Ideological Conflicts Pose New Threat to Head Start

An unexpected outbreak of ideological conflict in the House threatens to derail bipartisan efforts to renew the charter for Head Start, the popular federal program that provides preschool training, nutrition and other services to poor children.

Conservatives on the House Education and Workforce Committee, including many who last year tried to unseat Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) for an alleged lack of ideological zeal, have added provisions to their version of the five-year reauthorization bill that are so controversial that the committee’s chairman, Rep. William F. Goodling (R-Pa.), is afraid to take them to the House floor.

It “poses political risks for us,” one GOP source said. “Some of the advocacy groups and some Democrats are spoiling for a fight, and we don’t want a fight on Head Start.”

It is hard to imagine Congress letting Head Start die. Historically, the program has been so apple-pie popular that Republicans as well as Democrats have expanded it steadily since its birth as part of President Johnson’s “war on poverty” more than 30 years ago. It now serves about 830,000 children whose family incomes are below the poverty line.

Whatever the outcome, the revolt in the House offered dramatic evidence that the ideological fires of the Republican revolution still burn hot enough to engulf even a program as seemingly unassailable as Head Start.

On Wednesday, Goodling scrambled to find a way out of the box. His goal: broker a cease-fire by stripping away most of the controversial provisions and letting an House-Senate conference committee deal with the rest.

The partisan bickering comes at a difficult moment for Head Start. Both Democrats and Republicans are pressing the program to not only continue to increase the number of children it serves, but to expand its mission in two important ways: sharpening its educational component and offering more child care to help welfare mothers move into the job market.

Goodling said he hopes to get a cleaned-up version of the bill onto the floor and approved before the House adjourns Friday for its August recess. Otherwise, reauthorization will be delayed at least until after Labor Day, when it would have to find its way amid the still more-partisan and hurried deliberations of a Congress distracted by the impending November elections.

In the Senate, a five-year reauthorization measure, crafted by conservative Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) in cooperation with the Clinton administration, passed late last month with nary a dissenting vote.

That kind of consensus is what Goodling, a 24-year veteran of congressional give and take, had labored to craft on the House side. His primary focus was on modifying the existing program to put greater emphasis on educational quality--by including performance goals, phasing in requirements for more trained teachers as well as other provisos.

His proposals were not considered deal-busters, especially since he proposed authorizing the $4.6 billion sought by the White House.

Quality vs. expansion, however, was not where the action turned out to be when Goodling’s committee began to mark up the bill.

The first explosion came over a proposal, which Goodling supported but now is willing to abandon, to exempt Head Start from the Davis-Bacon Act--which specifies that workers on federal construction projects be paid the “prevailing wage” in their region.

Since construction is a minuscule part of Head Start’s budget--totaling $22 million--the debate is largely symbolic. But committee Democrats saw the move as anti-labor and fought, unsuccessfully, to have it restored.

Rep. Frank Riggs (R-Windsor), who has sought to add an array of conservative provisions to education bills this year, also pushed through an amendment requiring mothers seeking to enroll their children in Head Start to provide information on the child’s paternity. And he won approval for letting Head Start parents get voucher-like certificates enabling them to pay for private preschool if their Head Start program shut down.

Both ideas are anathema to Democrats, child advocacy groups and the administration. Imposing the paternity issue on Head Start would only create a barrier to needy children, opponents argued.