Improving Head Start
On December 5, 2007, a congressional enrollment ceremony was held for the Improving Head Start for School Readiness Act, H.R. 1429. The President signed this bill into law on December 12, 2007.
Watch:
Head Start has been the premiere early childhood education program in the U.S. for more than 40 years. It has served more than 20 million children and families in that time, and it remains a cornerstone in this country’s efforts to close the achievement gap, combat poverty, and provide all Americans with the opportunity to thrive. The Improving Head Start for School Readiness Act of 2007 will reinvigorate Head Start and help more children arrive at kindergarten ready to succeed. The bipartisan legislation improves teacher and classroom quality, strengthens Head Start’s focus on school readiness, expands access to Head Start for more children, ensures that centers are well-run, boosts coordination between Head Start and state and local programs, and improves comprehensive services that help children by helping their families.
This bipartisan legislation reauthorizes and improves the Head Start program through FY 2012. The authorization for the Head Start program expired in FY 2003. And yet, due to a stalemate, the 108th and 109th Congresses failed to complete a final Head Start authorization bill to send to the President’s desk. A top priority of this Democratic-led New Direction Congress has been to break the stalemate and enact a bipartisan Head Start bill; and the Congress has now succeeded in achieving this goal.
Research has shown that Head Start works in raising children’s achievement. Head Start has been the premiere early childhood education program in the U.S. for more than 40 years. It has served more than 20 million children and their families in that time. The research shows that Head Start works. Research finds that children who attend Head Start enter school better prepared than low-income children who do not attend the program. The congressionally-mandated Impact Study found that after less than one school year, Head Start narrowed the achievement gap by 45 percent in pre-reading and by 28 percent in pre-writing. There is also research showing that Head Start students experience IQ gains and are less likely to need special education services, repeat a grade, or commit crimes in adolescence. They are also more likely to graduate from high school.
The bill includes provisions to improve classroom and teacher quality. It increases teacher qualifications by requiring that 50 percent of Head Start teachers nationwide have a minimum of a baccalaureate degree in early childhood education or a related field by 2013. It also directs significant new funds in the conference report for program improvement activities, including increasing teacher salaries. In addition, it requires Head Start programs to develop career ladders and annual professional development plans for full-time staff.
The bill uses latest science to strengthen Head Start’s focus on school readiness. It requires that all Head Start programs use research-based practices to support the growth of children’s pre-literacy and vocabulary skills and improves professional development and classroom practices to better support children’s cognitive, social and emotional development. It also requires HHS to consult with experts to update as necessary the program’s early learning standards by using the best available science. In addition, it terminates further use of an inappropriate and ineffective testing regime for 4-year-olds – a regime known as the National Reporting System.
The bill calls for providing access to Head Start for more children, with a priority on expanding Early Head Start. There are currently about 900,000 children enrolled in Head Start. The conference report authorizes additional funding for Head Start for fiscal years 2008 through 2012 – allowing tens of thousands more children access to the program. It also provides greater flexibility to serve children whose family income is just above the federal poverty line (up to 130 percent of the poverty line), while ensuring that serving the neediest children remains the program’s top priority. In addition, the conference report also prioritizes expansion for Early Head Start, which serves children from birth to age three, so more children can receive Head Start during the critical development years when their brains are growing the fastest.
The bill has strong accountability measures – ensuring that Head Start programs are well-run and effective. The bill has several strong accountability measures. It requires underperforming programs to re-compete for their grants to ensure that underperforming programs are either replaced or quickly improved. It also allows the Department of Health and Human Services to more quickly take funding away from bad programs. In addition, it strengthens the monitoring of programs by improving the quality of review teams, requiring the inclusion of a detailed fiscal management protocol, and requiring follow-up site visits of deficient programs.
The bill strengthens comprehensive services for the families of Head Start children. Finally, it places a greater emphasis on the early identification of child and family mental health needs and on directing families to appropriate services. It also requires programs to implement research-based best practices for family service members and targets quality improvement dollars to decrease family service worker caseloads.