Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) today hailed passage of the Head Start for School Readiness Act to strengthen and improve the federal Head Start preschool program.  The legislation passed the Senate by unanimous consent last night.  Senator Dodd, a senior Democrat on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee and Chairman of its Subcommittee on Children and Families, has been working on the legislation since 2003 along with the Chairman of the HELP Committee, Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA). 

“Head Start addresses the comprehensive needs of children and their families by not only offering academic opportunities, but also supports for health, nutrition, social skills, and more,” said Dodd.  “Head Start establishes the foundation for a lifetime of learning for many of our most vulnerable children, in Connecticut and throughout the nation, and its reauthorization provides for continued success and additional resources to strengthen its impact.  Nothing reduces poverty like learning, and Head Start gives children what they need to learn early.”

For more than forty years, Head Start has helped to provide low-income children with comprehensive early childhood development services which will help prepare them to succeed in kindergarten and beyond.  The program currently serves more than 900,000 children across the nation, including nearly 9,000 children in Connecticut.  This reauthorization extends access to Head Start to children from families with incomes up to 130% of the federal poverty line, and expands opportunities for children of migrant families, Native American children, homeless children, foster children, and infants and toddlers in Early Head Start programs.  The legislation also enhances teacher quality expectations and increases overall Head Start funding, in recognition of the tremendous operating costs to which the program is subject. 

The bipartisan effort to pass this legislation was supported by dozens of organizations, among them the National Head Start Association, the Center for Law and Social Policy, and the National Council of La Raza.

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