Protect Head Start

High-quality early childhood education supports young children’s healthy development and yields long-term benefits from reduced teen pregnancies to higher wages. Head Start, a free childcare program serving nearly 800,000 low-income children, is an essential education and social safety net program that fosters healthy development and provides services from food assistance to developmental screenings. Despite the program’s clear benefits to child health, the Trump administration has repeatedly tried to defund it. Now, the administration is proposing sweeping changes that would reduce Head Start funding and compromise program quality.

The proposed changes to Head Start would reduce the administrative spending cap from 15% to 5% and loosen or eliminate program standards for things like class sizes, instructional hours, and staff education and background check requirements. The program would also require all instruction occur in English. While the administration claims these changes reduce administrative burden, educators and early childhood advocates fear they will weaken service quality, particularly for children with special needs and multilingual children and families.

Head Start is a highly effective program operating under evidence-based standards that protect child safety and foster healthy development. Having failed to defund Head Start, the Trump administration is now trying to kneecap the program through regulatory changes. Urge Congress to protect Head Start’s funding levels and standards. Then, leave a comment opposing these changes before October 6th.