Ray Davis’ recent letter attacking funding for pre-K programs — and focused entirely on the Federal Head Start program — cites flawed data and fails to account for decades of research that show Head Start children and families graduate from high school at higher rates, engage in healthier behaviors and are less likely to be involved in criminal activity.
Pre-K is more than learning colors and numbers, although these cognitive skills are critical, and this is especially true for children from families with low income. Behavioral competencies — persistence, motivation, cooperation with others and more — compliment cognitive skills and are equally critical for success later in life, and Head Start children have demonstrated retention of these concepts well beyond the early learning years of birth to 5.
Additionally, it’s important to remember that Head Start is more than an early-childhood education initiative. Specific to families with low income, Head Start provides family development including two-thirds of daily nutrition for children who otherwise may eat poorly or miss meals altogether. Staff members in Head Start programs work with families on completing high school equivalency diplomas or moving through post-secondary education to employment or higher wages, so the entire family is better off in the short and long term.
In the end, though, Head Start is proven to effectively ensure that hundreds of thousands of children from families with low incomes enter kindergarten each year ready to learn, which is exactly what Congress funds the program to do. Mr. Davis’ citation of a federal study from more than two decades ago and a GAO study highly criticized by child-development experts fails to support his assertion that “it’s time to put an end to Head Start.” If anything, Kentucky should follow the model of other states acknowledging the value of early-childhood learning by expanding to universal pre-K and fully incorporating the Head Start model into that work. Few organizations anywhere provide higher levels of early-childhood and family services than Head Start providers who have been serving young children since the 1960s. For our part, Community Action Council’s Head Start program — using an assessment tool also utilized by the Kentucky Department of Education — sent 90 percent of the 4-year-olds we served to kindergarten “school ready” in 2012.
Mr. Davis goes on to cite isolated examples of Head Start grantees that misused or misappropriated funding. I fail to see how a small percentage of organizational failures justify shutting down an $8 billion federal initiative. Using Mr. Davis’ logic, America’s banks should have been shut down decades ago, and many certainly wouldn’t have lasted past 2008. Shutting down banks doesn’t eliminate the need for banking services any more than shutting down Head Start would eliminate the need for intensive early-childhood and family development for families with low income.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is taking steps to increase oversight of Head Start grantees and, as a winner of Outstanding Head Start Grantee recognition, our organization welcomes their interest. The funding for poorly performing grantees will be terminated and given to organizations that can effectively ensure real outcomes for the children of their community. The Obama administration is to be commended for recognizing that the need for greater oversight does not mean we throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Head Start represents approximately 0.2 percent of the federal budget. If Mr. Davis is so concerned about wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars, perhaps he would be best served to start with an area of the budget that’s responsible for a greater percentage of federal expenditures.
– Jack Burch, CCAP, executive director, Community Action Council