Credit: Lillian Mongeau/EdSource

Credit: Lillian Mongeau/EdSource

The U.S. House of Representatives didactics committee released a white paper Midweek that calls for strengthening the federal Head Start preschool plan by coordinating existing early learning programs, improving quality and enhancing parental involvement.

"Quality early babyhood didactics plays an important role in the health and success of the nation's most vulnerable children," the white paper states. "Recognizing the very existent financial challenges facing the country, policymakers take a responsibility to examine and reform existing early care and education programs before creating new programs and promises."

President Barack Obama in his 2022 State of the Union address called for universal preschool, and in December announced a federal investment of $1 billion in preschool. In his address to the country this calendar week, he proposed helping parents encompass the surging costs of child intendance.

The white paper references a February 2022 report past the Government Accounting Function that institute the federal investment in early learning and child care is administered through 45 different programs. Many of these programs, the GAO report said, overlap, raising concerns almost efficiency and effectiveness.

The paper too mentioned the Caput Commencement Impact Study, which found that gains from the plan do non final through the stop of 1st grade. A afterward study of the aforementioned students found little do good through tertiary grade. Critics of the studies have said that they did not consider the quality of the Caput Start programs or the quality of the children'southward elementary schools, which were typically in low-income neighborhoods.

The Head Start Act was terminal rewritten in 2007. In 2014, Congress reformed the Child Intendance and Evolution Block Grant Deed for the first time in most two decades. Information technology included reforms to heighten parental choice, strengthen child safety and promote loftier-quality care. Co-ordinate to the white paper, Congress should build on this progress by reforming Head Start to:

  • Reduce unnecessary regulations;
  • Encourage local innovation;
  • Strengthen coordination between Head Start and local and state programs;
  • Improve the quality of eligible providers; and
  • Enhance parental engagement.

The public is encouraged to provide feedback on reforming the Head Start program via electronic mail at headstart.reform@mail.house.gov by June 1, 2015.

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