A Better Way to Reform Head Start
The federal Head Start program has needed a makeover since it launched in 1965, but the Trump administration’s approach doesn’t go far enough. Reports on the White House’s plan indicate it would scrap most of Head Start’s so-called quality standards and let the states decide—an idea with merit. But the federal government should aim for a deregulated Head Start that prepares needy 3- to 5-year-olds to succeed in kindergarten and beyond.
America’s education woes begin with 5-year-olds who aren’t ready for kindergarten. Schools should do more to solve this problem—hooray for the “science of reading” movement that’s sweeping the land—but the results would be much greater if more children arrived with a proper head start. That’s unlikely under the Trump plan.
From the beginning, Head Start turned a blind eye to school preparation. It set out to be a “child development” program. Its Great Society architects wanted “to help break the cycle of poverty, providing preschool children of low-income families with a comprehensive program to meet their emotional, social, health, nutritional and psychological needs.” All to the good, but you find nothing about getting kids ready to learn the 3 Rs.
Experts, the center directors who profit from operating the program and hundreds of thousands of staffers in those centers—many without college degrees themselves—have fought long and hard against turning Head Start into an education program. When the Education Department was created in 1979, the program remained in Health and Human Services.
