Sacramento Head Start Alumni Association

BUSH'S PLAN TO PREPARE CHILDREN FOR KINDERGARTEN

Feb 03, 2003

News Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, Feb. 3, 2003
Contact: HHS Press Office
(202) 690-6343



PRESIDENT BUSH'S PLAN TO PREPARE CHILDREN FOR KINDERGARTEN


Research tells us a great deal about the skills and knowledge
children need to be successful in school. Among preschoolers, vocabulary,
letter knowledge, and phonological
awareness, in addition to social and emotional factors, have a
significant impact on later success in school. For example, reading scores in
the 10th grade can be predicted
with surprising accuracy based on a child's knowledge of the alphabet
in kindergarten. We must ensure that children are equipped with the
basic skills necessary so that
they begin school ready to learn.


More than 40 states have initiatives aimed at helping preschool
children prepare for kindergarten, because they know that children from poor
families enter school behind
children from more privileged families in academic skills. Schools
often have difficulty as they compensate for this difference. States were
recently given an additional
reason for developing high quality preschool programs with the
passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, which requires that states
be held accountable for
ensuring that all children are proficient in reading and math. Given
what we know about the positive effects of high quality preschool
programs in conjunction with states
being held accountable for student performance, states should have a
more prominent role in coordinating and providing a high quality
preschool experience before
children enter kindergarten.


The major federal program aimed at this goal is Head Start, which
Congress is scheduled to consider for reauthorization this year. Since
1965, Head Start has provided a
comprehensive program, including activities that aim to promote
social, emotional, and cognitive development, as well as health services,
for children in poverty. In light of
what we know about the preschool years, the President believes Head
Start must provide more emphasis on early learning and promote the best
methods for preparing
children for success in school by making early education a top
priority Research shows that acquiring specific pre-reading, language, and
social skills strongly predict
future success in school. Head Start sites that have implemented
carefully designed programs that focus on school readiness have shown
significant gains for children.


Head Start is one of many programs that provide approximately $23
billion in federal and state funds for child care and preschool education.
Through planning, training,
and the regulatory process, states have the responsibility and the
authority in programs other than Head Start to have a substantial impact
on the type and quality of
services provided, and are held accountable for the delivery of high
quality programs. However, Head Start funding goes directly from the
federal level to local
organizations including public schools and community-based
organizations, and thus cannot be easily coordinated and aligned with other early
childhood services by the
states.


To address these two issues, the President proposes to allow
interested states to coordinate preschool programs including Head Start to meet
the needs of preschool
children. Participating states will be asked to design a plan
outlining how they will: work with the public school system to develop goals
for all preschool programs in the
state; identify guidelines that preschool programs can use to achieve
these goals; devise an accountability system to determine whether
children are achieving the goals;
provide professional development for preschool teachers and
administrators; and help parents provide support for children to succeed in
kindergarten. In addition, states
must describe how they will maintain the range of child development
goals of Head Start, including the provision of social, parental, and
health services in their Head Start
programs.


Improving and prioritizing the educational components of Head Start,
while allowing states to enhance coordination of all preschool
programs, will go a long way toward
meeting the President's goal of better preparing children to succeed
in school. Some advantages include:


Enhanced school readiness among children leading to improved
performance in school
Increased ability for states to help working parents enroll their
children in programs that better meet the children's and families'
needs
Better clarity of school preparation goals and improved
guidelines for early education programs
Greater coordination between the elementary schools and both
early education and child care programs at the federal and state level that
focuses on skills needed
to prepare children for school
More and better public information for parents to determine the
particular early education programs that best prepare their children for
school


Bush Proposal to Improve Head Start


The single most important goal of the Head Start reauthorization
should be to improve Head Start and other preschool programs to ensure
children are prepared to
succeed in school. Given the vital role states already play in
conducting preschool programs, the President believes there should be a state
option to foster comprehensive,
high quality preschool programs.


Under the Bush proposal for improving preschool programs in general
and Head Start in particular, states are offered the opportunity to
coordinate preschool programs
with Head Start programs in exchange for meeting certain
accountability requirements. States wishing to participate must submit a state plan
for approval to the Secretary
of Health and Human Services and the Secretary of Education that
addresses several fundamental issues concerning preschool education. The
issues that must be
addressed by the state plan include:


State Preschool Goals and Activities. States will explain how
they will work with the public schools at the state or local level to
develop the skills and behaviors that
children must possess to perform well in kindergarten. The state
will also explain how it will develop and implement a set of guidelines
for use by individual programs
to develop these skills and behaviors during the preschool years.
The skills and behaviors should include: language development;
pre-reading skills including
phonological awareness, letter knowledge, and vocabulary;
numeracy; and social and emotional competence.
State Accountability Program. States must develop an
accountability program that will indicate how well children in individual programs
are performing relative to the
skills and behaviors identified by the state as prerequisites for
effective kindergarten performance. Accountability results by program
will be made public and states
will be encouraged to conduct activities designed to help parents
understand the results for their child and their child's program. To
the maximum extent possible,
states should allow parents choice in the selection of preschool
programs.
Coverage and Maintenance of Effort. The state plan must result
in, at a minimum, the same coverage to serve at least as many Head Start
eligible three- and
four-year-olds as are currently being served through Head Start.
The state plan should identify the number of state dollars that were
spent on state preschool
programs and Head Start programs in the most recent fiscal year,
and provide assurances that it will, at a minimum, maintain this level
of state spending each year.
States must also continue to provide comprehensive services,
including social, family, and health services. States should ensure that
all their preschool programs
are coordinated with the Medicaid and State Child Health
Insurance Program as well as with social service programs that provide help to
poor and low-income
families.
Professional Development. States will provide information on
their plan for assuring professional development opportunities for
preschool teachers and
administrators.
Preschool Program Coordination. States will explain how they
intend to coordinate the use of funds across all state and federal programs
that have the purpose of
promoting school readiness and how they will administer the
program These include, at a minimum, Head Start, Early Head Start, Title I
preschool, the special
education preschool program, and state-funded preschool programs.
States are encouraged to include child care programs in their plan,
especially programs
supported by funds from the Child Care and Development Block
Grant.


The administration's proposal includes an additional feature that is
designed to help fund the development of preschool guidelines and
accountability programs. Under
current law, the Department of Health and Human Services spends about
$165 million per year to provide technical assistance to improve Head
Start programs. The
administration intends to make a significant portion of this money
available to states to meet their needs in designing and implementing
state plans.


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