The Trump administration is taking aim at one of the most successful bipartisan education programs of the last half century — Head Start — and the working families the administration claims to serve.
Under the guise of reform, the Department of Health and Human Services has proposed sweeping new regulations that would gut the proven and popular early education program that serves more than 700,000 children across the nation, including more than 14,000 in Washington state.
Make no mistake, these proposed regulations are a Trojan horse, an attempt to dismantle Head Start from the inside. The plan would slash the number of teachers, child development specialists, services and supports to our most vulnerable preschoolers. Washington state alone would lose 774 Head Start teachers and staff.
The goal of this proposal is the elimination of Head Start, one of the more popular programs among Democrats, and many Republicans, since its birth in 1965. How do we know? The far-right conservative plan Project 2025, a guide for so many of the Trump administration’s policies, calls for its elimination. Last year the administration proposed eliminating all Head Start funding.
The HHS proposal is just the next step in this plan, a step that would be devastating for America’s working families who rely on Head Start. It would even cut the programs’ hours of operations, making it harder for parents to work.
Everyone should care. Head Start has been a pioneer of high-quality early education, which decades of research has clearly proven increases school readiness, high school graduation rates and even homeownership, while lowering the possibility of incarceration and substance abuse among its graduates.
In fact, “the government makes 5.4% to 9.1% per year for at least 30 years for every child it put through Head Start due solely to savings on public assistance and a small increase in tax revenue from higher wages earned by participants,” according to a paper released by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Simply put, if the Trump administration dismantles Head Start, we’ll all pay for years to come.
Here’s a glance at what the proposed regulations would do:
● Eliminate teacher-child ratios in Head Start classrooms and defer to state licensing standards, which overwhelmingly fall short of Head Start standards and what’s needed for quality early education. It’s expected the proposal would cut Head Start’s teaching workforce by 13% and 80% of children would be in larger classrooms with less attention, according to the National Association for the Education of Young Children. Why do ratios matter? Smaller adult-to-child ratios are associated with higher quality learning, allowing more attention for each child, fostering better interactions and leading to fewer behavioral incidents. These are the things that set up children for success in school and for the rest of their lives.
● Ask teachers and staff to serve more children while reducing professional requirements and teacher and staff pay. This could lead to an exodus of experienced teachers, while making it harder to recruit new teachers and staff.
● Make it harder for homeless families to enroll their children in Head Start by changing documentation requirements, creating another barrier for families that need Head Start the most.
● Require Head Start to be English-only. This would exclude many families that rely on Head Start because one-third of all nontribal Head Start classrooms nationwide — 18,767 — primarily serve dual language learners. Plus, English-only instruction runs against what we know works best for children and families.
Together, these examples are the tip of an iceberg the Trump administration wants to use to sink Head Start. The proposal would go even further, by eliminating most health services, maternal care and support for children with disabilities.
Targeting Head Start is not only dangerous, it is bizarre. The program has enjoyed support from both Democrats and Republicans, ranging from Presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden and George Bush. Is any program perfect? Of course not. Head Start continues to improve its programs and policies. But a mountain of research and generations of successful graduates prove Head Start works and works well.
The time to act is now. The public has until Oct. 6 to submit comments. Make your voice heard about what these regulations would do to Head Start and families by sharing your comments in the Federal Register. Together, we can protect Head Start and ensure that future generations of children will have a chance to succeed in school and later in life.
