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President Bush's intentions to overhaul Head Start contradict the success of the program, which helped more than 900,000 underprivileged children last year.
Few efforts by the federal government can claim to have improved as many children's lives as Head Start. Given that success, President Bush owes a better explanation for why he would give the job to states.
In his remarks at a Landover, Md., school, Bush said that "every Head Start center must prepare children to succeed by teaching the basics of learning and literacy. That's the cornerstone of the plan." He outlined qualifications for teachers, testing requirements for children, and new accountability measures for program operators.
So how, then, is that best accomplished by giving up direct federal control? How can he be sure that states won't use the $6.7-billion in federal money merely to offset their own ailing budgets?
The need for dramatic overhaul is far from clear. Bush acknowledges that Head Start is doing "okay" in its mission, begun almost four decades ago during President Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty, to give poor 3- and 4-year-olds access to better nutrition, care and learning opportunities. Most of the longitudinal studies of Head Start are less grudging in their praise, crediting the program with reducing the gap in learning between poor children and those from more privileged backgrounds. Last year, some 900,000 children took part, through a system of 2,590 community-based programs that drew on the commitment of 1.3-million volunteers.
The president's apparent disregard for that success is part of the reason his sincerity is in doubt. In announcing his plan, Bush rejected the advice of most Head Start program providers throughout the nation. He proposes a major remake at a time when Congress is one year into a four-year, in-depth assessment of the program. How can he pretend to know the findings?
Bush is right that Head Start can be improved and that it can be better coordinated with the growing number of state programs. But his plan seems obsessed with the issue of state control, even though his own experiment would reach no more than eight states in the beginning. What about the other 42?
More telling, his plan can be fairly assessed as cheap talk. He calls for better-qualified teachers and supports a House bill that would require college degrees for at least half of all teachers by 2008. But his budget provides no new source of money to pay them. Head Start teachers are now paid less than most cosmetologists, and the Trust for Early Education estimates that the House plan would require $2-billion more for salaries. Though the president also says he seeks to apply his "no child left behind" philosophy to Head Start, his plan offers no budgetary cure for the two of every five eligible poor children who are not now served at all.
The reaction, then, has been predictable. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., was in his first term when Head Start was created in 1965, and his response was this: "It makes no sense to start down a totally new path with a program that's been proven effective by three full decades of research. Why would anyone want to turn Head Start into Slow Start or No Start?"
Bush's rush to overhaul Head Start invites such political attack. If he thinks the program is a vital service to underprivileged children, why is he scrambling to give it up?