Head Start Is Dear To My Heart
by Caroline Vernon
This is an issue very close to my heart. All four of my children participated in Head Start. My oldest daughter is 26 and my youngest son is 10, so that gives you an idea as to the extent of my involvement with the program.
Head Start, for many families, is a wonderful arm of support that helps young, and often struggling single parents, create a fundamental structure and environment for learning that is truly empowering for pre-schoolers. With each of my children, I can say for certain, their early development was positively augmented through their participation in the program. Head Start not only helps to create a sense of empowerment but a love for learning. This is so crucial at such an early age. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to participate in the program for my children's sake.
I received the following from the Coalition for Human Needs; www.chn.org:
Caroline
From our friends at the National Head Start Association:
Deadline TODAY, May 31: Organizations, Please Sign a Letter to Restore Head Start Funding.
As Head Start advocates and supporters of early childhood education, we have created the Head Start Works coalition to advocate for increased funding for Head Start in 2007. Head Start Works is a network of business leaders that have organized to support Head Start as a program that invests in our children and the next generation of American workers.
We are writing to ask that you join the Head Start Works campaign to increase funding for Head Start by signing your organization on to the attached letter asking Congress to provide at least $234 million in additional funding for Head Start in 2007 to restore cuts made in FY 2006 and provide a cost of living increase.
At present, only half of the eligible children are able to access Head Start due to funding shortfalls. If the 2006 cuts are not restored, Head Start programs will be forced to reduce the number of children served even further and cut back on the education and social services that have become the hallmark of Head Start.
Our goal in to get a broad base of Head Start supporters – including community based organizations, faith based groups, business leaders and state and local governments – to sign on in support of this modest funding increase to invest in a program with a proven track record of success.
At the bottom of this email is the text of the letter addressed to the House Labor, HHS Appropriation’s leadership and an identical letter will go to the Senate leadership as well.
If your organization would like to sign, please email the following information to Joel Ryan at jryan@nhsa.org by close of business Wednesday, May 31st.
Name of your organization:
City:
State:
Contact person and email address:
Your organization will be added to both the House and Senate letters and a final copy of the sign-on letters will be emailed to you so that you can share them with Members of Congress to indicate just how deep and strong support for Head Start is.
Sincerely,
Aaron Lieberman, Acelero Learning
Yasmine Daniel, Children's Defense Fund
Patrick McIntyre, The United Way
Gary Ferdman, Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities
Joel Ryan, National Head Start Association
Yvette Sanchez, National Migrant and Seasonal Head Start Association
Text of Letter:
Dear Chairman Regula and Ranking Member Obey:
We the undersigned represent religious organizations, community groups, business leaders, parent councils, social services organizations, and state and local governments. We are proud to support the call of the Head Start Works coalition to increase funding for Head Start in the Fiscal Year 2007 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor-HHS) Appropriations bill. The Head Start Works coalition is a network of business leaders that have come together to support Head Start as a program that invests in our children and the next generation of American workers. We join them in this call because we see the difference Head Start makes every day in the communities where we live and work.
At minimum, we are asking that you provide at least $234 million in additional funding for Head Start, which would restore the FY2006 cuts and provide a cost of living increase for FY2007. It is the minimum funding level that we believe is necessary to maintain enrollment and ensure that Head Start programs can continue to provide quality education and services to children in the coming year.
For over four decades, Head Start has significantly improved the lives of low income children and their families across the nation. Its high-quality early education initiatives, as well as its health, nutrition, and social services programs, work together in an integrated and comprehensive manner to help children get ahead and improve their chances for success. With these components in place, children are able to attain higher test scores in reading and math, display better social skills with their peers and adults, and miss less school as a result of health issues.
In fact, research has demonstrated that providing the necessary funding for Head Start is an extremely cost-effective investment. James Heckman, the winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2000, notes that early childhood programs such as Head Start provide a much greater economic return than other later interventions. He writes that “[t]he economic return to early interventions is high. The return to later intervention is lower. The reason for this relationship is the technology of skill formation. Skill begets skill and early skill makes later skill acquisition easier.”
In addition, according to a recent study of more than 600 Head Start graduates in San Bernardino County, California, society receives nearly $9 in benefits for every $1 invested in Head Start children – an almost 900 percent return on investment. These benefits include increased earnings, employment, and family stability, and decreased welfare dependency, crime costs, grade repetition, and special education. Other studies find that Head Start children perform better on cognitive, language, and health measures than their comparison group counterparts did.
In spite of the evidence that Head Start is a good investment, we continue to see cuts in funding. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), the FY2006 budget reduced Head Start funding by 2.8 percent accounting for inflation. This cut will result in providers either serving fewer low income children or reducing services. If the providers choose only to decrease the number of Head Start slots, CBPP estimates that as many as 25,000 children could be cut from the program.
A Summer 2005 National Head Start Association survey also discovered that 89 percent of Head Start and Early Head Start programs had to make budget cuts during the past year due to funding shortfalls. As programs entered the 2005-2006 school year, 30 percent reported laying off teachers, 70 percent had furloughed non-teacher staff members, 30 percent reduced or eliminated health care coverage, 65 percent cut transportation services, 47 percent reduced training, 12 percent trimmed services for children with disabilities, and 39 percent reported cutting operating hours per day and/or the length of the year. Furthermore, as heating oil and gas prices cause occupancy costs to skyrocket this year, the Head Start funding crisis will become only more severe.
In order to ensure that low income children and their families continue to receive the comprehensive services they need to enter school ready to learn, it is vital that the FY2007 Labor-HHS Appropriations bill restore the funding cuts from last year by providing $234 million in additional funding for the Head Start program.
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