Sacramento Head Start Alumni Association

Report of the Head Start 2010 National Advisory Panel

Jan 30, 2002

Executive Summary
Excellence and equity are inseparable - a good society cannot have one without the other. Any society that abandons either is imperfect.

?— Julian Bond

In anticipation of the 35th anniversary of Project Head Start in the year 2000, the National Head Start Association (NHSA) launched an exciting national initiative, Head Start 2010: Fulfilling the Promise, to discover how Head Start can best serve children and families in the new millennium.

A National Advisory Panel was formed, composed of 16 nationally renowned early childhood and education experts and local Head Start staff and parents, to convene a series of dynamic hearings and open forums around the country from April through December of 1999.These sessions were held at conferences and meetings in partnership with other co-sponsoring national organizations, where in many cases the audiences overflowed, evidence of tremendous enthusiasm for the project. Hundreds of participants attended these sessions, at which witnesses shared their experiences and views on what Head Start should be and do in the future. To facilitate this process, NHSA developed a framework of Hearing Questions and guidelines for submitting testimony, and the panel also accepted oral and written statements outside the framework. The witnesses, representing a wide range of roles and organizations both within and outside of the Head Start network from all over the country; demonstrated great passion, conviction and knowledge in sharing their experiences, opinions, and suggestions in thoughtful dialog with the panel members.

Besides the hearings and open forums, NHSA convened a special session featuring several of the original founders of Head Start, to incorporate their historical perspectives on the evolution of the program over time and their vision and directions for the future. In addition, NHSA conducted a survey of Head Start parents to determine their perceptions of the program?’s effectiveness; the survey results indicated that the parents felt very positive about Head Start?’s effectiveness in helping them with their children in various ways. Finally, the panel also reviewed and considered current and recent research on Head Start and related matters, to inform the report and provide a basis for developing recommendations from the themes which emerged through the testimony.

In preparing the final report, the panel considered the testimony within a context that included three essential elements: a vision statement of what Head Start is; the historic strengths and successes of Head Start; and the critical driving forces shaping the current environment within which Head Start exists. The vision statement which the panel developed follows:

Head Start a community-based national initiativeis proven model that sets standard for preparing diverse array of low-income children success in school and later life supporting their families as they strive economic self-sufficiency providing an effective environment where parents professionals work grow.

The context also included a discussion of 10 keys to the success of Head Start, including several recent surveys and studies reaffirming Head Start?’s effectiveness, and seven critical issues that define the external environment surrounding Head Start.

The major findings in this report sprang directly from the testimony of the witnesses, which despite their being quite diverse, resulted in common issues which surfaced early in the process and were repeated throughout. The testimony offered by the witnesses clustered into four broad Themes:

Maintaining and strengthening the quality of Head Start programs, encompassing salary, training, governance, and accountability issues;
Enhancing support for parent and families, encompassing parents' roles in program implementation, as well as their own special needs for services;
Overcoming obstacles to collaboration, encompassing issues around effective working relationships within the Head Start network and in partnering with other organizations; and>
Rethinking eligibility, funding, and access to services, encompassing issues related to access and participation in Head Start.
The panel concluded that while much had been accomplished in the first 35 years of Head Start, in many ways the promise remains unfulfilled. The panel reviewed the recommendations made by other committees in earlier reports, then made detailed recommendations around five key goals:

Fulfill the promise to children and families, encompassing recommendations for continued research on new innovations and increased responsiveness to the changing needs of families, particularly with respect to cultural diversity;
Fulfill the promise on quality, encompassing recommendations for improved salary and benefits packages, training and capacity development, and infrastructure support;
Fulfill the promise on collaboration, encompassing recommendations for improved information exchange and dissemination of partnership models both within and outside the Head Start network;
Fulfill the promise to communities, encompassing recommendations for maintaining Head Start as a direct federal-to-local program and mounting a major national marketing campaign to increase public awareness about the program; and
Fulfill the promise on full funding, encompassing recommendations for moving to full-day, full-year programming and serving all eligible children.