Head Start

Head Start is a program of the United States Department of Health and Human Services that focuses on assisting children from low-income families. Created in 1965, Head Start is the longest-running program for stopping the cycle of poverty in the United States. It provides comprehensive education, health, nutrition, and parent involvement services to low-income children and their families. As of late 2005, more than 22 million pre-school aged children have participated in Head Start. The $6.8+ billion dollar budget for 2005 provided services to more than 905,000 children, 57% of whom were four years old or older, and 43% three years old or younger. Services were provided by 1,604 different programs operating more than 48,000 classrooms scattered across every state (and nearly every county) at an average cost of $7,222 per child. The paid staff of nearly 212,000 people is dwarfed by an army of volunteers six times as large.

History

Head Start was started as part of President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty. A key part of the Great Society domestic agenda, the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 authorized programs to help meet the needs of disadvantaged preschool children. Some economists and advisors to President Johnson at the time believed that poverty was directly linked to a lack of adequate education. Children from poorer areas and families often struggled in school and were prone to high drop out rates, reducing there chances of finding employment that paid well. Hence, poorer children tended to remain poor as well develop families of there own that faced the same difficulties they did as children. The belief at the time was that boosting academic achievement would help break the cycle of and ultimately diminish poverty in general.

A panel of child experts recognized two main areas that hindered the success of disadvantaged children in school: First, poorer children, upon entering compulsatory schooling (usually at the kindergarten level since poorer families could not afford preschool) were at a lower intellectual level than other students. There were many theories for this. Poor children often came from parents who themselves were not highly educated and thus were not able to pass on academic knowledge to their children. They also had less access to educational and social stimuli than their middle and higher class peers. Second, poorer children did not have access to the level of health care that children from middle and higher class families did, and therefore were more likely to develop more medical conditions that went undiagnosed for long periods of time. Often, since these conditions went untreated for some time, developed into more serious problems that affected the child's academic performance and resulted into economic hardship for his or her families.

Based on these findings, the Office of Economic Opportunity launched Project Head Start as an eight-week summer program in 1965. The project aimed to attack the main two problems facing preschool age children from low-income families by providing a program that would meet emotional, social, health, nutritional, and psychological needs. It also targeted parents as well, encouraging them to become active in helping not just their own children, but others in similar situations as well.

Although Head Start, along with Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 as a whole, was almost universally applauded as moves towards equality when they were created, there was a vocal opposition to such programs that gained momentum during the years that followed. Some of the detractors were motivated by political ideology, labeling Johnson's programs as being too liberal. Others, including some economists, felt that it was not the government's place to lend everyone such an extensive helping hand and that the efforts would not help curb poverty. President Richard Nixon was one such Head Start dissenter who felt that there was no data that could reliably prove that the program worked. However, Head Start was very popular and Nixon merely attempted to trim back some of the costs. One day was by having the program's administration transferred to the Office of Child Development in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (later the Department of Health and Human Services) in 1969.

Of all the programs established by the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, Head Start is the only one to contuine to this very day. Today it is a program within the Administration on Children, Youth and Families in the HHS. Programs are administered locally by non-profit organizations and local education agencies such as school systems.

Programs

There are many sub-categories of programs that fall under the control of the Head Start Organization:

• Early Head Start - promotes healthy prenatal outcomes, promotes healthy family functioning, and strengthens the development of infants and toddlers beginning as young as newborn infants. Within EHS are several intitiatives, including Little Voices for Healthy Choices, a program that focuses on the the nutrition and health of infants and toddlers.

• Head Start- helps to create healthy development in low-income children. Programs offer a wide variety of services, that depend on a child's and each family's heritage and experience, to influence all aspects of a child's development and learning.

• Migrant and Seasonal Program Branch- provides the children of migrant and seasonal farm workers who meet income and other eligibility guidelines with Head Start services
• American Indian-Alaska Native Program Branch- provides American Indian and Alaska Native children and families with services such as: health care, educational, nutritional, socialization, as well as other services promoting school readiness. Services are primarily for disadvantaged preschool children, and infants and toddlers.

Services

• Eligibility- Eligibility for Head Start services is largely income-based (100% of the federal poverty level), though each locally-operated program includes other eligibility criteria such as disabilities and services to other family members. As of late 2006, up to 10% of any funded program's enrollment can be from over-income families.
• Disabilities- All programs provide full services to children with disabilities
• Education- The goal of Head Start is to ensure that those children enrolled in the program are ready to begin school. Educational standards are fully outlined in national performance standards which, over the years, have become the de facto standards for high-quality pre-school education programs.
• Family and Community Partnerships- both groups involved in operation, governance and evaluation of the program. Both groups make vital contributions.
• Health- health is seen as an important factor in a child's ability to thrive and develop. Program provides screenings to evaluate a child's overall health, then help to ensure regular health check-ups, including dental care. All Head Start programs espouse and teach good practices in oral health, hygiene, nutrition, personal care, and safety.
• Program Management and Operations- "focus on delivering high-quality child development services to children from low-income families."

Effectiveness

The long term effectiveness of Head Start is controversial. Set out below are a number of critical and positive reports or statements on Head Start. In light of the controversy, Congress commissioned an Impact Statement, which is discussed below.

Reports and statements critical of Head Start

The authors of Freakonomics conclude that Head Start participation has no effect on test scores in early years of school, based on regression analysis of data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study. Levitt, one of the authors of Freakonomics, and Fryer come to the same conclusion in one 2004 paper they wrote.

Another issue has been that according to the most widely cited source supporting Head Start, children who finish the program and are placed into disadvantaged schools perform worse than their peers by 2nd grade. Only by continuing to isolate these children (such as dispersing and sending them to better performing school districts) can the gains be captured.

Reports and statements with mixed reviews of Head Start

A study conducted in 2004 concluded that early education does increase reading and mathematics skills at school entry, but it also boosts children's classroom behavioral problems and reduces their self-control. Further, for most children the positive effects of pre-kindergarten on skills largely dissipate by the spring of first grade, although the negative behavioral effects continue. However, the study also found that, in contrast to the general population in pre-kindergarten, disadvantaged children and those attending schools with "low levels of academic instruction" get the largest and most lasting academic gains from early education.

In their study, Currie and Thomas try to control for many family background factors. The analysis is based on within-family data, comparing children in Head Start with their siblings who were not in Head Start. Also, mothers who were themselves enrolled in Head Start were compared to their adult sisters who were not. Currie and Thomas analyzed groups separately by ethnicity: White, Black and Hispanic. White children, who were the most disadvantaged, showed larger and longer lasting improvements than African-American children.

Reports and statements supportive of Head Start

According to Datta (Datta, 1976 & Lee et al.,1990) who summarized 31 studies, the program showed immediate improvement in the IQ scores of participating children, though after beginning school, the non-participants were able to narrow the difference.

Congressional Impact Study

Congress mandated an intensive study of the effectiveness of Head Start, the "Head Start Impact Study," which has issued a series of reports on the design and study of a target population of 5000 3- and 4- year old children. The Head Start Impact Study First Year Findings were released in June of 2005. The study participants, beginning in fall 2002, were assigned to either the headstart program or other parent-selected community resources. Thus, the study measured Head Start's effectiveness as compared to a variety of other forms of community support and educational intervention, as opposed to comparing Head Start to a non-intervention alternative.

The results of the first report showed consistent small to moderate advantages to children from participating in Head Start programs rather than other programs, with a few areas where no advantage was reported. The benefits improved with early participation and varied among racial and ethnic groups.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Andrew, John A. Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society (Ivan R. Dee 1999) ISBN 1566631858
• Books, Sue. Poverty and Schooling in the U.S.: Contexts and Consequences (Lawrence Erlbaum 2001) ISBN Lawrence Erlbaum
• Cravens, Hamilton. Before Head Start: The Iowa Station and America's Children (The University of North Carolina Press 2002) ISBN 0807854328
• Iceland, John. Poverty in America: A Handbook (University of California Press 2006) ISBN 0520248414
• Washington, Valo. Project Head Start: Models and Strategies for the Twenty-First Century (Garland Reference Library of Social Science, Vol 827) (Routledge 1994) ISBN 0815312075
• Zigler, Edward. The Head Start Debates: Are We Failing the Children most at Risk? (Brookes Publishing 2004) ISBN 1557667543

External links

• http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/hsb/
• Welcome to Head Start (official)
• National Head Start Association (official)
• The Head Start Experience
• Read Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports regarding Head Start
• National Bureau of Economic Research
• SUCCESS OF HEAD START—SCHOOL READINESS

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