issue guide: Head Start

Background & Facts

see also the skinny, pro & con, links

Head Start — The Act

Head Start has been paying for comprehensive education and health services for the nation's poorest pre-schoolers since 1968. The program, which is managed by the Department of Health and Human Services, received $6.74 billion in 2003, manages 19,000 Head Start centers in all fifty states and the District of Columbia, and enrolls more than 900,000 students (about 70 percent of eligible four-year-olds and 40 percent of eligible three-year-olds), at a cost of $7,488 per child/student.

Head Start has as good a reputation as a government program can ask for; most people, including policymakers, believe it supports child development and helps prepare children for school. But Head Start, which is financed by direct federal funding of local projects (bypassing states), has come under scrutiny because critics believe it does a sub-par job of preparing children for school (students gains are small when compared to more successful pre-K programs and those gains all but disappear in the long term). In addition, the cost per child covered is considered high; by comparison, the current average cost to educate K-12 students is not not much higher ($8,000).

The Proposed Changes - 2004

• Establish spending caps for five years, beginning with
$6.87 billion in 2004, increasing to $7.42 billion in 2008 (1.95%
annual increases).
• Raise the educational requirements for Head Start teachers,
demanding that all teachers hired after 2005 have at least a two-year
college degree, and that half of all Head Start teachers have four-year
college degrees by 2008.
• Promote better coordination between pre-K and school aged programs.
• Authorize block grant demonstration programs in up to 8 states. Demonstration states would enjoy great flexibility in administering Head Start funds. States who choose to take over Head Start must pledge not to reduce state and local money spent on preschool centers, and to maintain at least the level of services children currently receive under the federal program.
• Require states to establish standards for judging how well their programs prepare children for kindergarten.
• Allow religiously affiliated Head Start providers to consider religion in hiring decisions for jobs paid for out of taxpayer money.

Update in 2005:

Committees in the House and Senate okayed the updated versions of the reauthorization bill in May 2005. Dropped from both bills this year were plans to give states block grants to administer Head Start. The block grants were designed to give states greater flexibility to improve Head Start programs, but they proved to be the most controversial part of last year's bill.

The House passed its Head Start bill on September 22, 2005. (USAT) It's not clear when the Senate will take up its version for a vote.

The Senate bill would:

  • authorize $7.2 billion in spending for Head start for 2006;

  • require that low-performing programs compete for funding every five years;

  • require Head Start teachers attend at least 15 hours of training a year.

The House bill would:

  • authorize $6.8 billion in funding for 2006;

  • also require low-performing programs compete for re-funding;

  • allow faith-based organizations with Head Start programs to hire employees based on their religious beliefs (EW)

Update 2007

CongressDaily isn't reporting too heavily on the details of the bill that was finally passed in '07, (and we're currently too busy/lazy to do any other research). What CongressDaily does say is that the final bill doesn't give faith-based organizations a waiver to hire based on religion, but that it does up the requirement for Head Start teachers to have college degrees - up to 50% of all teachers by 2013. It also adds the numbers for how much can go toward Head Start: $7.35 billion in '08, $7.5 billion in '09 and$7.9 billion in '10.

Updated November, 2007

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