Sacramento Head Start Alumni Association

CHSA Position Paper on Head Start Reauthorization - 2003

Feb 03, 2003

Head Start: Vision, Success & Results
January 2003

For nearly forty-years, the Head Start Program has been a symbol of
this nation's commitment to a better life for low-income young children
and their families. More than 20 million children have benefited from
Head Start's comprehensive child and development services, and the
program has served as a national laboratory and model for early care and
education.

In California, local Head Start programs have helped more than 2
million low-income preschool children prepare for school and life since the
program began in 1965. Today Head Start services are provided in 57
California counties to more than 105,000 children and their families. In
2000-01, 95.5% of all enrolled children received all required medical
screenings, 38% were identified as needing follow-up treatment, and 12%
of the enrolled children had diagnosed disabilities (i.e., speech and
language impairments, health impairments, vision impairments). While
most programs were part-day, 22% were extended or full-day, and 43% of
Head Start parents were enrolled in TANF and/or school or training
programs. California has 5,081 Head Start classes in 1,945 Head Start
centers located in low-income communities throughout the state.

This year Congress will review the Head Start program and consider
changes to strengthen the program and better serve children. The
California Head Start community welcomes this opportunity but cautions that
Congress must understand and build upon the strengths of the comprehensive
Head Start program as it proceeds. As changes are contemplated, it is
important to emphasize that Head Start is a comprehensive program that
includes health, education, and family and community development, and
that Head Start is best administered by the Department of Health and
Human Services. This paper outlines the essential elements of Head Start
that provide the foundation for Head Start in the 21st century and
identifies key concerns in California for strengthening the program.

I. Head Start??™s Foundation: A Model For The Nation

1. Comprehensive Performance Standards
Head Start is built upon the understanding that the development of
young children is influenced by their family, community, health status, and
early education experiences. The 1975 Head Start Program Performance
Standards defined high quality services in early childhood education,
parent involvement, social services, and health. These Standards have
been the foundation of this national program and have served as a model
for state and local early childhood initiatives. This foundation is
based and demonstrated by research on the long-term benefits from similar
comprehensive programs such as High Scope and the Abecedarian Project.

The Performance Standards have been a model in California. The
California Department of Education's State Preschool Program is modeled on
Head Start, and the new CDE early childhood accountability system,
California Desired Results, reflects the philosophy and approach of the Head
Start Program Performance Standards.


In 1996 these Performance Standards were strengthened to incorporate
new research and higher expectations for program performance and
management. These Standards ensure that young children in all parts of the
country are receiving the same high level of services. The effectiveness
of these standards and their implementation by local programs is
demonstrated by the recently released federal study from the Administration
for Children and Families, Head Start FACES: Longitudinal Findings on
Program Performance Third Progress Report. The study results showed that
Head Start:

?§ narrows the gaps between disadvantaged children and all children in
vocabulary and writing skills during the Head Start year;

?§ improves the social skills of Head Start children and

?§ leads to continued improvements in word knowledge, letter
recognition, math skills and writing skills relative to other children during the
kindergarten year.

The study also found that Head Start classrooms continue to be of high
quality, that most Head Start teachers have good teaching
qualifications, and the observed quality of classrooms is positively related to
child outcomes.

2. Parent Responsibility
Parent involvement is a part of the comprehensive Head Start approach.
In Head Start parents are true partners, making decisions about their
children and about the programs that serve them. Parent involvement is
not limited to doing what the administrators and teachers think is
"good for their children;" instead Head Start parents are partners in a
process that helps them develop the skills to support their children
throughout childhood. This partnership between parents and staff, which
includes the decision-making Policy Council, also ensures that the program
is respectful and responsive to parents and their children. The
positive effect of Head Start??™s work with parents was supported by the
FACES study, which found that:

?§ parents of Head Start children reported extremely high levels of
satisfaction with Head Start, consistent with findings from the 1999
American Customer Satisfaction Index, in which Head Start parents gave the
program the highest rating of any government program;

?§ parents reported increases in educational attainment and employment
during their time in Head Start, and also reported a decline in the
number receiving welfare assistance; and

?§ parents reported a greater sense of control over their own lives at
the end of Head Start than at the beginning.




3. Local Design and Decision-Making
Head Start is a federal-to-local program, ensuring that decisions about
program priorities and design are made at the local, and community
level. In Head Start, there is no "one size fits all" model established in
Washington DC or the state capitol. Local grantees (community action
agencies, school districts, local governments, faith-based and other
non-profit organizations) have the flexibility, within the federal
Performance Standards, to design their programs to meet local needs. Parents,
local officials, and other community stakeholders come together to
ensure that their program meets the needs of children and families in their
community.

This local design and decision-making enables Head Start programs to
develop programs that link effectively with local school districts, child
care agencies, local CalWorks/TANF programs, Proposition 10
commissions, and community based social service agencies to maximize resources to
meet local needs.

4. Community Collaboration
Head Start is built upon the understanding that child and family
development takes place in a community and those effective programs build
upon and link families with community resources. For this reason, Head
Start is designed to link with schools, social service agencies, health
services, and child care services. Head Start??™s roots in the
Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) facilitate linkages with other
DHSS programs such as Medicaid/Medi-Cal, TANIF/CalSafe, CCBG/Child Care,
CHIP/Healthy Families, EPSDT/CHDP, and CDBG/Community Action Programs.
In addition, Head Start legislation ensures linkages with schools for
transition and disability services.

5. National System
The Head Start program is supported by an effective national
infrastructure to ensure program quality. This includes:

?· Federal Infrastructure - Knowledgeable federal staff in the national
office and regional offices across the country manage more than 1,500
local grantees. These staff members understand Head Start??™s
comprehensive approach and the local communities the programs serve. This
federal infrastructure has played a key role in the congressionally mandated
redesign and re-orientation of Head Start. These federal offices have
developed and implemented new Performance Standards, new and tougher
accountability systems, a sharper focus on literacy and school readiness,
implementation of child outcome tracking systems in every Head Start
program, and greater coordination with child care and early primary
education systems.

?· Management Systems ??“ In the last decade, Head Start has developed
a sophisticated system for ensuring program quality and accountability.
This includes electronic reporting of key performance indicators,
onsite monitoring by specially trained teams, an aggressive yet supportive
system for correcting program deficiencies, and a proven commitment to
replacing grantees that do not correct serious problems in order to
maintain the integrity of the program.

?· Technical Assistance Network ??“ A national network of Quality
Improvement Centers provides state-of-the-art training and technical
assistance to Head Start programs and staff to ensure program quality.

?· State Collaboration Offices ??“ Through grants to state governments,
Head Start collaboration offices in every state facilitate integration
and collaboration with state initiatives for early care and education,
school readiness, health care, and welfare reform.

II. Head Start Is Best Administered by the Department of Health and
Human Services

Head Start is a comprehensive program that helps low-income children be
ready for school by providing high quality early childhood education
and health services and by strengthening families through parent
education and linkages with community resources. The effectiveness of this
comprehensive approach is demonstrated in multiple studies of Head Start
and other early childhood programs. "School readiness" requires more
than education, and for this reason, the administration of Head Start
remained in Health and Human Services when the Department of Education was
established. The wisdom of this decision twenty-five years ago is
evident today as Head Start continues to respond the new challenges and to
be a symbol of the best in early childhood education.

The California Head Start Association strongly rejects the notion that
Head Start should be moved out of the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services.

In California, Head Start and Early Head Start grantee and delegate
agencies are based in variety of delivery settings. Approximately 30% of
the agencies are local education agencies, county offices like in Los
Angeles or school districts such as Sacramento Unified. An additional
30% of our programs are located with public agencies in county, city or
joint powers agencies. Finally, the balance of Head Start programs are
operated in community based, faith based and locally operated
organizations. This mix of service delivery organizations provides a rich,
well-managed program that best fits the community.

Over the past five years all Head Start programs have implemented and
enhanced efforts to ensure later school success. Research has
demonstrated poverty is complex and requires a responsive design and high
standards to achieve lasting impact on our clients, children and their
families.

III. Opportunities for Program Improvement: Moving Forward

Head Start reauthorization provides an opportunity to build upon the
foundation of Head Start to strengthen services for low-income preschool
children and their families. Through the National Head Start
Association, Head Start programs across the country have developed a number of
recommendations for the new legislation, and the California Head Start
Association supports the legislative agenda of the National Head Start
Association. As a part of this process, the California Head Start
community has identified the following six issues that are of particular
importance in California.

1. Income Eligibility
Head Start income eligibility is based upon the federal poverty
guidelines and applied equally in all states except Alaska and Hawaii. These
guidelines are increasingly out-of-date and certainly do not reflect
variation in cost-of-living. Head Start??™s outdated income guidelines
are much more restrictive than most other federal or state guidelines for
low-income services. They are significantly lower than LIHEAP, WIC,
USDA School Lunch Program, California??™s State Preschool and/or
subsidized child care programs. Simply put, because of the high cost of living
in California, many poor families live in poverty but do not meet Head
Start??™s income eligibility guidelines. In addition, the restrictive
guidelines make it more difficult for Head Start to coordinate with
other programs serving low-income children and families. There are two
options for fixing this problem:

?· Establish regional eligibility guidelines which reflect variations
in cost of living in different parts of the county, or

?· Allow local programs greater flexibility to enroll over-income
families. Current regulations allow programs to exceed income guidelines
for 10% of the children and families enrolled. While these slots are
primarily reserved for families of children with disabilities, increasing
local flexibility to 25% would enable Head Start programs to enroll
children whose families slightly exceed the poverty guidelines. In
high-cost areas like California, such flexibility would enable programs to
more effectively serve those children and families most in need,
especially children with disabilities.


2. Services to Infants and Toddlers
In 1994 Head Start began the development of a national model for
serving low-income infants and toddlers with Early Head Start. The careful
development of this new model included the establishment of the National
Early Head Start Resource Center, the recruitment and training of
Infant Development Specialists in the Regional Quality Improvement Centers
and in local programs, and in the identification and dissemination of
research-based best practices to Head Start and Early Head Start grantees
across the country. Today there are nearly 650 Early Head Start
grantees, most of who also operate Head Start programs.

It is time to allow local Head Start programs to determine if they
would best serve their community by converting some ??œpre-school??? slots
to ??œinfant-toddler??? slots. As a 0-5 program with local
communities, rather than regional or national offices, determining what is best
for them, local Head Start programs would be able to develop seamless
systems for families and maximize program efficiency. The California
Head Start community recommends that local Head Start programs have the
option to serve infant-toddlers if that is the community need.


3. Professional Development
The relationship between staff training and positive outcomes for
children and adults is well documented. Education standards are increasing
for all children. For example in 2004 California children entering
preschool will be the first high school students required to complete
algebra as a requirement for graduation. As Head Start moves into the 21st
century, with a sharper focus on literacy, school readiness, and
empowering families to be self-sufficient, high quality professional staff
development is key to an effective Head Start program.

In California, over 30% of Head Start staff is recruited from its
client base. Professional development in Head Start must incorporate a
variety of adult learning approaches. . Increased consideration should be
placed on professional development services that assist teachers in new
information, curriculum strategies, assessment methods and home based
extensions to engage parents. High quality-classroom based professional
development in Head Start remains the key meeting high standards. Head
Start programs must have access to high-quality, research-based
professional development programs and must have the resources and flexibility
to provide, select and implement the programs that best meet the needs
of their staff and community.


4. Educational Alignment
Head Start has worked closely with public education since its inception
in 1965. This partnership has been especially strong in services to
children with disabilities. More recently, Head Start programs have been
mandated since 1996 to facilitate the transition of children and
families from Head Start to kindergarten. These transition efforts have
included coordination of records, joint training have Head Start and early
primary education staff, and curriculum sharing and alignment. The
increased Head Start focus on literacy and the new Head Start Child
Outcomes increase the need and provides a vehicle for greater alignment and
coordination between Head Start and the elementary schools that receive
Head Start children.

5. Serve All Low-Income Children
In 1965 Head Start was a promise for a brighter future for low-income
preschool children. In spite of its record of success and a history of
bipartisan support in Washington, DC, Head Start services are still not
available to many children and families who need them. In 1990
Congress established a goal to serve all eligible children. Twelve years
later this goal is still unfulfilled. The California Head Start community
urges a national commitment to make Head Start available to all
low-income children who need the program.

6. Program Integration Waivers
Head Start programs have made major efforts to link services and
funding streams to create seamless services that are efficient and meet the
needs of low-income children and families. However, linking multiple
funding streams and services is often complicated by multiple guidelines,
multiple reporting systems, and sometimes-conflicting requirements.
The California Head Start Association recommends that Regional Offices
have the authority to issue waivers to allow local programs to better
collaborate with early childhood and families support programs, such as
CalWorks/TANF and child care.