Start

5/6/03 -- As Congress gears up to overhaul the Head Start program, a major conflict is building between the Bush Administration and Head Start advocates.

The Administration wants to recast the program to stress literacy skills, give states the authority to combine Head Start funding with state-funded early childhood programs, and transfer responsibility for the program from the federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to the Education Department.

Many Head Start advocates, including the Head Start Association, Children's Defense Fund, and United Way of America, meanwhile want to retain the program's focus on comprehensive services to address the "whole child." Head Start deals with children's medical and dental needs, social development, nutrition services, and family involvement, as well as pre-academic skills.

The program serves children up to 5 years old who live in poverty -- defined as having a household income of less than $19,500 for a family of four. Since the program was created in 1965, 20 million children have been served. Currently, the program enrolls 850,000, far fewer than the number eligible.

NSBA believes the Administration's proposal is going in the right direction but has not taken a formal position on it until a more detailed description is released. It is crucial that the proposal include full funding to implement a revised program.

NSBA urges Congress to strengthen the program's emphasis on school readiness to ensure that Head Start programs are better aligned with public school curricula.

In a letter to members of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce in March, NSBA Associate Executive Director Michael A. Resnick says that, given the requirement of the No Child Left Behind Act that schools make adequate yearly progress beginning in grade 3, "we anticipate that the public school stake in the educational services provided within Head Start will become even greater."

More state control

NSBA supports giving the states a greater role to establish developmentally appropriate early education standards for Head Start or provide school districts with the option to do so, Resnick says. NSBA also supports efforts to enhance the skills and credentials of Head Start teachers.

Under the President's proposal, states would have to submit a plan describing how they will develop the skills and behavior children must possess to perform well in kindergarten. These include language development; such pre-reading skills as phonological awareness, letter knowledge, and vocabulary; numeracy; and social and emotional competence.

The plan calls for states to develop an accountability program that will indicate how well children in individual programs are performing.

States would be encouraged to coordinate state and federal early childhood programs, such as Head Start, Early Head Start, Title I preschool, the special education preschool program, and state-funded preschool programs.

The Head Start legislation is up for reauthorization this year, but no bills have been introduced yet.

The House Committee on Education and the Workforce hopes to introduce a bill by the end of May. Members of the committee agree with the President's proposal to give Head Start "a stronger academic focus," but they also want to "preserve the non-academic aspects" of the program, a committee aide says.

Comprehensive services

The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee is working on a bipartisan bill, says a committee aide.

Several Democratic members of the committee oppose the President's plan. "Allowing states to funnel Head Start funds to other state programs will undeniably lead to a weakening of the program's quality," states an April 8 letter to Education Secretary Rod Paige from Democratic Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (Mass), George Miller (Calif.), Christopher Dodd (Conn.), and Lynn Woolsey (Calif.).

"The block grant proposal assumes that states are in a position to continue Head Start's comprehensive level of services," the letter states. "But shrinking state budgets have already begun to compromise the quality and accessibility of prekindergarten programs. A number of states have cut or even eliminated funding used to supplement Head Start."

The letter also raises concerns about a Bush Administration proposal to implement a standardized test this fall to every 4 and 5-year-old in a Head Start program. The senators argue the results of such a test won't be reliable because few early childhood teachers have the training to implement the assessment.

Head Start works

"Head Start should be expanded, not trashed," says Ron Herndon, chair of the National Head Start Association (NHSA) and director of the Albina Head Start program in Portland, Ore.

"Head Start is one of the federal government's great success stories," he says. "This is a classic if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it situation."

According to an NHSA study, Dismantling Head Start: The Case for Saving America's Most Successful Early Child Development Program, if the Administration's plan is implemented, states would end up serving fewer children or providing fewer services to children.

NHSA Deputy Director Michael McGrady says his organization opposes consolidating Head Start funding with other program funds because "states historically have taken block grant money and used it for other purposes." With so many states dealing with huge budget deficits, there would be a strong temptation for governors to divert Head Start dollars to the state's general fund.

Head Start already is a literacy program, as well as a nutrition and health program, but "to focus only on literacy ignores the fact that these children live in poverty," McGrady says. "Many of these children live in neighborhoods where crime and drugs are rampant, and many have never seen a doctor or dentist before. To turn it into a literacy program is ridiculous."

The literacy component can be strengthened without destroying the concept of the program, he says.

Plan would be optional

Wade F. Horn, assistant secretary for children and families at HHS, says some of the critics of the President's proposal have misunderstood or misinterpreted key elements of the plan. "The President is not proposing to block-grant Head Start funding to the states," he says.

In testimony to Congress in March, Horn said, "Head Start will continue to be managed as a federal-to-local program, except in those instances where states choose to develop plans for comprehensive and integrated preschool services that are approved by the Secretary of HHS and the Secretary of Education."