Putting Politics Over Preschool

Isn’t it curious that there are just about the same number of Head Start programs around the country--1,456--as there are pork barrel projects in this year’s already approved highway bill? Given Head Start’s excellent track record, it is even more curious that the 33-year-old comprehensive child development program for poor children still gets caught up in partisan politicking, as it has this year. At this point, it should be a slam-dunk for funding.

President Clinton has asked for a $305-million increase in Head Start funds; Head Start’s total budget, it should be noted, is $4.3 billion a year--less than half the amount of pork ($9.3 billion) in the transportation bill.

Head Start may yet get what the president seeks, although no one knows for sure because the labor, health and human services appropriations bill is always one of the last to pass and always contains many hot-button issues. But Head Start is used to beginning its school year in financial uncertainty.

What’s new and potentially nasty are several amendments posed by ideological Republicans to the House measure, which is intended to extend Head Start’s life for five more years. The amendments would exempt the program from paying prevailing wages for any Head Start construction or renovation projects--a swipe at the unions--and require Head Start to obtain information on the paternity of all children it enrolls. If the purpose of the latter punitive provision is to encourage parental involvement, Head Start already has better ways of doing that.

Rep. William Goodling (R-Pa.), who chairs the House Education and Workforce Committee, tried to get a bill to the House floor before the recess began Friday that would drop those provisions and concentrate on educational quality. But the clock ran out him. A committee spokesman promised that those measures won’t be in the final bill being taken up this fall, but with this Congress, it’s not over until the last vote is taken. The right course is clear: Kill these amendments and move on to what should be the real controversy about Head Start, which is that it is so grossly underfunded that it serves only 40% of those eligible.

In 1990, Congress talked about fully funding Head Start, but it never has. President Clinton, to his credit, wants to see Head Start expanded to serve 1 million children by 2002, about 200,000 more than are currently enrolled. That’s a doable goal, and we should hold him to it. But it’s not nearly enough.

Why should we care about Head Start? Because millions of American children--at least a third--enter kindergarten unprepared to learn. Head Start provides the tools--learning the alphabet, figuring out how to hold a pencil, recognizing colors, getting along with others, learning to share--that children need. They also get nutritious meals and have their teeth, vision and hearing checked, just like middle-class children preparing for school.

Head Start also involves children’s parents in their education, a key to later success. For example, it helps parents understand the importance of reading to their children and other activities.

This kind of support for young children clearly works. A 1997 report from the Families and Work Institute in New York stated that research “has consistently shown that high-quality child care and early education can boost children’s chances for later success in school.”

Head Start now is moving toward helping infants and toddlers as well as 3- and 4-year-olds. Early Head Start is the hot new program. In Venice, for example, home visitors help parents learn what children should be able to do at each stage of their development. Elsewhere, Head Start programs work with teenage parents to develop skills in taking care of their children or work with migrant farm worker parents who can’t be with their young children during the day because they are picking crops.

Head Start is hardly perfect. Many of its centers need to focus more on educational standards. Staff members need more hands-on professional development. And, like other child care workers, Head Start teachers aren’t paid enough for the work they do, which sometimes means the program can’t recruit or retain the quality staff it needs.

But its strengths are unassailable, and it has merited bipartisan support for much of its history. Congress needs to stop fooling around with off-the-point amendments and give it the money to back up its good intentions.

Head Start is as important a part of the infrastructure of America as a good highway system. It will be to everyone’s advantage to see that it receives the same congressional concern.