Head Start

“Ideological Conflicts Pose New Threat to Head Start” (Aug. 6) concerns money, not education. By education we must not only mean children, but the family unit, whatever it may be. Rep. Frank Riggs (R-Windsor) pushed through an amendment requiring mothers seeking to enroll their children in Head Start to provide information on the child’s paternity. Granted, absentee parents should help in a child’s upbringing, but to force parents to try to tell what they may not know, or are afraid to tell, is not the answer.

Any good preschool program must be one in which a parent as well as the child can feel secure, a program in which a parent can discuss problems without fear of being ostracized or turned away. Teachers say “discipline begins at home.” There is no better place than a good preschool to provide the help needed, not force, to change generations of destructive behavior. It is time we stopped holding up money for Head Start, the most important part of our educational system.

MARTHA K. CHAMBERS

Downey