Head Start - History, Programs, Services

A national project begun in the USA in the early 1960s to help pre-school children from a disadvantaged background prepare for schooling. The main emphasis was on language and social development, but attention was also paid to health care and parent education.

Head Start is a program of the United States Department of Health and Human Services that focuses on assisting children from birth to age 5 and from low-income families. Created in 1965, Head Start is the longest-running national school readiness program in the United States. As of late 2005, more than 22 million pre-school aged children have participated in Head Start.

History

Head Start was started as part of President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty. A panel of child development experts drew up this program at the request of the Federal Government, and the program became what became Project Head Start.

The Office of Economic Opportunity launched Project Head Start as an eight-week summer program in 1965. The project was designed to help end poverty by providing preschool children from low-income families with a program that would meet emotional, social, health, nutritional, and psychological needs.

Head Start was then transferred to the Office of Child Development in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (later the Department of Health and Human Services) by the Nixon Administration in 1969.

Programs

Early Head Start - promotes healthy prenatal outcomes, promotes healthy family functioning, and strengthens the development of infants and toddlers beginning as young as newborn infants. Head Start- helps to create healthy development in low-income children. Migrant and Seasonal Program Branch- provides the children of migrant and seasonal farm workers who meet income and other eligibility guidelines with Head Start services American Indian-Alaska Native Program Branch- provides American Indian and Alaska Native children and families with services such as: health care, educational, nutritional, socialization, as well as other services promoting school readiness.

Services

Eligibility- Eligibility for Head Start services is largely income-based (100% of the federal poverty level), though each locally-operated program includes other eligibility criteria such as disabilities and services to other family members. Disabilities- All programs provide full services to children with disabilities Education- The goal of Head Start is to ensure that those children enrolled in the program are ready to begin school. All Head Start programs espouse and teach good practices in oral health, hygiene, nutrition, personal care, and safety.

The long term effectiveness of Head Start is controversial. Set out below are a number of critical and positive reports or statements on Head Start.

Reports and statements critical of Head Start

The authors of Freakonomics find that Head Start has no measurable long term effect on student performance, and instead claim that the primary determinant of educational success is parental background. However, they provide no data relating to Head Start and do not reference studies of Head Start.

Reports and statements with mixed reviews of Head Start

Magnuson, Ruhm, and Waldfogel (2004) conclude that Early education does increase reading and mathematics skills at school entry, but it also boosts children's classroom behavioral problems and reduces their self-control. The analysis is based on within-family data, comparing children in Head Start with their siblings who were not in Head Start. Also, mothers who were themselves enrolled in Head Start were compared to their adult sisters who were not.

Reports and statements supportive of Head Start

According to Datta (Datta, 1976 & Lee et al.,1990) who summarized 31 studies, the program showed immediate improvement in the IQ scores of participating children, though after beginning school, the non-participants were able to narrow the difference.

Congressional Impact Study

Congress mandated an intensive study of the effectiveness of Head Start, the "Head Start Impact Study", which has issued a series of reports on the design and study of a target population of 5000 3- and 4- year old children. The Head Start Impact Study First Year Findings were released in June of 2005, and the Executive Summary is available from Health and Human Services. Thus, the study measured Head Start's effectiveness as compared to a variety of other forms of community support and educational intervention, as opposed to comparing Head Start to a non-intervention alternative.

The results of the first report showed consistent small to moderate advantages to children from participating in Head Start programs rather than other programs, with a few areas where no advantage was reported.