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EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION: IMPROVEMENT 

THROUGH INTEGRATION

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EDUCATION REFORM

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION 

AND THE WORKFORCE 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

April 21, 2005

Serial No. 109-9

Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and the Workforce

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/house 

or 

Committee address: http://edworkforce.house.gov 

(II)

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE 

JOHN A. BOEHNER, Ohio, Chairman

Thomas E. Petri, Wisconsin, Vice Chairman 

Howard P. ‘‘Buck’’ McKeon, California 

Michael N. Castle, Delaware 

Sam Johnson, Texas 

Mark E. Souder, Indiana 

Charlie Norwood, Georgia 

Vernon J. Ehlers, Michigan 

Judy Biggert, Illinois 

Todd Russell Platts, Pennsylvania 

Patrick J. Tiberi, Ohio 

Ric Keller, Florida 

Tom Osborne, Nebraska 

Joe Wilson, South Carolina 

Jon C. Porter, Nevada 

John Kline, Minnesota 

Marilyn N. Musgrave, Colorado 

Bob Inglis, South Carolina 

Cathy McMorris, Washington 

Kenny Marchant, Texas 

Tom Price, Georgia 

Luis G. Fortun ̃ o, Puerto Rico 

Bobby Jindal, Louisiana 

Charles W. Boustany, Jr., Louisiana 

Virginia Foxx, North Carolina 

Thelma D. Drake, Virginia 

John R. ‘‘Randy’’ Kuhl, Jr., New York 

George Miller, California 

Dale E. Kildee, Michigan 

Major R. Owens, New York 

Donald M. Payne, New Jersey 

Robert E. Andrews, New Jersey 

Robert C. Scott, Virginia 

Lynn C. Woolsey, California 

Rube ́n Hinojosa, Texas 

Carolyn McCarthy, New York 

John F. Tierney, Massachusetts 

Ron Kind, Wisconsin 

Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio 

David Wu, Oregon 

Rush D. Holt, New Jersey 

Susan A. Davis, California 

Betty McCollum, Minnesota 

Danny K. Davis, Illinois 

Rau ́l M. Grijalva, Arizona 

Chris Van Hollen, Maryland 

Tim Ryan, Ohio 

Timothy H. Bishop, New York 

John Barrow, Georgia

Paula Nowakowski, Staff Director 

John Lawrence, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EDUCATION REFORM 

MICHAEL N. CASTLE, Delaware, Chairman

Tom Osborne, Nebraska, Vice Chairman 

Mark E. Souder, Indiana 

Vernon J. Ehlers, Michigan 

Judy Biggert, Illinois 

Todd Russell Platts, Pennsylvania 

Ric Keller, Florida 

Joe Wilson, South Carolina 

Marilyn N. Musgrave, Colorado 

Bobby Jindal, Louisiana 

John R. ‘‘Randy’’ Kuhl, Jr., New York 

John A. Boehner, Ohio, ex officio 

Lynn C. Woolsey, California 

Danny K. Davis, Illinois 

Rau ́l M. Grijalva, Arizona 

Robert E. Andrews, New Jersey 

Robert C. ‘‘Bobby’’ Scott, Virginia 

Rube ́n Hinojosa, Texas 

Ron Kind, Wisconsin 

Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio 

Susan A. Davis, California 

George Miller, California, ex officio 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

Hearing held on April 21, 2005 .............................................................................. 1

Statement of Members: 

Castle, Hon. Michael N., Chairman, Subcommittee on Education Reform, 

Committee on Education and the Workforce .............................................. 2

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 3

Woolsey, Hon. Lynn C., Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Education 

Reform, Committee on Education and the Workforce ............................... 4

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 5

Statement of Witnesses: 

Alexander, Jeffrey, Assistant Head Start Director, Big Five Community 

Services, Inc., Durant, OK ........................................................................... 11

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 13

Barnett, Dr. W. Steven, Director, National Institute for Early Education 

Research, New Brunswick, NJ ..................................................................... 15

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 18

Blank, Helen, Director of Leadership and Public Policy, National Women’s Law Center, Washington, DC ............................................................... 27

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 29

Clifford, Dr. Richard M., Senior Scientist, Frank Porter Graham Child 

Development Institute, Chapel Hill, NC ..................................................... 21

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 24

Moore, Marsha H., Commissioner, Georgia Department of Early Care 

and Learning, Atlanta, GA ........................................................................... 7

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 9

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EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION: 

IMPROVEMENT THROUGH INTEGRATION 

Thursday, April 21, 2005

U.S. House of Representatives 

Subcommittee on Education Reform 

Committee on Education and the Workforce 

Washington, DC 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room 

2175. Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mike Castle [Chairman 

of the Subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Castle, Osborne, Ehlers, Kuhl, Woolsey, 

Hinojosa, Kind, Kucinich, and Davis of California. 

Ex officio present: Representative Boehner. 

Also present: Representative Holt. 

Staff present: Amanda Farris, Professional Staff Member; Jessica 

Gross, Legislative Assistant; Kate Houston, Professional Staff 

Member; Alexa Marrero, Press Secretary; Deborah Emerson 

Samantar, Committee Clerk/Intern Coordinator, Rich Stombres, 

Assistant Director of Education and Human Resources Policy; Ruth 

Friedman, Minority Legislative Associate/Education; Lloyd 

Horwich, Minority Legislative Associate/Education; Ricardo Martinez, Minority Legislative Associate/Education; Joe Novotny, Minority Legislative Assistant/Education; and Mark Zuckerman, Minority General Counsel. 

Chairman CASTLE. The Subcommittee on Education Reform of 

the Committee of Education and the Workforce will come to order. 

We are meeting today to hear testimony on ‘‘Early Childhood 

Education: Improvement through Integration.’’ Under Committee 

Rule 12(b), opening statements are limited to the Chairman and 

the Ranking Minority Member of the Subcommittee, Ms. Woolsey. 

Therefore, if other Members have statements, they may be included 

in the hearing record. With that, I ask unanimous consent for the 

hearing record to remain open 14 days to allow Member statements 

and other extraneous material referenced during the hearing to be 

submitted in the official hearing record. Without objection, so ordered. 

2

STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL N. CASTLE, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EDUCATION REFORM, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE 

Chairman CASTLE. Good morning to our witnesses who are here 

today and to everybody in the audience, and thank you for joining 

us today for a hearing on ‘‘Early Childhood Education: Improvement through Integration.’’ As Congress prepares to strengthen 

and reauthorize the Head Start program, one of our chief goals is 

to remove barriers that may impede the successful integration of 

Head Start with other programs that serve to prepare disadvantaged children for success. 

When Head Start was created in 1965, it represented the first coordinated effort to target early childhood health, developmental, 

and educational services to disadvantaged children and families. 

For many years, Head Start was the only opportunity many of 

these children had to get the head start they needed to succeed in 

school and in their future. 

Head Start is a successful program that has made great strides 

in preparing disadvantaged three and 4-year-olds for school. Head 

Start programs provide comprehensive services, such as nutrition, 

dental screening, parental involvement, and, importantly, the 

school readiness skills that can help prepare children for kindergarten. 

We know that a readiness gap persists between Head Start children and their peers, and that is something we intend to address 

during the reauthorization. However, the larger goals of the program are sound, and we intend to build upon that foundation to 

make Head Start stronger. 

The topic of today’s hearing is how early childhood programs can 

be improved through integration. I mentioned earlier that when 

Head Start was created in 1965, it was largely the only early childhood program available. That is not the case today. About 40 states 

have established some form of early childhood education because 

states recognize that these services can make a real difference in 

preparing children for a successful future. Various local initiatives 

have also been launched and today disadvantaged children and 

families have access to programs and services from a wide range 

of sources. 

Some of these programs rival or exceed the quality of Head Start, 

while others fall short. Head Start is no longer the only option for 

early childhood education and we must ensure that all children are 

receiving the same quality education. In this new era, Head Start 

should be working toward integrating services with other school 

readiness programs and not competing against them. 

Last week, we heard from some successful Head Start programs 

that have found ways to integrate Head Start with other early 

childhood programs. Today, we are going to look at that concept 

more closely. We are going to ask what barriers exist that prevent 

effective coordination and integration among programs, and what 

steps can be taken at the Federal level to allow Head Start to 

make the most of other early childhood programs that share the 

same goals. 

In the last Congress, this Committee passed a bill that sought 

to adjust this need. But many of my colleagues and I acknowledge 

3

that there were concerns about our approach. For this reason, 

Chairman Boehner and I have pledged to solicit additional input 

and consider alternative strategies for adjusting the inefficiencies, 

gaps, and overlap in services and inconsistent quality that often results when bifurcated systems exist. 

In short, we remain committed to the goal of improved program 

coordination but are open to alternate routes to that goal so long 

as they are effective. 

Early childhood education is essential to overcoming the school 

readiness gap and preparing disadvantaged children for success. 

We believe Head Start could be made stronger for the children and 

families it serves if we allow Head Start to work in conjunction 

with other effective programs. Today, I hope we learn more about 

how this can become reality. 

I thank the witnesses for joining us today, and I look forward to 

your testimony. I will now yield to the gentlelady from California, 

the Ranking Minority Member of this Committee, Representative 

Woolsey. 

[The prepared statement of Chairman Castle follows:]

Statement of Hon. Michael N. Castle, Chairman, Subcommittee on 

Education Reform, Committee on Education and the Workforce 

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today for a hearing on ‘‘Early Childhood Education: Improvement Through Integration.’’ As Congress prepares to 

strengthen and reauthorize the Head Start program, one of our chief goals is to remove barriers that may impede the successful integration of Head Start with other 

programs that serve to prepare disadvantaged children for success. 

When Head Start was created in 1965, it represented the first coordinated effort 

to target early childhood health, developmental, and educational services to disadvantaged children and families. For many years, Head Start was the only opportunity many of these children had to get the head start they needed to succeed in 

school and in their future. 

Head Start is a successful program that has made great strides in preparing disadvantaged three and four-year olds for school. Head Start programs provide comprehensive services such as nutrition, dental screenings, parental involvement, and 

importantly, the school readiness skills that can help prepare children for kindergarten. 

We know that a readiness gap persists between Head Start children and their 

peers, and that’s something we intend to address during the reauthorization. However, the larger goals of the program are sound, and we intend to build upon that 

foundation and make Head Start stronger. 

The topic of today’s hearing is how early childhood programs can be improved 

through integration. I mentioned earlier that when Head Start was created in 1965, 

it was largely the only early childhood program available. That’s not the case today. 

About 40 states have established some form of early childhood education, because 

states recognize that these services can make a real difference in preparing children 

for a successful future. Various local initiatives have also been launched, and today, 

disadvantaged children and families have access to programs and services from a 

wide range of sources. Some of these programs rival or exceed the quality of Head 

Start, while others fall short. Head Start is no longer the only option for early childhood education, and we must ensure that all children are receiving the same quality 

education. In this new era, Head Start should be working towards integrating services with other school readiness programs, not competing against them. 

Last week, we heard from some successful Head Start programs that have found 

ways to integrate Head Start with other early childhood programs. Today, we’re 

going to look at that concept more closely. We’re going to ask what barriers exist 

that prevent effective coordination and integration among programs, and what steps 

can be taken at the federal level to allow Head Start to make the most of other 

early childhood programs that share the same goals. 

In the last Congress, this Committee passed a bill that sought to address this 

need, but many of my colleagues and I acknowledge that there were concerns about 

our approach. For this reason, Chairman Boehner and I have pledged to solicit addiVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:08 Jul 20, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\DOCS\20780 EDU1 PsN: NNIXON
4

tional input and consider alternative strategies for addressing the inefficiencies, 

gaps and overlap in services, and inconsistent quality that often results when bifurcated systems exist. In short, we remain committed to the goal of improved program 

coordination, but are open to alternate routes to that goal so long as they are effective. 

Early childhood education is essential to overcoming the school readiness gap and 

preparing disadvantaged children for success. We believe Head Start can be made 

stronger for the children and families it serves if we allow Head Start to work in 

conjunction with other effective programs. Today, I hope we learn more about how 

that can become a reality. 

I thank the witnesses for joining us today, and I look forward to hearing your testimony. I will now yield to the gentle lady from California, the ranking minority 

member of this subcommittee, Rep. Woolsey. 

STATEMENT OF HON. LYNN C. WOOLSEY, RANKING MEMBER, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EDUCATION REFORM, COMMITTEE ON 

EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing. In the past, October has always been Head Start Awareness 

Month, but given that this is the third Head Start hearing we have 

had in 4 weeks, I think we might be trying to change the month 

to April. 

Chairman CASTLE. Is that a motion? 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Well, today’s topic is so critical and it is part of 

what we know to be so important, which is Head Start. And coordination and collaboration among Head Start and other early childhood programs is essential to our children receiving the services 

they need in order to succeed in school and in life. 

Because I strongly support both Head Start and universal preschool, I strongly support Head Start’s coordination and collaboration requirements. For example, Head Start grantees must coordinate with their local education agencies to ensure a smooth transition between Head Start and kindergarten. Head Start also funds 

Head Start state collaboration offices in each state. These offices 

are successfully facilitating coordination of Head Start services 

with other Federal and state services to create an early childhood 

care and education system. They are required to ensure that Head 

Start services are coordinated with health care, welfare, childcare, 

education, and community service activities, family literacy services, services for children with disabilities and services for homeless children, not a small task. And I am pleased that a number 

of our witness will testify today on how well these requirements 

are being implemented in the field. 

I am also interested in hearing from all of you on how we could 

make coordination and collaboration work even better. But it is 

critical that we not allow flexibility to coordinate and collaborate 

to be a proxy for waiving or lowering standards. And because I am 

as straightforward as I am, we do not need this to lead us into 

block granting. 

Head Start has served for our most vulnerable children and families so well for 40 years because the standards have remained high 

and they have remained comprehensive. We would do these children and their families a great disservice by moving away from 

those high standards. And we know that the great majority of 

Head Start programs are successful now without block granting 

and would not gain but lose under a block granting environment. 

5

And, it is important to remember that another way that we can 

improve on our early childhood education system is to increase 

Federal support for a proven program, such as Head Start. In other 

words, if we are going to talk it, let’s support it and let’s make sure 

that we give the Head Start program what they need because in 

recent years we have not done a good job of that. We have barely 

kept up with inflation even though we only serve about half of the 

eligible 4-year-olds. 

At other hearings we have talked about the need for accountability in Head Start. I think we need to hold ourselves accountable 

as well. 

So, again, Mr. Chairman, I hope that we will be able to move forward together to reauthorize Head Start, and I look forward to 

hearing from our panel of experts. Thank you very much for coming. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Woolsey follows:]

Statement of Hon. Lynn C. Woolsey, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on 

Education Reform, Committee on Education and the Workforce 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing. 

In the past, October always has been Head Start Awareness Month, but given 

that this is the third Head Start hearing we’ve had in four weeks, I think you might 

be trying to change that to April. 

Today’s topic is a critical one. 

Coordination and collaboration among Head Start and other early childhood programs is essential to our children receiving the services they need to help them succeed in school and in life. 

Because I strongly support both Head Start and universal preschool, I strongly 

support Head Start’s coordination and collaboration requirements. 

For example, Head Start grantees must coordinate with their local educational 

agency to ensure a smooth transition between Head Start and kindergarten. 

Head Start also funds Head Start–State Collaboration Offices in each state. 

These offices facilitate coordination of Head Start services with other federal and 

state services to create an early childhood care and education system. 

They are required to ensure that Head Start services are coordinated with health 

care, welfare, child care, education, and community service activities, family literacy 

services, services for children with disabilities, and services for homeless children. 

So, I am very pleased that a number of our witnesses will testify to how well 

these requirements are being implemented in the field. 

I also am interested in hearing how we can make coordination and collaboration 

work even better. 

But, it is critical that we not allow flexibility to coordinate and collaborate to be 

a proxy for waiving or lowering standards. 

Head Start has served our most vulnerable children and families so well for 40 

years because its standards have remained both high and comprehensive. 

We would do those children and families a great disservice by moving away from 

those standards. 

It also is important to remember that another way that we can improve our early 

childhood education system is to increase federal support for proven programs such 

as Head Start. 

In recent years, Congress has not done a good job of that. We have barely kept 

up with inflation, even though we only serve about half of the eligible four-year olds. 

At other hearings, we have talked about the need for accountability in Head Start, 

and I think we need to hold ourselves accountable as well. 

Again, Mr. Chairman, I hope that we will be able to move forward together to 

reauthorize Head Start, and I look forward to hearing from our panel. 

Thank you. 

Chairman CASTLE. Thank you, Ms. Woolsey. We do have a very 

distinguished panel of witnesses. And I am going to read the introVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:08 Jul 20, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 H:\DOCS\20780 EDU1 PsN: NNIXON
6

ductions of each of you and then we will turn to you for your statements. We will start, obviously, and go across the line. 

Marsha H. Moore is the commissioner of Georgia’s Department 

of Early Care and Learning, known as Bright Start. Ms. Moore has 

worked 23 years in state government posts, including positions 

with the Department of Family and Children Services in the Department of Human Resources. As commissioner, Ms. Moore oversees an annual budget of over $400 million and manages state programs to improve the quality of Georgia’s early care and education 

system. She has worked closely with Governors’ offices and legislators in other states, sharing Georgia’s experience in implementing 

the largest pre-kindergarten program in the country. Ms. Moore received her Master of Public Administration degree from North 

Carolina College and State University. 

Jeffrey Alexander is the assistant head start director for the Big 

Five Community Services, Inc. located in Durant, Oklahoma and 

serves as president of the Oklahoma Head Start Association. Mr. 

Alexander has worked to integrate classrooms for Head Start in 

Oklahoma’s pre-kindergarten program, which is one of the largest 

voluntary universal school readiness programs in the United 

States. He is a member of the Durant Literacy Council board of directors and the Durant Jaycees. Mr. Alexander earned his bachelor 

of science degree in accounting and business administration from 

Southeastern Oklahoma State University. And has a master’s degree in business from the Oklahoma City University. 

Dr. W. Steven Barnett is a professor of education and economics 

policy and director of the National Institute for Early Education 

Research at Rutgers University. He is an authority on the topic of 

early education. His work includes research on state pre-kindergarten programs, the educational opportunities and experiences of 

young children in low-income urban areas, the long-term effects of 

preschool programs on children’s learning and development, and 

benefit cost analysis of preschool programs and their long-term effects. Dr. Barnett earned his Ph.D. in economics at the University 

of Michigan. 

And Dr. Richard M. Clifford is a senior scientist with the Frank 

Porter Graham Child Development Institute at the University of 

North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a leading expert in early childhood policy. He is nationally known for his work in assessing the 

quality of early educational settings, pre-kindergarten program design and functioning, service delivery and program financing and 

personnel preparation. Dr. Clifford is the co-director of the National Pre-Kindergarten Center and served as principal investigator of a large-scale study of pre-kindergarten programs in six 

states supported by the U.S. Department of Education. 

Helen Blank is the director of Leadership and Public Policy at 

the National Women’s Law Center where she works to expand support for early care and educational experiences for children from 

low-income families. Previously, Ms. Blank served 24 years as the 

director of the Childcare and Development Division at the Children’s Defense Fund. Ms. Blank has developed and led multiple 

campaigns to protect and expand public investment in child welfare 

programs, including Childcare Now, an ongoing initiative to focus 

attention on early care and education. Ms. Blank has authored and 

7

co-authored numerous articles and studies on child care policies, 

including Working Together for Children, Head Start, and 

Childcare Partnerships, Seeds of Success, pre-kindergarten initiatives, and state developments in childcare and early education. 

Before the witnesses begin, I would like to remind the Members 

that we will be asking questions after the entire panel has testified. In addition, Committee Rule 2 imposes a 5-minute limit on all 

questions. 

I think all of you understand the light system, which you have 

in front of you there. Green for 4 minutes, yellow for a minute, and 

when you see the red, start winding down or wind down. 

And with that, we welcome all of you and we look forward to 

your testimony. We will just go right down the row, and we will 

start with Ms. Moore. 

Can you turn on your microphone? I think you have to hit a button there in the front and maybe get it a little bit nearer to you, 

too, so everybody in the room can hear. Thanks so much. It is 

funny, I have mine off and it is still on. There is something wrong 

with the system right now. 

[Recess.] 

Chairman CASTLE. We are back to the beginning, and I apologize. We will not penalize you, you will have your full time. And 

we do appreciate all of you being here, and with that, we will proceed. 

Ms. Moore. 

STATEMENT OF MARSHA H. MOORE, COMMISSIONER, GEORGIA DEPARTMENT OF EARLY CARE AND LEARNING, ATLANTA, GA 

Ms. MOORE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and the Members of the 

Subcommittee. On behalf of Governor Sonny Perdue and the State 

of Georgia, I thank the Members of this Committee for allowing me 

to come to speak to you and to testify and have an opportunity to 

answer some of your questions. 

In 2004, Georgia took a significant step in approving the early 

care and education system in our state by creating a new state department named Bright from the Start: Georgia Department of 

Early Care and Learning. The purpose of the department was to 

streamline funds and resources and to improve the early care and 

education in our state. We also look at it by putting an emphasis 

in the system on education and parents involvement. And the goal 

is of course to prepare our children for school. 

Georgia’s nationally acclaimed and research-based, lottery-funded universal pre-K program for 4-year-old children is one of the 

premier parts of our organization. The organization now also licenses all childcare facilities in the state, we administer the Federal food programs, we house the office of the department—the collaboration office for Head Start, we administer funds, the quality 

funds that come to the state to improve the quality of early care 

and education in our state, and we fund and provide support and 

oversight of the resource and referral agencies that are strategically placed throughout the state of Georgia. Another component 

which we are beginning, we will be starting to do in July will be 

the Even Start Early Literacy Program. 

8

Georgia has a very long and extensive program and a meaningful 

relationship with Head Start programs in our state where both programs have benefited mutually. For 11 years, Georgia Pre-K Program has worked closely with Head Start in blending our funds 

and resources to increase the number of children who have received 

high-quality pre-k programs in our state. We have also blended our 

funds to ensure that our staff receive high-quality training and professional development. 

Even though we have had a great and wonderful 11 years of this, 

we do acknowledge that there are some challenges that the state 

of Georgia will have to face and will face in working with the integration of Head Start programs within our system. I am going to 

discuss briefly some of these challenges and how we are working 

toward the successful integration of the programs and will be 

happy to give some recommendations to Congress after that. 

Georgia’s Pre-K Program and the Head Start Programs differ in 

the governance structure. Head Start is governed by a local entity, 

policy councils, and board of directors whereby parents take a very 

active role in the governance of the program. Georgia Pre-K Program is governed on the state level, through contractual agreements with our providers of the Pre-K Program. However, parent 

participation is an important element of both of these programs. 

In Georgia, parents have a choice of where they would like to 

place their pre-K child in a pre-K program. They also have a choice 

of volunteering, they are able to volunteer, have parent conferences, and work closely with the program. State funding in 

Georgia follows the child and not the program. 

There are also differences in the program’s standards in Pre-K 

and Head Start, both programs recognize the same elements of 

school readiness. Pre-K also, their curriculum is aligned, the instructional part is aligned with the Head Start standards. However, there are differences in the extent of the comprehensive services that Head Start provides their children and what Pre-K does 

in our state. There are also differences in the staff/child ratios. 

However, when we do blend our funds with Head Start and PreK we ensure that the Pre-K guidelines are met and we honor the 

Head Start performance standards as well and ensure those standards are followed and those programs we are funding is blended. 

In Georgia, there is a difference between Head Start and the 

monitoring system in the Pre-K program. In Pre-K we receive a 

visit, a site visit two times a year. For Head Start in Georgia, it 

is one site visit every 3 years with of course self-assessments given 

every year. The difference is that we have discovered in Georgia 

that research is telling us that the intensive monitoring system 

that we have in our Georgia Pre-K Program has a lot of influence 

on the success of our children, the outcomes of our children, and 

the strong curriculum part of the program and the environment, 

the high-quality of environments in our program. That creates an 

issue because with Pre-K there is this high level of monitoring, in 

Head Start there hasn’t been quite as much. And if there is the integration of these two programs, it is very important that Georgia 

will be allowed to give an oversight, a comprehensive oversight of 

the Head Start system so that we can ensure program compliance 

and the quality of each of the programs that are delivered. 

9

In Georgia, we are serving right now 71,500 pre-K 4-year-old 

children. And with this high number we realize with the integration of Head Start into our state that there will be an opportunity 

for Head Start programs to change the focus of serving four- and 

3-year-olds to serving more 3 year olds in our state. With that opportunity, we will have more 3-year-olds in Georgia participating 

in a high-quality program. And that is definitely a benefit. But it 

will be something that we will have to make adjustments to. 

We also must deal with multiple funding streams and how we 

meet both of those funding stream requirements and there is going 

to be a challenge of the changing belief systems in both of those 

programs and there will be some resistance, and we recognize that. 

But I would like to leave with a couple of recommendations to 

the Congress, if I may. First of all is to require the states to work 

toward a seamless early care and education system that is beneficial to all. And we also recommend that the Congress—that states 

receiving money for the Head Start and delivering the Head Start 

programs that we maintain the high comprehensive services and 

programs that the Head Start programs do and that it is blended 

into our state. We also require that there is consistent oversight of 

the programs, and we further believe that legislation needs to 

clearly define the states authority and responsibilities in maintaining program compliance in all these programs. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Moore follows:]

Statement of Marsha H. Moore, Commissioner, Georgia Department of 

Early Care and Learning, Atlanta, GA 

In 2004 through the visionary leadership of Governor Sonny Perdue and the bipartisan support of the Georgia General Assembly, Bright from the Start: Georgia 

Department of Early Care and Learning was created to develop and administer a 

system of early care and education for Georgia’s children from birth to age five. The 

Department which combines the mandated responsibilities of several state entities 

administers Georgia’s Universal Pre–K Program that this year is providing quality 

early learning experiences to over 71,500 four year olds; licenses all child care learning centers, group day care homes, and family day care homes; administers the federally funded Child and Adult Care Food Program and the Summer Food Service 

Program to feed eligible children, adolescents, and adults; administers the federally 

funded Even Start Family Literacy Program; administers federal quality dollars earmarked for quality improvements through the Child Care and Development Fund; 

houses the Head Start State Collaboration office; funds and oversees the child care 

resource and referral system throughout the state; and administers initiatives to improve the quality of care children receive in out-of-home child care. The Department 

encourages and supports private/public partnerships through which much of its 

work is accomplished, and encourages and supports parental involvement in their 

children’s educational experiences. 

The Department’s foundation is the successful, lottery funded Georgia’s Pre–K 

Program, recognized as one of the premier school readiness programs in the country. 

The program has operated for eleven years and has served over 600,000 children 

through the use of lottery funds. Research demonstrates that children participating 

in the Pre–K program gained on national norms for math problem solving skills, letter and word recognition, and receptive vocabulary. Research also tells us that atrisk children who attended Georgia’s Pre–K Program were more ready for kindergarten, more academically skilled, communicated better, and behaved better than 

similar peers who did not attend the program. Support for the program from Governor Zell Miller through our current Governor Sonny Perdue and from the citizens 

of Georgia who have children in our program have been instrumental in the program’s success. 

During the past eleven years, Georgia has enjoyed a fruitful relationship with 

Head Start that, through the blending of funds, has made it possible for us to serve 

thousands of additional children who otherwise might not have received services 

10

and made it possible to provide joint training to Head Start and Pre–K teachers and 

Family Service Workers and resource coordinators. Thousands of children have received high quality care and educational opportunities because of the comprehensive 

Head Start program standards. Because we have on a small scale demonstrated the 

power and effectiveness of a partnership between Head Start and Georgia’s Pre–K 

Program, we eagerly anticipate and seek the opportunity to administer federal Head 

Start funds to build on and streamline a more coordinated early care and education 

system in Georgia. However, we recognize and acknowledge challenges that must 

be addressed for Georgia to reach its goal of a seamless coordinated system for its 

youngest citizens. 

One challenge Georgia will face has to do with the differences in governance of 

Head Start programs and Georgia’s Pre–K Program. Head Start programs are governed at the local level by policy councils and boards of directors, which include parents who take an active role in program administration. In the early days Head 

Start programs were much smaller. Today many of these programs operate with 

multi-million dollar budgets and large numbers of staff. In contrast Georgia’s Pre–

K Program is administered at the state level. Parents can choose the program where 

their child will receive services depending on the type of curriculum and supporting 

services available. State money follows the child to whichever private or public program they choose. Georgia’s Pre–K Program recognizes the importance of parent involvement and participation, but the program does not give parents responsibility 

to help administer the program. Because of these differences in governance between 

Head Start and Georgia’s Pre–K Program, there may initially be mistrust and concerns relating to program administration. This issue can be resolved by developing 

and supporting parent advisory councils in communities where early care and education services are provided. 

Head Start programs are required to meet rigorous program standards. Georgia’s 

Pre–K Program also requires providers to maintain high standards. The math and 

the language/literacy standards of Georgia’s Pre–K Program recently received overall grades of A from the Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement. 

Both programs agree on elements of school readiness, and the instructional portion 

of Georgia’s Pre–K Program is aligned with Head Start standards. However, other 

portions of the Head Start standards are a challenge for many Pre–K program providers to meet, particularly providers in private child care settings. Currently, there 

are other standards in Georgia that differ. For example, Georgia’s staff to child ratios for three-year-old children is one staff for every 15 children. Head Start requires 

one staff for every eight (8) three-year-old children. In situations where children 

from Georgia’s Pre–K Program and Head Start program are blended, the Department requires the higher Head Start standards to be met. Requiring the higher 

standards continues to be an obstacle to developing collaborative partnerships between Head Start and private child care settings in the state. To help overcome this 

obstacle and thus encourage partnerships between Head Start and private child 

care providers, the Department provides additional training and technical assistance. 

Research indicates that one of the strong components of Georgia’s Pre–K Program 

is consistent monitoring and oversight of the program. Georgia’s Pre–K Program 

providers receive at least two site reviews per year by our Department. In addition 

to the site reviews, Georgia’s Pre–K Program providers receive high quality training 

and technical assistance on an ongoing basis. With the Pre–K monitoring process 

and its governance structure, the Department can take appropriate action if monitoring reveals poor performance. Currently, Head Start programs receive a site review by outside consultants every three years with self-assessment reports required 

on an annual basis. If Georgia is designated to be a demonstration state, such limited oversight of Head Start programs would hinder my Department’s ability to 

identify and resolve issues related to compliance with performance standards. 

In fiscal year 05 over fifty percent of Georgia’s Pre–K children were considered 

economically at risk meaning that they might also be eligible for Head Start. A 

more deliberate blending and redirecting of federal Head Start funds and state Pre–

K funds would allow more four year olds to be served and possibly allow Head Start 

funds to be redirected to serve at-risk three year olds in comprehensive high quality 

programs. The challenge here is for Head Start to be willing to change its focus from 

serving three and four year olds to focusing more on three year olds. 

Managing multiple funding streams may be a challenge for some states particularly when the state and federal government operate under different standards and 

require different initiatives. For example, Head Start programs are funded at the 

beginning of the service year, and periodically additional funding may be sent to 

programs to focus on special projects such as technical assistance or a male/father 

involvement project. In Georgia, Pre–K programs are funded on a monthly basis 

11

through a contractual agreement with providers. Pre–K initiatives are determined 

at the beginning of the year based on need and on money available after monthly 

payments and projections are made. This means that two programs are operated by 

the state for basically the same children with different focuses and services provided 

depending on the funding received by each program. This creates a somewhat confusing system with some children with the same needs being treated differently. Resources and requirements need to be coordinated to ensure consistency and fairness 

to all of Georgia’s children. 

Lastly, another challenge will be the differences in the culture and philosophy of 

the Head Start and Pre–K programs. The programs were created in different historical eras; consequently, each program was based on a different set of beliefs. To successfully blend the two will require both programs to adjust those beliefs. And as 

we know, changing belief systems is challenging and sometimes met with resistance. 

Many Head Start employees have worked with the program for years, and typically 

programs operate in well-established community systems. While Georgia’s Pre–K 

Program may not have the long history that the Head Start program has, many 

Pre–K providers are loyal to the principles on which the program was based. Both 

programs will have to be willing to adjust their underlying belief systems in order 

for the blended model to work successfully. Georgia’s extensive collaborations with 

Head Start will help to relieve some of the mistrust and uncertainties, but it is unrealistic not to expect challenges in cooperation and buy-in to a comprehensive 

statewide system. It is imperative that Georgia build on its tradition of collaboration 

and past successes while at the same time provide political support for a smooth 

transition. 

In closing, based on our experience in Georgia, we respectfully recommend that 

Congress: 

1. require states to develop standards that are at least as rigorous as the current 

Head Start program standards; 

2. require states to work toward a seamless early care and education system that 

includes Head Start in such a way that collaboration is beneficial to all parties; 

3. require consistent program monitoring; 

4. clearly define the states’ authority and responsibilities in obtaining and maintaining program compliance. 

On behalf of the state of Georgia and Bright from the Start: Georgia Department 

of Early Care and Learning, I thank the members of the House Subcommittee on 

Education Reform for the opportunity to provide testimony for your consideration. 

Georgia wholeheartedly supports the idea of more effective integration of Head Start 

and other school readiness programs, and we applaud Congress’s efforts to ensure 

that our nation’s children and their families receive the most efficient and effective 

preschool services possible. We believe that Georgia is well positioned, with the governance structure and experience in blending federal and state funds, to help create 

and demonstrate a model of an effective system for early care and education. 

Chairman CASTLE. Thank you, Ms. Moore, we appreciate it. 

Mr. Alexander? 

STATEMENT OF JEFFREY ALEXANDER, ASSISTANT HEAD 

START DIRECTOR, BIG FIVE COMMUNITY SERVICES, INC., 

DURANT, OK 

Mr. ALEXANDER. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, and Members of 

the Subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before 

you today and to share with this distinguished panel the successes 

of Oklahoma in its collaborative efforts among Federal, state and 

local programs offering early childhood services. 

My main message to you today is that there is nothing about the 

current Federal to local Head Start funding structure or the Head 

Start performance standards that precludes active and effective coordination and collaboration among the organizations and agencies 

serving young children and their families. 

What the Oklahoma experience demonstrates is that it can be 

done and done well within the existing structure. Today, Oklahoma 

public schools, Head Start, and childcare programs all collaborate 

12

to meet the needs of our children and working families. The result 

is that more children and families are receiving quality comprehensive services in full day settings. There are more qualified teachers, 

more licensed facilities, longer hours and days of service. The system is locally driven. Each program must meet the highest standards of the collaborating partners. 

What it takes to make this work are committed and dedicated 

personnel in each of the programs. Simply changing the funding 

structure isn’t going to make otherwise unengaged state officials 

more interested in early childhood education and services. And it 

is clear that the existing funding structure is not an impediment 

to close coordination and collaboration. 

In Oklahoma, state and local leaders are working together to use 

the Head Start, Pre-K, and childcare funds, both to improve the 

quality of the programs and to meet the needs of working families. 

At the same time, these partnerships strengthen programs by putting funds together to bolster quality and support comprehensive 

services that would otherwise not be available. 

The Head Start Program performance standards mandate the 

comprehensive quality services to be provided to children and families served by these programs. It is because Head Start recognizes 

that at-risk children need a range of services to become school 

ready. Therefore, the individualized services provided by Head 

Start include those related to education and early childhood development, such as age-appropriate instruction in math, literacy, 

science, art, medical, dental, and mental health services, nutrition, 

and parental involvement in the development of their children. 

In order to provide these services, Head Start programs work 

with an array of community partners. Let me take you back home, 

it is November 10, 2002, 7:25 a.m., the Head Start director pulls 

up at the building to find a homeless family on the door step of the 

office building, father, mother, and two small children with everything they have in two handbags. After meeting the Head Start director, takes these children and their family to have breakfast. One 

child is Head Start age-appropriate so therefore that child is enrolled immediately to begin receiving services. The second child is 

first grade level age so that child is taken to that local public school 

and enrolled. 

The work with the Community Action Agency in that local area 

to get a home for that family. This is on a short-term basis but for 

homeless persons. Dad seems to have some type of disability so 

they reach out to the mental health services, which they partner 

with in that community, and ask for an evaluation. This is done. 

Then mom is evaluated and done a OSIB check, then put to work 

as a substitute, whether it be cook aide or teacher’s aide to have 

some funds coming into that family. 

So that is how we partner out there on a daily basis. Otherwise, 

that family would not have had any services. Now today, after that 

partnership 2 years later, through Head Start and its collaborative 

efforts this family is self-sufficient. Dad has his own computer repair business. I must hurriedly move on but that takes you to the 

local level to see and that is where we have to be is on the local 

level to see how this works. 

13

It is this existing structure that works. Can it be improved upon 

and strengthened? Of course it can be. Do we need to change the 

funding structure to make it work? Absolutely not. Do we need to 

provide greater flexibility in terms of the performance standards? 

No. What we do need is funding to make sure we are serving as 

many eligible children, such as these in this family, as possible. We 

stretch our dollars. 

In short, Head Start works. It is a collaborative effort within the 

community, state, the school system, and the providers of Head 

Start. It gets our poorest children ready to learn and better prepares them to succeed in school and in life. We call it Head Start 

for a reason. If Congress chooses to dilute the existing performance 

standards, if we exclude parental involvement in the Head Start 

experience, if we try too hard to achieve collaboration by experimenting with funding, then we have lost Head Start. This is a program that prepares our poorest children for school and later life. 

If we disregard the foundation and intent of this program, then 

Head Start will no longer exist. We cannot allow this to happen. 

Thank you for your time. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Alexander follows:]

Statement of Jeffrey Alexander, Assistant Head Start Director, Big Five 

Community Services, Inc., Durant, OK 

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, good morning. I am Jeff Alexander, Assistant Head Start Director for Big Five Community Services, Inc., a Community Action Agency in rural, southeastern Oklahoma. I have served in this position for the past three years. 

I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today and to share with this 

distinguished panel Oklahoma’s success story in terms of collaborative efforts among 

federal, state and local programs offering early childhood services. I will detail what 

we have done and continue to do in Head Start on the local level to maximize benefits, avoid gaps in service, and create quality, comprehensive systems when it comes 

to early childhood programs. Coordination and collaboration is not a new concept 

in Oklahoma; my director, Ms. Jackie Watson, has been collaborating in some form 

with public school districts and others for nearly 20 years. She began in a small, 

rural school in Yuba, Oklahoma, where, as the Superintendent of Schools likes to 

say, ‘‘the sun kisses the earth every morning.’’ That collaboration has been expanded 

and today includes 18 school districts and four day care facilities, serving a total 

of 807 children and families in a five county area. 

COLLABORATION AND COORDINATION: A NATIONAL PICTURE 

Head Start has a long history of delivering comprehensive and high quality services designed to foster healthy development in low-income children. Head Start programs deliver a range of individualized services in the areas of education and early 

childhood development; medical, dental, and mental health; nutrition; and parent 

involvement in the development of their children. In order to provide these services, 

Head Start programs work with an array of community partners. 

All Head Start programs must adhere to the Head Start Program Performance 

Standards, which define the services to be provided to the children and families they 

serve. The Performance Standards constitute the expectations and requirements 

that Head Start grantees must meet. They are designed to ensure that the Head 

Start goals and objectives are implemented successfully, that the Head Start philosophy continues to thrive, and that all programs maintain the highest possible quality. 

The Head Start Program Performance Standards encourage collaboration and coordination by specifying that all programs must: 

• ‘‘take an active role in community planning to encourage strong communication, 

cooperation, and the sharing of information among agencies and their community partners and to improve the delivery of community services to children and 

families.’’

• take affirmative steps to establish ongoing collaborative relationships with community organizations to promote the access of children and families to commuVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:08 Jul 20, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00017 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\DOCS\20780 EDU1 PsN: NNIXON
14

1 Horn, W. (March 6, 2003). Testimony on the President’s Plan to Strengthen Head Start before the Subcommittee on Education Reform, Committee on Education and the Workforce, U.S. 

House of Representatives. Accessed at http://edworkforce.house.gov/hearings/108th/edr/

headstart030603/horn.htm on April 19, 2005. 

nity services that are responsive to their needs, and to ensure that Early Head 

Start and Head Start programs respond to community needs.’’ In addition to 

local elementary schools, these community organizations include those that provide health care, family, disability, child protective, and child care services. 

• ‘‘make specific efforts to develop interagency agreements with local education 

agencies.’’

• ‘‘establish and maintain procedures to support successful transitions for enrolled children and families from previous child care programs into Early Head 

Start or Head Start and from Head Start into elementary school, a Title I of 

the Elementary and Secondary Education Act preschool program, or other child 

care settings.’’

Head Start program administrators understand the importance of coordination 

among their programs, child care programs and other pre–K and state education 

programs. Indeed, collaboration with other community agencies is central to Head 

Start’s mission and service delivery design because it is fundamental to delivering 

high quality, comprehensive services. 

Coordination and collaboration is occurring in many states and at the local level 

all over this country. In fact, many Head Start programs provide full day, full year 

services by leveraging child care funds to extend their services. Similarly, pre-kindergarten services often co-locate with Head Start programs to provide extended 

education and comprehensive health and nutrition services to a larger group of children. 

Dr. Wade Horn, Assistant Secretary for Children and Families, Department of 

Health and Human Services, acknowledged the extent of collaboration taking place 

in testimony before this Committee: 

. . .despite its federal-to-local program structure, Head Start has always 

recognized that the states play an important role in the formulation and 

implementation of policies and initiatives that affect low-income children 

and their families. Partnerships have always been one of Head Start’s highest priorities. These include partnerships with local school districts—nearly 

450 of which operate Head Start programs—and local governments. . .1

The Head Start Bureau, in a recent 228-page report, Head Start–State Collaboration Offices, extensively documents how Head Start programs are collaborating with 

states, localities, and private organizations. In the report, the Head Start Bureau 

catalogued the extent of this collaboration by providing summaries of activities for 

every state in the country. These partnerships and collaborative efforts often are facilitated by Head Start State Collaboration Offices and are intended to: 

• Help build early childhood systems and enhance access to comprehensive services and support for all low-income children; 

• Encourage widespread collaboration between Head Start and other appropriate 

programs, services and initiatives, augmenting Head Start’s capacity to be a 

partner in State initiatives on behalf of children and their families; and 

• Facilitate the involvement of Head Start in State policies, plans, processes, and 

decisions affecting the Head Start target population and other low-income families. 

COLLABORATION AND COORDINATION: THE OKLAHOMA EXPERIENCE 

Head Start programs in Oklahoma have formed partnerships with community 

agencies and others to ensure that comprehensive, quality services are provided to 

the children and families enrolled in our programs. Compliance with the Head Start 

Performance Standards demands no less of us. For example, Head Start provides 

family advocates to help families find needed resources, such as a family medical 

facility. A family in need of electricity or other utility can be assured that we will 

find a resource in the community to help fulfill this need. In instances where parents have not completed High School, we work with institutions or businesses in the 

community to find classes offering G.E.D. tutoring. We know a better-educated parent is more likely to create a stronger learning environment at home. Parents in 

need of employment may be referred to the local Workforce Investment (WIA) office 

for job training opportunities. These are but a few of the services we are able to 

provide through collaborative efforts with others in the community. 

Although state and local level leaders met regularly to identify and remove barriers to locally-driven partnerships, it was legislation passed by the State LegislaVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:08 Jul 20, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00018 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\DOCS\20780 EDU1 PsN: NNIXON
15

ture in 1998 that served as the catalyst for a strong partnership between Head 

Start and local school districts. 

Legislation passed in 1998 authorizes public school districts in Oklahoma to provide pre-kindergarten programs to four-year olds and to receive state funding according to a weighted formula that provides more funding per child for disabled, bilingual and poor children. This expanded pre–K program is run by the public 

schools on a voluntary basis, through collaborations with Head Start programs and 

day care centers. 

Oklahoma has made a commitment to program quality and requires all pre–K 

teachers to have a college degree and a certificate in early childhood education. Pre–

K teachers must also receive the same compensation and benefits as teachers in 

public elementary schools. These two requirements distinguish Oklahoma’s pre–K 

program from child care centers in the State. By law, group sizes for Oklahoma’s 

pre–K program are set at 20 and child/staff ratios cannot exceed 10/1. These requirements correspond to Head Start program guidelines. The State does not require use of a specific curriculum but leaves that decision in the hands of local 

school districts. 

Today, Oklahoma public schools, Head Start and child care programs collaborate 

to meet the needs of working families. The result is that more children and families 

are receiving quality, comprehensive services on a full-day, year-round basis. There 

is a more qualified staff, more licensed facilities, and longer hours and days of service. In short, more children are being served with higher quality, more comprehensive programs. The system is locally-driven but facilitated and supported by the 

State. Each program must meet the highest standards of the collaborating partners. 

So, for example, Head Start programs delivering the State’s pre–K services must 

have degreed teachers. Highly dedicated people at the state and local level make 

the system work. 

CONCLUSION 

The Oklahoma experience demonstrates that it is possible within the existing 

structure to have a high degree of coordination and collaboration among Head Start 

programs, state pre-k programs and child care programs. What it takes are committed and dedicated personnel at each program to make it work. Simply changing 

the funding structure isn’t going to make otherwise unengaged state officials more 

interested in early childhood education and services. And, it is clear that the existing funding structure is not an impediment to close coordination and collaboration. 

In Oklahoma, state and local leaders are working together to use Head Start, pre–

K and child care funds both to improve the quality of the programs and to meet 

the needs of working families. At the same time, these partnerships are strengthening programs by putting funds together to bolster program quality and support 

comprehensive services that otherwise would not be available. 

The quality of Oklahoma’s delivery system is in great measure due to framing our 

services based on Head Start’s exacting program performance standards. Head 

Start’s Program Performance Standards are the foundation for quality, comprehensive services. They require attention to literacy, math, science, arts, physical, social, 

emotional and other areas of children development. The Standards are rigorous and 

programs are regularly monitored for compliance. They help guide good teaching 

and assessment. They should not be sacrificed in the name of flexibility. The Oklahoma experience is that they work to improve the lives and school readiness of children. Ladies and gentlemen, Head Start works! 

Chairman CASTLE. Thank you, Mr. Alexander. 

Dr. Barnett? 

STATEMENT OF DR. W. STEVEN BARNETT, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR EARLY EDUCATION RESEARCH, 

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ 

Mr. BARNETT. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, distinguished Members, thank you for this opportunity to address you. I am Steve 

Barnett, I am the director of the National Institute for Early Education Research. We are independent and non-partisan, and we 

provide research and analysis on early childhood policy. 

Over the past 40 years, we have developed a patchwork quilt of 

Federal, state, local, and private programs to serve children at ages 

16

three and four in the United States. We have made some remarkable progress, 7 in 10 4-year-olds are in some kind of preschool program, 4 in 10 at age three. Yet despite this progress, many children still don’t attend a preschool program, including more than 

half of the three and 4 year olds in poverty. And many of those who 

do attend do not go to a good, effective preschool program. Now as 

an economist who studied the returns to high quality programs 

over the past 20 years, I find that America pays a high price when 

we fail to provide these programs with high standards and effective 

education. 

Across the Nation we are at a point where public preschool programs really do have serious concerns with respect to integration 

and coordination. Head Start serves about 900,000 children, mostly 

at three and four. State pre-K’s now serve over 740,000 almost all 

4-year-olds. Additional children are in public school programs for 

children with disabilities. Others attend private programs that are 

at least partly paid for with child care subsidies. These programs 

for the most part serve, at least partially and sometimes highly 

overlapping populations. 

In many ways, this is a good situation. Programs rarely have 

enough money to provide a full day of care and good education. The 

only way to do that is to combine some of these programs. So there 

is a potential for cooperation and integration to lead to better services for children. However, this overlapping system we have is also 

confusing for parents and providers. There are conflicting regulations, highly variable services, and uneven coverage. Our studies 

make this clear. If you look across the country, for example, you 

will see that over the past decade great progress has been made 

in the South and Northeast and the West has simply been left behind in terms of increasing enrollment. Rural kids, and Latino kids 

in particular, seem to be under served. 

So if we look across the country, we see this picture where a few 

states serve all 4-year-olds. By our count, seven states serve more 

than half of all of their 4-year-olds between state pre-K, Head 

Start, and IDEA. And yet 12 states provide no preschool—no state 

preschool program at all. Their standards vary widely. Some states 

require a 4-year college degree. Some states require no college education at all. Only 16 had comprehensive learning standards, although that is changing rapidly. 

And state funding varies from $1,000 to $9,000 per child. Only 

three states come within $1,000 of spending what Head Start has. 

The average state funding is only half the Federal Head Start 

amount. That is not a basis for cost comparison. And that is because that is only state spending. The reason we can’t accurately 

compare costs, a major impediment to learning how to coordinate 

and integrate services, is public data systems don’t provide accurate information about spending on these programs. Many state 

programs are partly, and in some cases mostly, funded by local 

sources where those funds are not tracked. 

So it is nearly impossible to find out how much they spend. And 

one of our recommendations, one of my recommendations is that 

we develop joint data systems that provide unduplicated counts 

and track these funds. 

17

Beyond this, I don’t have proven solutions to offer you today. Yet, 

I do believe we need to enable state’s Head Start and other Federal 

programs to jointly develop and test new approaches, particularly 

where states are already offering high-quality preschool programs. 

There are many options to do this. I have attached an appendix to 

my testimony that in fact details many of the ways collaboration 

and cooperation already happen. At least 21 states use Head Start 

with your state Pre-K. 

In addition, I would offer the following recommendations for limited experiments where we actually gather information on whether 

they work. Give states increased flexibility to use the Child Care 

Block Grant, TANF, and other Federal funds for state pre-K. Give 

states increased authority over Head Start where state pre-K 

standard are high. Require Head Start programs to maximize participation in state pre-K where they can do this without diluting 

their services. Let Head Start and state pre-K programs essentially 

trade the services of each other’s eligible populations. Where there 

are Head Start-eligible children in areas there are so few of them 

sometimes it is not feasible to have a Head Start Program, yet 

there is a larger population, make credits available to the families 

so they can purchase these services themselves. And finally, as an 

incentive for states to have high pre-K standards, provide supplemental funds to Head Start to meet higher state standards. For example, allowing Head Start to hire teachers with BA degrees or to 

reduce class size. Now no one can guarantee that any of these recommendations will actually work. That is why we need true experiments, rigorously evaluated. We need to look at how do they affect 

the literacy, math, social, and moral development, and the health 

of kids when we do try these kinds of things to see if they work 

better. 

I have some examples of the issues that arise from my own state 

of New Jersey. I want to point out that my comments do not reflect 

the views of anyone in state government, particularly my wife who 

is the director, she is assistant to the commissioner for Early Childhood in New Jersey. We have sought in New Jersey to integrate 

with a very high-quality program, Head Start, and childcare and 

other services. It hasn’t been easy. We have had difficulties with 

the requirements for verifying the income of families for childcare 

subsidies. We have had Head Start agencies turn over and not 

automatically re-engage with the same arrangements they had to 

partner in providing services. We have had problems where we 

seem to have unfilled Head Start slots over here, Head Start-eligible children over here being served in Pre-K, and yet Pre-K-eligible 

children over here not being served. 

There are ways to work that out. And, in fact, the state is currently working with the Head Start regional office to find solutions 

to these problems. So they are working at it. 

In conclusion, I want to thank you for taking up this issue. The 

nation has been making more headway in expanding access than 

it has in improving quality. And yet as an economist, I think it is 

important to point out it is not a good policy to serve goods with 

public dollars unless you provide a high-quality, effective education 

with those dollars. 

Thank you very much. 

18

[The prepared statement of Mr. Barnett follows:]

Statement of Dr. W. Steven Barnett, Director, National Institute for Early 

Education Research, New Brunswick, NJ 

Mr. Chairman and distinguished Members, thank you for the opportunity to address you today. I am Steven Barnett, Director of the National Institute for Early 

Education Research (NIEER) at Rutgers University. NIEER is an independent, nonpartisan organization that conducts and disseminates research on early childhood 

education policy. I am also a professor of education economics and policy. I wish to 

express my appreciation to the Subcommittee for investigating the potential for improvement of early childhood education through better integration. 

Over the past 40 years a patchwork quilt of federal, state, local, and private programs has evolved to serve children at ages 3 and 4. We have made some remarkable progress: 7 of 10 children now attend a preschool program at age 4 (about the 

same percentage that attended kindergarten in 1970); 4 of 10 attend a preschool 

program at age 3. Despite this progress many children still do not attend a preschool program, including more than 1/2 of the 3- and 4-year olds in poverty. And, 

many who do go to preschool still fail to get an effective education. As an economist 

who has studied the returns to high quality preschool education for over 20 years, 

I find that America pays a high price because public programs for young children 

have low standards and too little funding to reach high standards. 

Across the nation, public preschool programs have grown to the point where coordination and integration are important concerns. Head Start provides for about 

900,000 children, 800,000 at ages 3 and 4. State preschool programs serve over 

700,000 children, nearly all of them at age 4. State pre–K now serves more 4’s than 

Head Start. Additional children are served in public school programs for young children with disabilities. Others attend private programs at least partly paid for with 

child care subsidies. Most public programs target highly overlapping populations. 

This complex arrangement is generally good. Programs rarely have enough money 

to serve all eligible children. Child care subsidy rates are too low to purchase effective education, and blending programs may be the only way to obtain education and 

a full day of child care. There is potential for better services through cooperation 

and integration. However, there is also potential for confusion among parents and 

providers, conflicting regulations, highly variable services, and uneven coverage. 

NIEER’s annual reports on state pre-k and analyses of national survey data from 

parents make this clear. There are dramatic differences among the states and within states. Over the past decade, the south and northeast rapidly expanded preschool 

education, while the west lagged behind. Rural and Latino children appear to have 

less access to early childhood education than others. 

A few states offer preschool education to all children at age 4, and others are moving toward that goal. By our count, in 7 states more than 1/2 of the 4-year-olds were 

served by state pre–K, Head Start and IDEA combined in 2002. However, 12 states 

provided no state funding for Pre–K in 2002. State early education standards also 

vary widely. Many states require teachers to have a BA and specialized training, 

but others do not even require a 2-year degree. Only 16 had comprehensive learning 

standards, though that has been changing fast. State funding varied from $1,000 

to nearly $9,000 per child, but only 3 states came within a $1,000 of Head Start 

spending. Average state funding was only 1/2 the federal Head Start amount. However, it is impossible to make accurate cost comparisons today. 

The reason costs cannot be accurately compared, and a major difficulty for learning how to better integrate early education programs, is that public data systems 

don’t provide the needed information. For example, many state programs are partly 

funded by local schools (sometimes with Title I funds), but it is nearly impossible 

to find out how much they spend. The federal government should remedy this problem by supporting the development of joint data systems that provide unduplicated 

counts of the children uniquely or jointly served, the services they receive, and the 

public expenditures that support them. The nation knows how much the federal, 

state, and local governments spend per child on K–12 education in each state. Similar information should be available on preschool education. 

I don’t have proven solutions to offer you today. Yet, the situation is only going 

to become more serious, making it essential to enable states, Head Start, and other 

federal programs to jointly develop and test new approaches, particularly where 

states offer good universal preschool education. There are many options to be tested 

from shifting Head Start resources to younger children to the development of joint 

programs pooling state and federal program resources. I have attached an appendix 

to my testimony that details existing collaborative efforts; at least 21 states now use 

19

Head Start to serve 7% of their children in state pre–K. My recommendations for 

approaches that could be tested in limited experiments are as follows. 

• Give states increased flexibility to use Child Care Block Grant, TANF and other 

federal funds for state pre–K. 

• Give states increased authority over Head Start where state pre–K standards 

are high and coverage extensive. 

• Require Head Start programs to maximize participation in state pre–K where 

this can be done without diluting services and states are willing to provide 

needed funds. 

• Credit Head Start and state pre–K for serving each other’s eligible populations 

when they can meet the requisite standards. This might be more cost-effective 

while providing greater parental choice and competition. 

• Where the Head Start eligible population is too sparse to support a Head Start 

program, offer families credits to be used to purchase equivalent services from 

providers that meet Head Start standards. 

• As an incentive for high pre–K standards, provide supplemental funds to Head 

Start to meet higher state standards, for example, enabling Head Start to hire 

teachers with BA degrees and pay competitive salaries or to reduce class size. 

No one can guarantee that these or any other policy changes will succeed. Thus, 

it is vital that the federal government support true experiments that are rigorously 

evaluated. This will provide a safeguard so that policy changes do not lead Head 

Start and other programs to lose their effectiveness, and it will ensure that definitive conclusions can be reached regarding what works. Broad implementation of policy changes should proceed only after positive findings. 

I have some examples from New Jersey where I reside. My comments do not represent the views of anyone in state government, including (and particularly) my 

wife, Dr. Ellen Frede who is Assistant to the Commissioner for Early Childhood. 

New Jersey is implementing the nation’s most ambitious pre–K program for all 3-

and–4-year olds in 31 school districts that serve a 1/4 of our children. This program 

has sought to integrate child care and Head Start with state pre–K. This has not 

been easy. Fro example, we have had difficulties with the requirements to verify income for child care subsidies. When Head Start agencies have turned over, agreements have not been automatically continued leaving districts to face gaps in services. We appear to have problems with unfilled Head Start slots in some districts 

while Head Start eligible children occupy state pre–K slots and other children can 

not find places. The state is currently working with the Head Start regional office 

to find solutions to some of these problems. 

In conclusion, I want to thank you once again for taking up the cause of improving early childhood education. The nation has been making more headway in expanding access than in improving quality. Yet, increasing the numbers of children 

served with public money is sound policy only when it also provides an effective education. Whatever you can do to ensure that more children receive a high quality, 

effective preschool education will pay substantial human and economic dividends far 

into the future. 

APPENDIX: CURRENT STATE/LOCAL COLLABORATIONS WITH HEAD START

DEBRA ACKERMAN AND DR. W. STEVEN BARNETT

Head Start and the States partner in a number of ways already. A basic overview 

follows. 

State Financial Collaborations 

Seventeen states supplement federal Head Start funds in order to provide over 

28,000 slots, wrap-around services, and quality enhancements. In fiscal year 2003, 

this supplemental funding totaled over $177 million.

20

State–Head Start Preschool Collaborations 

In 2002–2003, just under 740,000 children were enrolled in state-funded preschool 

initiatives in 38 states. About 7% of the preschoolers enrolled in these state-funded 

programs were served in Head Start programs. At least 21 states used Head Start 

programs to serve some state pre–K children (Barnett, Hustedt, Robin, & Schulman, 

2004). About 13% of the public schools operating preschool programs reported using 

Head Start funds according to an NCES report on pre–K in the public schools. 

State Administrative Collaborations 

Every state-as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico-also receives 

grants from the Administration for Children and Families to fund state Head Start 

Collaboration Offices. The intent of these grants was to ‘‘create a visible presence 

for Head Start at the state level and to assist in the development of multi-agency 

and public-private partnerships among Head Start and other interested stakeholders’’ (California Head Start State Collaboration Office, 2005). These offices are 

also responsible for integrating the efforts of various state and community organizations in eight key areas: 

• Improve access to health care services 

• Improve the availability, accessibility, and quality of child care services 

• Improve collaboration with welfare systems 

• Expand and improve education opportunities in early childhood programs Initiate interactions with AmeriCorps–The National Service Program 

• Improve opportunities for children with disabilities 

• Improve access to family literacy services 

• Improve collaboration for homeless families (Nevada Head Start Collaboration 

Office, 2005). 

In order to reach these goals, states have established various noteworthy partnerships. For example, in Nevada all Head Starts sites have applications for the state’s 

CheckUp program, a health insurce program for children from low-income families 

(Nevada Head Start–State Collaboration Project, 2005}. Pennsylvania has four Technical Assistance Regional Coordinators. Their background, areas of expertise, and 

contact information are available on the state’s Collaboration Project web site 

(Pennsylvania Head Start State Collaboration Project, 2005). Texas has established 

a statewide online trainer registry. Trainers must be approved based on their educational background and training received in adult education and learning, as well 

as their experience working with children and teaching adults (Texas Head Start 

State Collaboration Office, 2005). . 


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21

REFERENCES 

Barnett, W. S., Hustedt, J. T., Robin, K. B., & Schulman, K. L. (2004). The state 

of preschool: 2004 state preschool yearbook. New Brunswick, NJ: NIEER. 

California Head Start Collaboration Office. (2005). Overview. Retrieved April 18, 

2005 from http://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/cd/re/chssco.asp?print=yes 

Nevada Head Start–State Collaboration Project. (2005). Head Start collaboration–

initiatives. Retrieved April 18, 2005 from http://www.welfare.state.nv.us/chiid–

care/headstartlHeadStartInitiative.htm 

Pennsylvania Head Start State Collaboration Project. (2005). Technical assistance. 

Retrieve April 18, 2005 from http://www.center-school.org/hsscp/map-ta.php 

Smith, T., Kleiner, A., Parsad, B., Farris, E., & Greene, B. (2003). Prekindergarten 

in U. S. public schools: 2000–2001.–Statistical analysis report. Washington, DC: 

National Center for Educational Statistics, U. S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Statistics. 

Texas Head Start State Collaboration Office. (2005). Trainer registry. Retrieved 

April 18, 2005 from http://www.uth.tmc.edu/thssco/careerdev/index.htm 

Chairman CASTLE. Thank you, Dr. Barnett. 

Dr. Clifford. 

STATEMENT OF DR. RICHARD M. CLIFFORD, SENIOR SCIENTIST, FRANK PORTER GRAHAM CHILD DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE, CHAPEL HILL, NC 

Mr. CLIFFORD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Members of the 

Committee. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. My name is 

Dick Clifford, and I am a researcher at the FPG Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

And I will start with my disclaimer. I am representing myself 

and the work that I do but not the university or any of the agencies 

that have supported this work. So these are my opinions here. 

I will not go into all that I do but I have had two large-scale 

projects looking at pre-kindergarten in a total of 11 different states 

in the U.S. and those states together represent about 80 percent 

of all of the children who are in pre-K, state-funded pre-K in the 

U.S. So a lot of experience looking at state pre-K efforts. 

I also took a leave of absence from the university for a year and 

worked in state government in North Carolina when we were designing and implementing what is known as Smart Start in North 

Carolina, a general early childhood initiative. So I had an opportunity there to look particularly at implementing programs at the 

state level, so real time working with Head Start, Childcare and 

Early Intervention Services with pre-K programs, trying to bring 

those programs together and integrate services. So I appreciate 

very much the difficulty of the task that you are undertaking here 

and also the importance of it. 

In the last decade, we have actually seen pretty dramatic increases in investments in early childhood services, but we still have 

only what I consider to be minimal formal coordination of efforts 

across childcare, early intervention of services of children with disabilities, and preschool programs with Head Start. 

Let me just give you an example from my own current work relating to Head Start and state pre-K programs. You have heard 

today some comments about efforts at the state level to do coordination and collaboration. Both Head Start and Pre-K Programs essentially serve the same population. In virtually every state there 

is either a sole requirement that low-income children be served or 

22

that is one of the major criteria in the program, which of course 

the same is true for Head Start. 

One would expect then that there would be very close cooperation and coordination across Pre-K Programs and Head Start. In 

fact, one would think that states would have first turned to Head 

Start providers to actually help implement Pre-K Programs and 

they may have started that way. But in fact when we look at the 

state Pre-K Programs that we have examined, only about 15 percent of these classes, pre-K classes in the states we have studied 

are in Head Start programs. And two of those states, Ohio and 

Kentucky, account for most of that 15 percent. 

If you look at the rest of the states, we are talking about 5 or 

6 or 7 percent. So we failed, at least in our initial attempts, to try 

to integrate Head Start and public Pre-K programs, at least in my 

opinion. 

Then, second, as a state administrator, when I worked in public 

government in North Carolina, I found that linking the Smart 

Start initiative with Head Start go back into how these two are coordinated but clearly Head Start is run by the Federal Government. There is a state collaboration office in states, supported by 

the Federal Government, to help with collaboration between Head 

Start and other early childhood programs but still all of the decisions are made through the Federal Government. The standards 

are set at the Federal Government, decisions about which programs to fund, where expansion will take place for Head Start all 

happen at the Federal Government whereas the decisions for 

childcare, early intervention, and preschool pretty much are centered at the state level with some of that delegated down to the 

local level. 

I would just add in here one other factor, and that is that schools 

have become increasingly involved in serving preschool-aged children. We did a study—survey of data sources at the Federal level, 

trying to identify how many children were served by schools prior 

to kindergarten entry, and by the turn of the century about a million children in the U.S. were in schools prior to their normal kindergarten entry age. And that number, that million, is about a 

fourth of the number of 4-year-olds in the U.S. There are about 

four million 4-year-olds in the U.S., so about one in four children 

are getting services through schools prior to school entry. So 

schools have become a major player in recent years in the early 

childhood field. 

Just in passing, I would say we are starting a new initiative at 

North Carolina that is trying to help look at how the schools and 

local providers work together to serve young children. 

OK, in 2003, the Office of Management and Budget estimated 

that Federal and state expenditures on preschool and childcare programs totaled about $24 billion. And I have provided you a table 

that specifically looks at North Carolina about the same time period. We in North Carolina in that same 2002/2003 were spending 

about three quarters of a billion dollars a year on early childhood 

services in North Carolina for children from birth up to 5 years of 

age. And there is no single dominant provider in that group. Head 

Start has a large share of that three-quarters of a billion but nowhere near the majority of it. No one provider is dominant. The 

23

legislature in North Carolina came back to the state and told us 

we want to make sure these funds are being used effectively and 

efficiently. Both Governors and states are seeking to make the 

most efficient and effective use of the limited resources and are 

naturally concerned that the services not be duplicated, that they 

are used to maximize the impact on children, and that all appropriate resources are directed toward this population. These are 

goals I know that you share as a Committee. 

Now what recommendations? I think I would first say that the 

problems with integrating services for young children are tied more 

to organizational and structural features than they are to the specific requirements on the programs, the individual standards and 

the technical parts of the legislation. The problem is that there is 

no clear message about who is in charge, what is the relative role, 

what should be the relative role of Head Start, childcare, and these 

other services that we have talked about? 

There are a few states that are trying to address that. You have 

heard already from the commissioner of the new department in 

Georgia that is trying to bring together a variety of services in 

Georgia under a new department there. Massachusetts is in the 

process of trying to develop a new department that will cover all 

of early childhood services. In North Carolina right now we are 

making steps to try to improve the coordination and collaboration 

through structural changes at the state. 

But this is happening because states recognize this problem. I 

don’t see any reasonable alternative to really collaborating and coordinating than for states to take the initiative and to make sure 

this happens at the state level. 

So you have under reauthorization of Head Start an opportunity 

to offer a few states the option of managing Head Start program 

within their state, whether it is called an experiment, a demonstration or whatever. This should be an opportunity for states to fulfill 

this role of providing true coordination across the different service 

provider sector. 

But there are some dangers in this. The experiments have to be 

carried out carefully. You have heard here already that there is not 

a problem with state pre-K programs meeting the Head Start 

standards so you should maintain the standards. Do not give up on 

those standards. There may be some minor ways that states are allowed some flexibility but the basic core standards need to be kept 

in place. States must agree to an evaluation, as Dr. Barnett said, 

this won’t do us any good unless we have a very thorough and careful evaluation of the implementation of this and a major part of 

that, as he said, is a sound data collection system that let’s us 

know actually how many children are being served, how many are 

getting which service. 

So I applaud your attempts to bring together the various parts 

of the early childhood system and to integrate Head Start into such 

a larger system. You can help lead us toward a more rationale system of services for young children. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Clifford follows:]

24

Statement of Dr. Richard M. Clifford, Senior Scientist, Frank Porter 

Graham Child Development Institute, Chapel Hill, NC 

Good morning, my name is Dick Clifford and I am a researcher at the FPG Child 

Development Institute, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. My testimony 

represents my own personal views and does not necessarily reflect the positions of 

my organization or the various public and private agencies that support my work. 

I study young children and programs to support these children and their families. 

I am co-director of the National Pre-kindergarten Center at FPG (supported largely 

by the Foundation for Child Development). I served as Principal Investigator of a 

large-scale study of pre-kindergarten programs in 6 states, supported by the US Department of Education, and am currently co-director of a follow-up study of pre-kindergarten programs in 5 additional states (with support from the Pew Trusts 

through the National Institute for Early Education Research). Together these 11 

states serve about 80% of the children in state sponsored pre-kindergarten programs 

in the US. So, I’ve had extensive opportunities to see how states are working to improve readiness of children coming to school. In the 1990’s I took a leave of absence 

from the University to work in state government in North Carolina to help design 

and implement Governor Jim Hunt’s major early childhood initiative, called Smart 

Start. In this role I had an opportunity to work first hand at encouraging the various agencies serving young children to work cooperatively to improve services for 

all children from birth up to school entry. 

The task you are addressing is a difficult one. Some time ago I was asked to describe the early childhood services in the US at a conference in central Europe. I 

entitled my paper, Parallel Play. I did this because at the time, our diverse set of 

service providers—Head Start, Child Care, Early Intervention for young children 

with disabilities, and more traditional preschool programs—each mostly went their 

own way with little cooperative effort, occasionally interacting when there was a 

problem. That was in the 1990s. Since then governments at all levels in the US 

have dramatically increased their investments in early childhood services, yet we 

still have only minimal formal coordination of efforts in most states. 

Let me give a single example relating to Head Start and state pre-kindergarten 

programs. Both of these programs have as a major goal improving the readiness of 

children for school. In most of the states children who are from low income families, 

or are otherwise at risk for school failure, are targeted for services in the pre-kindergarten programs, just as in Head Start. One would expect that there would be 

close cooperation and coordination between these programs. In fact Head Start providers would normally be thought of as major sources of provision of services for the 

state pre-kindergarten programs since nearly all of these programs use both public 

school as well as private service providers to deliver the pre-kindergarten services 

to target families. Yet in our 11 states our data show that only 15% of the classes 

were in Head Start programs. Only two states had any major involvement of Head 

Start in the pre-kindergarten program. The remaining states had extremely low 

participation rates by Head Start providers. 

As a state administrator in North Carolina I found linking our Smart Start initiative with Head Start was quite difficult. As you know, Head Start is funded and 

administered by the federal government through its national and regional Head 

Start offices in Health and Human Services. While the federal government provides 

support for states for a small office designed to help foster collaboration, these offices have no authority over the Head Start providers, so all decisions about expansion of Head Start programs, standards, and all formal oversight of Head Start is 

handled through the regional and national offices. On the other hand, such decisions 

for child care, early intervention and preschool programs are mostly made at the 

state and local levels. In fact this system makes it very difficult for states trying 

to create a more unified system of services for families with young children to truly 

coordinate these services. 

Another factor is becoming increasingly important in this equation. More and 

more schools are involved in providing services to children prior to the traditional 

age of entry to kindergarten. In a review we conducted at the end of the 1990’s, 

we estimated that nearly a million children were in school-based programs earlier 

than kindergarten entrance. Most of these children were starting a year before they 

would start kindergarten, that is, they were about four years old. There are about 

4 million children per age group in the US, so this means about a fourth of all children now are starting school early. So, public schools have become a new major 

player in this field. 

We are starting a new initiative at UNC–CH that we are calling First School. In 

this program we are developing a joint project with our local school system to establish a model program for children from about ages 3 to 8 years that will provide 

25

a seamless transition from the preschool period to early school for young children 

without forcing very young children into the more traditional and structured school 

organization. Building upon this new model of how schools can be organized to serve 

younger children we will provide assistance to local and state agencies struggling 

with how to fit the needs of very young children into the traditional school models. 

In 2003, the Office of Management and Budget estimated that federal and state 

expenditures on preschool and child care programs were some $24 Billion. On the 

table at the end of my remarks I show the specifics for North Carolina at about the 

same time period. You can see that just for our state, total expenditures from state 

and federal sources for early childhood services were in excess of $ 760 Million in 

2002–03. While Head Start is a major source of support of such programs, it is by 

no means the dominant source at this point in time. As state governors and legislators seek to make the most efficient and effective use of limited resources they are 

naturally concerned that services not be duplicated, that funds are used in a way 

that maximizes the impact on children and that all appropriate uses of various 

sources of support are brought to bear on the issue of helping children come to 

school ready to succeed. 

It appears that the problems in integrating services for young children are more 

tied to organizational and structural issues than to any one simple set of standards 

or rules. There is no clear message of who is in charge or whose job is this anyway. 

A few states are trying to address this situation. Georgia has recently consolidated 

many of the early childhood services under a new state agency—the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning. It is responsible for overseeing child care and 

educational services for Georgia’s children ages birth through four and their families 

and includes the state’s large pre-kindergarten program. Massachusetts is also 

working to establish a new overarching agency in charge of all early childhood services. North Carolina is also looking at ways to improve the overall coordination and 

efficiency of service delivery. 

The reauthorization of Head Start offers a wonderful opportunity to offer a few 

states the option of managing the Head Start program within their state as part 

of this overarching early childhood system. Only states that are far along in the 

process of developing a true system of services for young children and their families 

should be chosen to be part of this experiment. This experiment should be carried 

out carefully and evaluated thoroughly to provide guidance for a long term plan to 

assist states in providing the best services for their citizens. There are a number 

of key issues that should be considered in the legislation authorizing such trials. 

Many of these were covered in the legislation considered last year, but I would highlight a few. States chosen must demonstrate that they have the commitment to 

long-term system improvement. Formal state plans for implementing the goal of developing a true system of services must be required as part of the application by 

states to participate in the experiment. States must commit to maintaining or expanding state expenditures. The standards set for Head Start programs at the federal level should be maintained or strengthened under the state oversight, although 

some modifications of the standards to fit the individual state circumstances should 

be allowed. These modifications should not be allowed to have the effect of weakening the standards. Current Head Start grantees must be provided with assurances that they will continue to be grantees under the state oversight with only exceptions for clear violation of standards or other breeches of contractual requirements. States should be required to show how they would integrate the Head Start 

providers into the overall state plan. States should be required to report annually 

on progress in meeting the state plan and to propose any needed modifications to 

the plan. States should be required to submit regular reports on child and family 

services and their impact. 

States must agree to participate in a careful evaluation of the effort. Currently 

there are few formal requirements for submission of data on children and families 

served or the nature of services. Because each agency currently has its own reporting system it is impossible to get a clear picture of how many children are receiving 

services or how many services individual children are receiving. As part of the evaluation of the experiment, a comprehensive data system should be established providing information on all services received by children and families under the approved state plan. States in the experiment would be required to implement use of 

the data system, with the goal of eventually requiring the data system for all states. 

I applaud your attempts to bring together the various parts of the early childhood 

system and to integrate Head Start such a larger system. Thank you for the opportunity to address the committee.

26


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Chairman CASTLE. Thank you, Dr. Clifford. 

Ms. Blank. 

STATEMENT OF HELEN BLANK, DIRECTOR OF LEADERSHIP 

AND PUBLIC POLICY, NATIONAL WOMEN’S LAW CENTER, 

WASHINGTON, DC 

Ms. BLANK. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, I am pleased to have the opportunity to testify today. I am 

going to address three issues, how local communities and states are 

already effectively collaborating, remaining barriers to collaboration, and how the Head Start reauthorization can address these 

challenges. Programs must address twin goals embedded in Federal policy, they have to help children enter school ready to succeed, and they have to help parents work. These goals must be 

achieved by requiring programs to meet the highest standards. 

Head Start, pre-K, and childcare programs are already working 

together in many communities. Their collaborations do not necessarily provide resources to serve additional children but they do 

help programs respond to the needs of children and families. Most 

pre-K programs are part day, some operate for only as few as twoand-a-half hours. Many states combine pre-K dollars with Head 

Start funds for a longer day. 

In La Crosse, Wisconsin, a Head Start program in an elementary 

school enrolls children in the state 4K program for half a day and 

Head Start for half a day. Teachers have joint planning time, share 

lunch with the children, and funds are commingled. Other Head 

Start children in the community are bused to a pre-K site after 

their Head Start day. 

States are layering Head Start and pre-K dollars to strengthen 

components of each program. A California school district grantee 

combines Head Start, state pre-K, Title I, and state First Five 

Early Childhood funds to create a full day with comprehensive 

services. In New Jersey, Head Start programs use pre-K funds to 

hire bachelor degree teachers. 

In many communities, Head Start is offered in child care settings. This is especially important in rural communities where it 

is challenging to meet Head Start’s enrollment targets. In rural 

Iowa, Head Start contracts with community childcare centers and 

public school programs for Head Start slots in their existing classrooms because there simply are not good services in these areas. 

Programs are working together to recruit children. States with 

the will have demonstrated that they can bring funding streams together. Maryland and Oregon have formal agreements that facilitate collaboration. While Illinois includes collaboration as one of six 

required components for new pre-K programs. 

While there are countless examples of programs working together, pre-K, childcare, and Head Start policies, as well as funding 

constraints, still create barriers that limit the quality and duration 

of services to children and families. First, state pre-K funding is 

not stable. Ohio had invested $100 million in state funds and was 

reaching every eligible Head Start child. State funds were replaced 

with TANF dollars, which have now been moved out of Head Start. 

This lack of constancy has wreaked havoc on programs. Worst 

yet, it has left up to 18,000 of Ohio’s poorest children without the 

28

benefit of Head Start. While funding for North Carolina More at 

4 Program has grown, it has been at the expense of the state’s 

early childhood, much-acclaimed Smart Start program. Most states 

don’t offer children and families Head Start’s comprehensive standards. 

A third barrier is the quality of state pre-K programs. A recent 

six state study by the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute found that the quality of pre-K programs was lower than 

the quality of Head Start in childcare classrooms assessed in other 

studies. It also found that low-income children made only small 

gains during the pre-K year. 

Florida’s recently enacted universal pre-K program only includes 

a child development associate credential, not even the Head Start 

requirement for AA degrees for teachers, let alone BA degrees. Programs who are collaborating across the country believe that one of 

the most significant barriers to collaboration is state childcare policies which inhibit us from putting together a seamless early childhood system. State waiting lists for childcare assistance are growing. Florida has over 46,000 children, North Carolina almost 

25,000, Texas, over 26,000. Expecting more childcare funds to be 

used for pre-K given these waiting lists just does not add up, especially when only 13 percent of childcare funds are allocated for 4 

year olds. 

Eligibility for childcare assistance is based on the parent’s work 

status. If a parent loses their job or makes a small step up the pay 

ladder, the child is still eligible for Head Start or pre-K but is expelled from child care. This make programs reluctant to coordinate 

with childcare funds since the potential that they will lose 

childcare funding in the middle of the year makes it difficult for 

them to budget. Childcare reimbursement rates limit collaboration. 

Some states pay on an hourly basis. Providers serving Head Start 

or pre-K children for a portion of the day must reserve a full time 

slot for a child without getting full time reimbursement, yet the 

program has to cover its staff and other operating costs for all the 

hours it is opened. Low child care rates undermine efforts to raise 

the quality of all early childhood programs. 

Thirty-seven states currently pay out-of-date rates. Missouri is 

not unusual. It bases its rates on what it costs to pay for childcare 

in 1991. These rates make it nearly impossible to hire qualified 

teachers and in some cases even purchase books and basic supplies. 

Overall, state child care licensing policies leave little room for 

quality. In 36 states a teacher can begin to work in the childcare 

center with no training in early childhood development. These low 

standards are why Head Start performance standards are so important. 

The Head Start reauthorization can strengthen collaboration. 

Programs that don’t have waiting lists could be given more flexibility around the children they are serving. If some states are investing in high-quality programs and reaching all their 4-year-olds, 

Head Start programs should be required to serve 3-year-olds if they 

are not already doing so. When parents have their income increased slightly above the poverty line, Head Start should have the 

flexibility to serve their children who still need the benefits of Head 

29

Start. This would ensure that programs that have already invested 

in classrooms do not have several empty slots. 

Similar to provisions in the Child and Adult Care Food Program, 

the reauthorization could include a demonstration that allowed all 

children living within a low-income census tracked school district 

to participate in Head Start and child care without individual income eligibility determinations. 

While the research is clear on the effectiveness of early Head 

Start, Head Start programs could also be given the flexibility to 

move down to serve infants and toddlers. Another way to encourage collaboration is to target a portion of Head Start expansion 

funds within states with sizable pre-K programs and programs that 

collaborate with child care and pre-K programs. 

The provisions to encourage collaboration included in Title I of 

last session’s House-passed Head Start bill should also be maintained and would help us come a long way. These new incentives 

and tools for collaboration should be put in place and allowed to 

demonstrate that it is possible to increase collaboration and coordination while retaining the bedrock principles of Head Start and its 

ability not only to serve as a national model for excellence in early 

education but serve as a national model of how we can meet the 

multiple needs of our lowest income children and families. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Blank follows:]

Statement of Helen Blank, Director of Leadership and Public Policy, 

National Women’s Law Center, Washington, DC 

Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, I am Helen Blank, Director of Leadership and Public Policy at the National Women’s Law Center. I am pleased to have 

the opportunity to testify on collaboration and coordination efforts among early 

childhood programs. 

The reauthorization of Head Start should enhance and strengthen provisions for 

coordination and collaboration among Head Start, state prekindergarten, and child 

care programs in order to achieve critical national goals related to children and parents. All children should enter school ready to succeed. Meanwhile, parents should 

be able to work to support their children and have the resources they need to be 

their children’s first teachers. The elements that are most essential are continued 

national leadership to ensure that Head Start can stay on its course of continuous 

improvement to enable our lowest income children to achieve their full potential and 

new investments to ensure that programs have the resources to do so. 

In order to achieve our goals for children, programs must be required to meet the 

highest standards. These standards should not be sacrificed for the goal of flexibility. Head Start standards have been higher and more comprehensive than other 

preschool programs. They require attention to literacy, math, science, arts, physical, 

social, emotional and other areas of children’s development. The standards are rigorous. They are regularly monitored for compliance. They guide good teaching and 

assessment to improve the lives and readiness of children and the quality of programs. 

In order to achieve our goals for parents, programs must be able to respond to 

the needs of those who are working. Part-day, part-year programs are often inaccessible for parents struggling to support their children and become self-sufficient. 

Over the past several years, there has been a growing recognition of the importance of a high quality early education experience for young children with increased 

investments in state prekindergarten initiatives in a number of states. Unfortunately, with frozen federal child care funding, many states have simultaneously lowered child care eligibility criteria, raised parents’’ co-payments, and lowered reimbursement rates to already low-paid child care providers and as a result diminished 

families’’ access to early care and education. 

Coordination and collaboration are valuable objectives, but also very, very complex to achieve given the numerous goals that early childhood programs are expected to meet simultaneously. Head Start, prekindergarten and child care proVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:08 Jul 20, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00033 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\DOCS\20780 EDU1 PsN: NNIXON
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grams are already working together in many communities to meet these goals. However, they face numerous barriers, many of them resulting from state-level policies. 

Ongoing Collaborative Efforts 

Leaders at the state and local level are already collaborating to use their Head 

Start, prekindergarten and child care dollars creatively both to bolster quality and 

to meet the needs of working families. Yet, these collaborations do not always 

stretch resources so that more children receive prekindergarten. 

Most state prekindergarten initiatives allow Head Start agencies to be eligible 

providers. Five state prekindergarten initiatives are identical or nearly identical to 

Head Start. 

Most prekindergarten programs are part day; some operate for as few as two and 

a half hours a day. State prekindergarten dollars are often combined with Head 

Start funds to provide a longer day or full year for children. In some cases, child 

care dollars are still necessary to extend the day until 5 or 6 p.m., when parents 

get out of work. California, Colorado, Connecticut, Iowa, Illinois, New York, Virginia 

North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland, Texas and Wisconsin are among the 

states where local programs put Head Start and prekindergarten together. The Massachusetts prekindergarten program, Community Partnerships for Children, which 

is designed to strengthen existing programs serving three-and four-year olds, offers 

part-day programs funds to extend their day. 

In La Crosse, Wisconsin, one Head Start program operates in an elementary 

school. The majority of children in the state’s prekindergarten program (4K) also 

qualify for Head Start. They are enrolled in the state 4K program for half a day 

and Head Start for half a day. Teachers have joint planning time, share lunch with 

the children, and funds are co-mingled. Other Head Start children in the community 

are simply bused to a prekindergarten site after their Head Start day and the only 

co-mingling of funds is for transportation. 

Iowa’s Hawkeye Area Community Action Program adds funds from the state’s 

Shared Visions prekindergarten program in eight classrooms to enable children to 

have a longer day. In other classrooms, Child Care and Development Block Grant 

(CCDBG) funds are used to extend the day. A state program that provides funds 

to local communities for children ages birth to five is used in seven other classrooms. 

In Central Los Angeles, the University of Southern California pairs Head Start 

and state prekindergarten dollars to put together an eight-hour day for children in 

one location. In another location, responding to the lack of facilities in urban areas 

and the need for care for parents working long hours or varied schedules, the grantees keep a facility open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. using Head Start and child care dollars throughout the day. 

In Brooklyn, New York, Builders for Families and Youth and the East Side House 

bring together New York State prekindergarten dollars with Head Start funds to 

support a longer day. 

States are also melding Head Start and prekindergarten dollars to strengthen 

components of each program. In many states, state prekindergarten dollars are insufficient by themselves to ensure a quality program. Head Start dollars help to 

raise the quality of prekindergarten programs and allow programs to provide comprehensive services. 

Iowa’s Hawkeye Area Community Action Program adds Head Start dollars to 

Shared Visions programs to enable these programs to provide Head Start’s comprehensive services. 

A California school district grantee combines Head Start, state prekindergarten, 

Title I, and state First Five early childhood funds to create a full day with comprehensive services. 

In Tulsa, Oklahoma Head Start dollars are used in state prekindergarten programs to support comprehensive services. 

State prekindergarten funds are also enabling Head Start programs to have 

teachers with a Bachelor’s degree in their classrooms, particularly when the state 

prekindergarten program requires teachers to have this credential. Wisconsin, New 

Jersey, Texas, Oklahoma, and New York are among states that use this approach. 

In Oklahoma, the public school generally hires the teachers who then work in Head 

Start programs. Teachers are school employees, and the school district ensures that 

the teacher meets all standards and receives the same compensation as teachers 

working in schools. 

In New Jersey, Head Start programs in Abbott districts—the state’s 30 highest 

poverty districts mandated by the New Jersey Supreme Court to provide children 

a high quality preschool education—are eligible for Abbott prekindergarten funds to 

enable them to hire teachers with a Bachelor’s degrees. 

31

1W. Steven Barnett. Jason Hustedt, Kenneth Robin, and Karen Schulman. The State of Preschool: 2004 State Preschool Yearbook 28 (2004). Florida enacted a state prekindergarten program in December, 2004. 2 Id at 24. 

Programs have also developed joint approaches to recruit children or ensure that 

services are not duplicated. In La Crosse, a Collaboration Committee meets once a 

month with representatives of Head Start, child care and prekindergarten programs. If Head Start has a waiting list, it directs families to the state’s prekindergarten program. Head Start and the public schools also do collective recruitment 

and give parents information about all available programs. 

In many areas of Washington State, one part of the district is served by the 

state’s prekindergarten or ECEAP program (which is similar to Head Start) while 

the remainder is served by Head Start. 

Head Start programs in states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Alabama, 

Michigan, New York, Texas, Washington State, Maryland, Minnesota, and Iowa 

have provided children with a full-day experience and brought Head Start’s comprehensive supports to children in child care by offering Head Start in child care 

settings. This model is especially important in rural communities that find it challenging to meet Head Start’s enrollment targets. 

In rural Iowa, a Head Start program contracts with community child care centers 

and public school programs for part-day Head Start slots in existing classrooms. 

Community Services for Children, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania brings Head Start 

to child care classrooms accredited by the National Association for the Education of 

Young Children (NAEYC). The agency provides funding to help child care classrooms meet developmentally appropriate requirements, offer comprehensive services 

to children and families, and training for child care teachers. Brooklyn’s Builders 

for Families and Youth and East Side House also have innovative collaborations 

with local child care programs. 

While most collaboration occurs on the ground at the local level, several states 

have formal agreements to facilitate collaboration. 

Maryland has an overarching Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) at the state 

level between the state Department of Education and the state Head Start Association guiding local MOUs between local Head Start grantees and the LEAS. Its purpose is for programs to work together effectively to improve outcomes and provide 

opportunities from children birth through five to achieve school success, to promote 

collaboration among the parties and their local counterparts and to encourage and 

support the development of local and/or regional agreements between public school 

systems and Head Start programs. The state MOU involves joint planning, staff development, curriculum, articulation, transition, and recruitment. 

Oregon’s Department of Education and the Regional Head Start office have a 

MOU facilitated by the Head Start Collaboration Project to implement a seamless 

system for the administration of the state prekindergarten and Head Start program 

that involves joint monitoring, joint guidance and regulation interpretation, coordination and sharing of training, coordination of calendars and events, coordination 

of funding and service areas, joint planning for federal and state initiatives, and 

joint problem solving. 

Illinois, which recently significantly increased funding for prekindergarten, includes collaboration as one of six required components for new prekindergarten programs. 

While there are countless examples of programs working together, there are still 

barriers inherent in state and federal policies that limit the quality and duration 

of services to children. 

Barriers to Collaboration in State Prekindergarten Policies 

Despite an increase in the number of states that offer prekindergarten, the bulk 

of funding is still concentrated in ten states.1 Eleven states have no prekindergarten 

initiative and others have very small programs.2

State funding is not always stable. Ohio once made an impressive commitment 

to provide Head Start to every eligible child. Its state Head Start funds gradually 

were replaced with TANF dollars and currently the state, after a series of programmatic changes, moved its TANF dollars out of Head Start. This lack of constancy has wreaked havoc on programs that had expanded to meet the demand for 

more Head Start slots. Worse yet, it has left thousands of Ohio’s poorest children 

without the benefit of Head Start. While funding for North Carolina’s More at Four 

program has grown, it has been accompanied by a steady decrease in the state’s 

32

3 Id at 50. 

4 Id. 

5 Id at 44. 

6Donna Bryant, Dick Clifford, Diane Early, and Loyd Little. Early Developments: NCEDL 

Pre-kindergarten Study. (2005). 7See National Women’s Law Center, Child Care Assistance Policies 2001–2004: Families 

Struggling to Move Forward, States Going Backward (2004), available at http://www.nwlc.org/

pdf/childcaresubsidyfinalreport.pdf (last visited Mar. 29, 2005) [hereinafter Child Care Assistance Policies]. 8 Id. 

Smart Start program which provides supports for children ages zero to five and 

their families.3 In 2003, funding for prekindergarten decreased in 21 states.4

Most states do not offer children and families the comprehensive standards that 

characterize Head Start. Twenty state prekindergarten programs do not require 

that any meals be served to children.5

Although some state prekindergarten is of high quality, there is significant variability and some state prekindergarten programs have considerable room for improvement. A recent six-state study by the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute found that the quality of prekindergarten programs was lower than 

would be anticipated, and quality was lower than the quality of child care and Head 

Start classrooms assessed in other studies.6

Florida, which recently enacted a universal prekindergarten program, only requires teachers to have a Child Development Associate (CDA) credential—no higher 

education at all. In contrast, Head Start has met the goal that Congress set out in 

1998, for half of all Head Start teachers to have an Associate’s degree. Last year’s 

House bill raised the goal to Bachelor’s degrees. The low teacher standards of many 

state prekindergarten programs highlight how important it is that, when facilitating 

increased coordination, all programs be required to meet the highest standards. 

Barriers to Coordination in Child Care Policies 

The crisis in child care funding and low child care standards create a great danger 

that coordination will mean lowering standards rather than raising them. State 

child care policies are one of the most significant barriers to collaboration. Many 

families do not have access to help in paying for child care because of long waiting 

lists and/or low eligibility cut-offs for child care assistance. As of early March 2004, 

Florida had over 46,000 children on their waiting list, North Carolina almost 

25,000, Tennessee 23,000, Texas over 26,000, and California over 200,000.7

Another barrier to coordination is that, unlike, Head Start and state prekindergarten, eligibility for child care assistance is based on a parent’s work, education, 

or training status, not the developmental needs of their children. If a parent loses 

their job, is between jobs, or experiences a modest increase in income, their child 

while still eligible for Head Start or state prekindergarten, may be no longer eligible 

for child care assistance and programs serving their child can no longer receive 

those funds. This can make programs reluctant to coordinate Head Start and or 

state prekindergarten dollars with Child Care and Development Block Grant funds, 

since the potential they will lose CCDBG funding in the middle of the year, makes 

it difficult for programs to budget and to ensure children an undisrupted learning 

experience. Since early childhood programs operate on very tight margins, they do 

not have the resources to cover the costs that were previously paid for by child care 

funds. 

California has created another barrier for working parents by precluding programs from using state prekindergarten dollars with child care dollars. 

Child care reimbursement rate policies also limit collaboration. Some states pay 

on an hourly basis, only reimbursing providers for those hours during which care 

was provided. This can create a problem for providers who are serving Head Start 

or prekindergarten children for a portion of the day. They must generally reserve 

a full-time slot for a child without getting full-time reimbursement. Yet, the child 

care program must cover its full staff and other operating costs for all of the hours 

it is open. 

Low child care reimbursement rates not only limit collaboration but also undermine the efforts to raise the quality of all early childhood programs. Thirty-seven 

states currently pay rates based on outdated market rate surveys. In some states 

rates are particularly low Michigan still bases its rates on 1996 prices and Missouri’s rates for preschool-age children are based on 1991 levels.8 These rates make 

it nearly impossible to hire qualified teachers and in some cases purchase books and 

basic supplies. 

Overall state child care licensing policies leave little room for quality. In 36 states, 

a teacher can begin in working in a child care center with no training in early childVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:08 Jul 20, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00036 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\DOCS\20780 EDU1 PsN: NNIXON
33

9 National Child Care Information Center. (2004). ‘‘Child Care Licensing Regulations (February 2004): Child: Staff Ratios and Maximum Group Size Requirements.’’ Vienna, VA: National 

Child Care Information Center at http://nccic.org/pubs/ratios.odf, compiled from licensing regulations posted on the National Resource Center for Health and Safety in Child Care website at 

http://www.nrc.hchsc.edu 

hood development. Only 10 states meet national experts’’ recommendations for class 

size and child-staff ratios.9

Barriers to Coordination in Head Start Policies 

Head Start’s eligibility cut-off at the federal poverty level is lower than all federal 

and state- funded child care programs as well as many state prekindergarten programs. This makes it challenging to bring together children in the same classroom. 

Another barrier is the differences in teacher credential requirements among programs. Half of all Head Start teachers are currently required to have a minimum 

of an Associate degree in early childhood. If this requirement was changed to a 

Bachelor’s degree in early childhood, it would make it easier for Head Start programs to collaborate with prekindergarten in those states that required similar degrees. 

Head Start Reauthorization 

There are ways within the Head Start reauthorization that opportunities for collaboration and coordination could be strengthened. 

Head Start programs need more flexibility around the population they serve. If 

Head Start programs have a waiting list, they need funds to serve more eligible 

children. Programs that do not have waiting lists could be given more flexibility to 

respond to the needs of children and families in their communities and to collaborate with prekindergarten. Given the research about the importance of reaching 

children early, if states are committed to investing in high quality programs for 

four-year olds, Head Start programs should be required to serve three-year olds if 

they are not already doing so. 

If more parents have increased their incomes slightly above the poverty line after 

they have gone into the workforce, Head Start should have the flexibility to serve 

their children who still need the benefits of Head Start. This would ensure that programs that have invested considerable resources in establishing quality classrooms 

would not have several empty slots. Similar to provisions in the Child and Adult 

Care Food Program related to family child care, the reauthorization could include 

a demonstration that allowed all children living within a low-income Census tract 

or school district to participate in Head Start without requirements for individual 

income eligibility determination. 

With the research clear on the effectiveness of Early Head Start, Head Start programs could also be given the flexibility to move down to serve infants and toddlers. 

Another way to encourage collaboration is to target a portion of Head Start expansion funds within those states with sizable prekindergarten programs on programs 

that collaborate with child care and prekindergarten programs. 

A number of positive changes around state planning, state training offices that 

allowed professional development across all sectors of early childhood, state collaboration grants, joint unified planning on school readiness standards, strategic plans 

for outreach included in Title I of last session’s House-passed Head Start bill would 

also further enhance collaboration and coordination. Increased teacher requirements 

included in last session’s bill would greatly increase collaboration as well. However, 

this cannot be accomplished without additional investments to address teacher education and compensation in order to attract and retain teachers with higher qualifications. 

These new incentives and tools for collaboration should be put in place and allowed to demonstrate that it is possible to increase collaboration while maintaining 

the core of Head Start and its ability to serve as a national model for excellence 

in early education. 

Chairman CASTLE. Thank you, Ms. Blank. And I thank all the 

witnesses again. And I will lead us off, and I yield myself 5 minutes. I don’t know what to really ask here because I want a solution that could take any one of you 5 minutes to answer. So you 

are going to have to sort of help me with your answers. 

But the history of what we have done here on this reauthorization, the history of this is sort of interesting. Head Start has basiVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:08 Jul 20, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00037 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 H:\DOCS\20780 EDU1 PsN: NNIXON
34

cally doubled in its funding in the last 10 years, which is maybe 

10 percent a year on average. And it is still to some degree insufficient. It is not block granted and that has not really been suggested per se. There was a suggestion of changing departments and 

that was rejected. 

We wrote a bill last year which I think it is fair to say the first 

section, which is most of the bill actually, we pretty well agreed 

upon which had stricter standards and certainly Ms. Woolsey and 

Mr. Miller and others thought those were all sound ideas. Then we 

got into the second part, which was allowing eight states on a pilot 

basis to be able to do what has been actually discussed here, to integrate their programs more than are done now. And that created 

animosity and opposition from the Head Start Association and unfortunately calls for a very divided House of Representatives, even 

though we passed it in the House, it never went forward in the 

Senate and never became law. 

We have to deal with that problem again this year. A lot of you 

are sort, in fact all of you I think in one way or another have 

touched on the fact that integrating these programs is a sound 

idea. There may be deficiencies. Ms. Blank pointed out that the 

state funding is not on a regular stream, for example, and I would 

agree with that. The quality of state programs maybe not as good 

or maybe higher in certain instances. There are states, like Georgia, which has really done a superb job I hear, and I believe that 

in terms of doing this, others perhaps have not. But, clearly, there 

are more states now providing at these age groups, particularly 4-

year-olds, than ever did before. 

There seems to be, in my mind, more reason to have some sort 

of at least coordination in terms of what we are doing. But I am 

befuddled because I am don’t know how to write the legislation 

that won’t upset the Head Start providers who feel that they want 

their independence and yet will help us go further in terms of what 

we are doing. 

Some of you have sort of hinted at the fact that that can happen 

anyhow, perhaps it can. But I am interested in whatever it is that 

we can do in this legislation to further that. I am not interested 

in anything that is going to be destructive of Head Start. I am a 

strong provider—a strong supporter of Head Start in every way we 

possibly can. But to me we are missing an opportunity here and, 

quite frankly, I am not too sure that the opposition last year, and 

the young lady on my right was part of this, was completely on target, at least in terms of the purpose of what we are trying to do 

versus where we are today in Head Start. And I sort of hear all 

of you hinting at that. 

So you may not be familiar with the exact workings because a 

lot of you work generally in state programs or whatever but the 

exact workings of this legislation or how we can sort of bridge this 

gap that exists. But if you have any suggestions along those lines, 

I would be interested in hearing them. And part of it may be you 

don’t need to do anything more, it is working. I don’t know what 

you want to say, I just would like to hear from how many I can 

hear from in the next three or 4 minutes. 

Ms. MOORE. Thank you. In Georgia, I think the critical piece is 

to maintain those standards, those comprehensive standards. We 

35

are fortunate because we have a six and a half hour program. Our 

program has very high standards as far as the instructional part 

of our program. Also, I think it is important that we have the same 

maintenance of effort. That should be a part of the law as well, to 

make sure that less children are not served in high-quality programs but actually at least we maintain the level of children that 

are going to be receiving these services. Over 50 percent of our children at considered at risk, economically at risk children in our preK program. 

So in Georgia, as in many other states, we have children receiving different kinds of programs and different kinds of comprehensive services when they are actually the same children. 

So I think if legislation can be very clear to make sure we don’t 

compromise those high standards and the number of children we 

serve that is already being served through Head Start, that is 

going to be critical to maintaining the sound principles of Head 

Start and ensuring states comply by that. 

Chairman CASTLE. Any other, anybody else want to speak? Dr. 

Clifford. 

Mr. CLIFFORD. I would just like to add, just to reinforce my position that we need to try this in states. We need to have a few 

states in which we actually try to give the states authority to bring 

together all programs that serve children of this age. I think we 

will only have this true collaboration and coordination when the 

authority is clearly assigned to one level of government and one 

agency within state government. 

So I like the concept of giving the Governor authority to designate the lead agency in the state but you have to insist that that 

actually happen. You have to follow and evaluate carefully to make 

sure that these small number of states that you give the opportunity to try this are in fact complying with the intent of the law. 

Mr. ALEXANDER. I believe in the state of Oklahoma for example 

I have proven, and if you read my written testimony, that collaboration does work and it is working without taking away the consistency and quality of reducing the performance standards. The 

performance standards must be maintained. That is our bottom 

line. 

Then, teacher qualification funds, if we could get that to raise 

the teacher’s salaries, that would work tremendously across the nation. Maybe raise the income guidelines so that we can serve more 

and have opportunity to serve more in a higher population. 

But overall, I believe that these services don’t necessarily need 

to go to a different state level because when you go to a state level 

or any other level besides Federal to local level, then you may lose 

funding at some point in there, that may not reach the needs of 

those children. That is a major concern that I have with it having 

another level in there. 

Chairman CASTLE. My time is—Ms. Blank wants to say something, I think, my time is going to be up. If I had a follow-up question, I may ask it later, it would be are you meeting resistance in 

terms of the collaborations you are talking about from the Head 

Start community at large or if you are not, how do you coordinate 

that collaboration and is it a fact that maybe we don’t have to 

36

change anything in order to do this or is that just region by region 

or whatever. 

I think Ms. Blank wanted to say something on my original question, and then I will go to Ms. Woolsey. 

Ms. BLANK. I think historically, if we look at early childhood programs at the Federal level, there is an enormous interest in driving 

down standards when states have access to the funds. We saw that 

in the discussion 2 years ago. We have certainly seen it in the history of the child care and development block grant. Remember, we 

serve the same children and we barely—Representative Castle, I 

remember you were instrumental in saving the minimal standards 

on CCDBG in 1996. I think the Head Start performance standards 

are very, very important for poor children. I don’t think there are 

other agencies in communities that provide the kind of support 

that Mr. Alexander talked about that Head Start does. 

I think there are ways within the reauthorization to improve collaboration without changing the governance of Head Start. I don’t 

think the states have yet shown, even the states that have the biggest investment in pre-K, that they are consistent in quality. Florida is going to be investing $300 million in pre-K with a very, very 

low quality program. I don’t think that we are there yet, but I do 

think that Head Start programs can be required to collaborate. 

I think we could expand and improve the provisions in Title I of 

the bill that you worked on last year. And I think we ought to look 

at where children are, who needs the services, and how we can 

help programs move around to be more flexible in terms of who 

they are reaching. And I think that can be done without changing 

governance. 

Chairman CASTLE. Thank you, Ms. Blank. Ms. Woolsey is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. I am a total supporter of voluntary universal preschool and preschool in general, but not instead of Head Start. I 

see Head Start as serving a special population and serving it well, 

although not everybody who is eligible, as it should. And I see preK for kids like my grandchildren. 

My grandchildren have been read to since they were 2 or 3 

months old. When they enter kindergarten, they are going to know 

how to read, and they already do. It is amazing to me the opportunities these little children have because of their parents. I see Head 

Start as bridging that gap. And I know we know that is what it 

is about, so the needier enter kindergarten ready to learn at the 

same level as my children and grandchildren. 

So what is my concern with block granting to the states? We 

have experience with child care block granting. We have experience 

with IDEA. My state of California is good at taking Federal funds 

and supplanting with those funds instead of supplementing. And 

that is exactly what will happen to Head Start if we do that. We 

will take the emphasis, the focus off of Head Start. We will transfer it to the states, and we will lose that focus. 

That is my fear. That is why I am fighting block granting and 

will continue to fight it because I do not trust the states, including 

my own. So I am not going to ask a question on that but I just 

needed you to know that is where I am coming from on this. 

37

What we should be doing with Head Start I believe is looking at 

the level of education for the Head Start teachers, the pay. In 

Oklahoma, I believe, you told us that your preschool programs pay 

public school salaries, and for 4 year degrees. OK, how are we 

going to start that happening for all Head Start programs, for the 

needier, more challenged kids? And how are we going to expand 

those programs so that all eligible children can participate? And 

which would be more important, you are going to say more Federal 

funding, I know that answer. Which is more important, the 4-year 

degrees, expanding the program to all children that are eligible, 

and/or paying salaries that show the value of these children that 

these instructors are responsible for? 

I will start with you, Helen. You don’t have to make a choice. 

Ms. BLANK. Well, this is a challenging question because the 

House-passed bill did not include increases in Head Start sufficient 

to cover cost of living and the President’s budget this year doesn’t 

include a cost of living increase for Head Start. So it is hard to 

have this discussion to make a choice when it is not a real choice. 

It is hard to make a reform this way. 

I think it is important for Head Start to be on a path of improving qualifications for teachers. About half of states don’t require 

B.A. degree teachers in pre-K and only 13 require them to have 

early childhood specialties. I think it is important but when we increase the—when Congress increased the requirement for teachers 

in the last reauthorization to A.A. degree, which was critical, they 

upped the quality set-aside for Head Start from 25 to 50 percent 

of new funds and they added significant funds. And with that funding Head Start was able to meet the goals of having 50 percent of 

all teachers. 

I think it is very hard because if you want teachers once they 

have their degrees to stay in Head Start, to do what Oklahoma 

does, they have to compensate them. Oklahoma is very fortunate 

because it is a state whose pre-K financing comes through a school 

finance formula, it is not general revenue. It is very hard to choose 

between quality and quantity. I think for many years we chose 

quantity in Head Start and that weakened the program. 

So I don’t think we can continually increase the number of children being served without paying attention to quality. Maybe 

states are going to be making this huge investment in pre-K, although I think 21 states cut their investments in 2003. We could 

urge them to have high quality and improve Head Start at the 

same time and put the programs together at the local level and 

serve more children. I don’t think you can choose quantity over 

quality because in the end you won’t be able to defend the kind of 

support children are getting. That is a little round about. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Can I have one more answer? Let’s go to the other 

end of the table, because I want to make sure you know that I am 

not questioning your dedication. I am from California, we have had 

quite an experience with IDEA and watching what our Governors, 

not just the current one, have done on this. 

Ms. MOORE. Thank you for the opportunity to address this. In Georgia, we are fortunate. We have spent over $2.4 billion on Georgia pre-K program because one reason we have the commitment 

plus we have lottery and it is supported by lottery funds. Again, 

38

we see that we are continuously serving a lot of the Head Start 

children because of the high numbers of children who qualify for 

Head Start services. We are finding those children in our pre-K 

programs. 

We have a very similar program to Head Start, which is called 

a Resource Coordination Program which is like the family service 

worker. It is not quite as extensive, however we train, we blend our 

funds together, and we train these two different kind of programs 

that deliver social services to our at risk population. So we have 

the benefit received in Head Start and in our pre-K program. 

We have also been able to blend funds so that—Head Start pays 

for a 4-hour program. Georgia’s pre-K program is a six and a half 

hour program. What we have done is blend our funds and Georgia 

pre-K program has paid for that two and a half extra hours where 

Head Start is paying for the 4 hours. In this past year, Georgia 

spent I think it was $720,000 to serve around 4,000 to 5,000 extra 

Head Start children and that saved millions of dollars. So that was 

a benefit of our collaboration where we do believe we are serving 

more children, and we are serving that same population. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. But your funding stream through the lottery is 

dedicated to—

Ms. MOORE. Yes, it is dedicated to pre-K and Hope. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. So what happens if people actually stop playing 

Lotto? 

Ms. MOORE. Well, actually, when times have been hard in the 

state of Georgia, we found that more people are buying lottery tickets. So I don’t know, maybe we are a gambling state. But it has 

been to the benefit of education in Georgia, the lottery has. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Can the state decide to use those funds in another 

way? 

Ms. MOORE. Well, I think that could happen on the Federal level 

for Head Start and for states as well. It takes a legislative, a 

change in legislation in order to be able to do that. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Thank you very much. 

Ms. MOORE. Thank you. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CASTLE. Thank you, Ms. Woolsey. Mr. Osborne is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. OSBORNE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will try to be very 

brief and I am going to try to ask each one of you a question and 

so you will probably have to be brief too to get it in there, your answer in 5 minutes. 

First of all, Ms. Moore, you mentioned some differences between 

Head Start performance standards and Georgia state standards. 

How does the state resolve those differences? 

Ms. MOORE. The way we resolve that whenever we blend our 

money is that we honor—of course, we expect them to meet the 

pre-K guidelines and when they are receiving Head Start funds, we 

honor the Head Start requirements. So a program that blends the 

funds for pre-K services have to meet those standards and that is 

how we have addressed that for our at risk population. 

Mr. OSBORNE. OK, thank you. 

Jeff, this is a little bit of a related question. Evidently, Oklahoma’s pre-K program requires teachers to have a BA degree. And 

39

does Head Start require the same in Oklahoma, is it a uniform 

standard or what? 

Mr. ALEXANDER. Specifically in the collaboration with public 

schools, the teacher must have a 4-year degree, in many cases, in 

early childhood. Now we are stretching that over into the Head 

Start specific centers also. And, yes, in I believe 89 percent, if I am 

not mistaken, the last I checked, of all teachers, whether in public 

school collaborations or in the Head Start center have their 4 year 

degree at this point in time. And so we continue to strive to make 

that 100 percent. 

Mr. OSBORNE. That is pretty remarkable. I would imagine that 

is kind of hard to do. 

Mr. ALEXANDER. It is. 

Mr. OSBORNE. Dr. Barnett, I note here that many low-income 

parents are choosing to send their children to the state pre-K program even though they qualify for Head Start in your state. Why 

are they choosing to do this? Why are they not choosing Head 

Start? And what effect is this having on Head Start enrollment in 

New Jersey? 

Mr. BARNETT. I should start out by saying I don’t have direct 

data so I haven’t interviewed, surveyed parents about that. I can 

only make inferences from what we see. New Jersey, in large part 

because of the court order, has a program that entitles three and 

4-year-olds in 31 of our districts with the highest levels of poverty 

to a high-quality free public education. The standards for that program are higher than the standards for any other program in the 

country, the spending on that program is twice, more than twice, 

almost three times the state average. 

So this is very atypical and it also provides, because it combines 

services with child care, up to 10 hours a day for a parent’s working year, not just 180 day school year. And we have small classes, 

high standards for teachers, public school levels of pay, which is 

twice what the average Head Start teacher would get. These are 

very, very attractive programs for parents. You get a good education, you can have your child care needs met if you work. If you 

don’t, if you don’t need the extended day, there is no requirement 

to use it. And often the program will be closer to your home. 

Mr. OSBORNE. Well, I think that answers the question. Obviously, you are spending a lot more money than Head Start and it 

is a more intensive program. I didn’t realize that so I appreciate 

your answer. 

Dr. Clifford, what are some of the child outcomes that you would 

expect to see from a better coordinated early childhood system. I 

know that Ms. Blank kind of pointed out some of the ways where 

there was cooperation and you pointed out there wasn’t a whole lot 

of cooperation. So I am not sure, maybe you are both looking at the 

same problem from different angles. But what are some of the outcomes that you would expect to see from better coordination? 

Mr. CLIFFORD. Thank you, Representative. To start with your 

question about outcomes we expect, we expect a whole wide range 

of outcomes, and we have looked at these in our studies, language, 

acquisition, mathematical skills, social skills, all across the board, 

all areas of development for young children. Those are the things 

we expect to see. And we do see those both in Head Start and in 

40

pre-K programs. We have looked at both of those. And Ms. Blank 

indicated that there were small gains in pre-K but I would just say 

that they are about the same level of gains in pre-K we see as what 

the Head Start studies show for Head Start. So we are not talking 

about vastly different gains in these programs. 

In terms of collaboration, there are problems from a Head Start 

provider’s point of view of coming in and operating a pre-K program as part of the state pre-K effort because they are worried 

about serving two different masters here, the state and Federal 

regulators, both then are examining them in detail and it just adds 

another level of risk for them. So if they can be clear about who 

is in charge of early childhood services in their state, that will simplify and facilitate their willingness to come and be part of a comprehensive pre-K program for the entire state. 

If I could take 1 second and respond to comments that Representative Woolsey made, is that appropriate, Chairman? 

Chairman CASTLE. Yes, it is. 

Mr. CLIFFORD. I think an issue I have is your comments about 

wanting your grandchildren served in pre-K and wanting also lowincome children served in Head Start raises a serious question for 

me. In our K through 12 system, the Supreme Court has ruled that 

separate and equal is not a viable option. And I do worry that if 

we think about Head Start as something other than part of a single 

system in the state for serving children, as we move toward universal voluntary pre-K programs, the Head Start children will end 

up not being in those programs and being systematically separated 

from their peers who have more advantages. And I think that has 

serious long-term problems as we develop a system of services for 

all children in our state. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. May I respond, Mr. Chairman? 

Chairman CASTLE. A brief response is in order, and then we will 

go on to the next Member. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Well, here is the thing. Head Start is separate because there is a whole menu that goes along with the Head Start 

child that is necessary to bring that child up to the level of entering kindergarten ready to learn. There are many kids, for example, 

who go to preschool, go to child care, who need to be taken care 

of and learn day in and day out but they are starting with a disadvantage. 

Head Start bridges that disadvantage. If we lose that, we will be 

making a huge mistake. I am not trying to separate kids out. I 

think the Head Start kids need a better education than my preschool grandchildren because they are going to get it at home too. 

Chairman CASTLE. Thank you. We will now go to Mr. Kind. 

Mr. KIND. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks for holding this 

hearing today. I want to thank each of our witnesses for your testimony and your unique perspectives because conversations like we 

are having today, hearings that we have been having in regards to 

Head Start reauthorization is very important because I think the 

verdict is in, the studies are there, and we know the importance 

of quality early childhood education programs and what that 

means and the difference of these kids’ lives and their performance 

level once they start their formal K through 12 education. And yet 

sometimes we feel like we are pushing this rock uphill in regards 

41

to the real commitment and the investment of the youth of this 

country. And again, it is reflected in what the President was requesting in his budget in trying to hold Head Start funding level 

yet again. They claim they can make up in regards to the quantity 

shortfall but only by cutting back on technical assistance and training program funding, and I don’t think that is the area that we 

should be going in order to address a potential 25,000 student 

shortfall with level funding that is proposed in the administration’s 

request. 

And I agree with you, Ms. Blank, we can’t get into this Draconian choice of quantity versus quality because they are both very, 

very important. 

And there are some model programs throughout the country, and 

I am very proud in representing an area in western Wisconsin that 

have done a wonderful job in regards to integration and collaboration efforts. And, Ms. Blank, you referenced the one Head Start 

program in my hometown of La Crosse, Wisconsin, I think is a 

classic example of how hard they have worked to integrate. 

But what has made that as successful as it has been is how comparable the standards have been at the local level with the Head 

Start programs. And I think what we may see in regards to the future success of further integration and collaboration is the temptation for harmonization of standards at the state or school board 

level with the Head Start standards. And the question then becomes are we going to be harmonizing upwards or downwards? 

And I think that is where the concern lies with many of us on 

the Committee because if we see this harmonization downwards, as 

we are starting to see in various states, that is going to be a problem. And I think that has been one of the major stumbling blocks 

in regards to the reauthorization of this bill. 

And I am not sure how we can go about doing it. I have introduced legislation the last few years, and I am hoping to get a little 

more bipartisan support, that would establish a Federal incentive 

grant program for states that want to move forward with pre-K 

education opportunities. There is a vast inconsistency from not just 

state to state but school district to school district in regards to offering pre-K, the quality of pre-K, the level of funding, and the type 

of people, the talent, that they are trying to attract into these programs. 

And I think if we are going to be successful in enhancing the 

quality of these programs, it does come down to economic consideration. And that is what type of salary you are willing to pay, what 

type of training you are willing to provide, what type of message 

we are going to send as a nation. Therefore, if we are going to 

value the type of investment we need to make and that is how we 

are going to best attract the type of talent that we want to see 

working with these kids at an early age. 

And I just throw it open to any of you, if you have any type of 

perspective or response in regards to the harmonization that we 

may see continue in regards to the collaboration or the integration 

of pre-K and Head Start programs throughout the country. In some 

areas they are doing it very, very well, in some states, and we have 

heard testimony to that effect today. But, again, the concern that 

many of us have in this regard is whether we may see a weakening 

42

of the Head Start standards in a race to the bottom just to offer 

the citizens that they are doing something but maybe it won’t ultimately be in the best interest of these children. Does anyone care 

to respond? 

Ms. BLANK. I think that when we talked about it before, I addressed my concern that once you open this up and you have lesser 

standards in states, there is enormous pressure to allow flexibility 

that eventually take apart the Head Start standards. And while 

they look complex, I think they are important. There has been 

some discussion about we don’t need health because children now 

have access to Medicaid and SCHIP but we know that access to 

health insurance for poor children may not get them services. We 

have Head Start programs that drive 100 miles so children can see 

a dentist or they make sure that children see providers. There are 

extra steps that are really critical and that is why you need the detail and the performance standards. 

And it is difficult in a time of scarce resources not to create a 

rush to move more to the middle. And that is not where we need 

to be to make sure our children, our poorest children succeed. 

Mr. KIND. And I know you also mentioned the Florida example, 

for instance, and what is happening there with they stepped up in 

investment but maybe at the expense of the quality too that is 

being offered. And we need to work through this. I think it is vitally important because there clearly has been a trend that we 

have seen for some time, and we have an opportunity with reauthorization of the bill. 

So I would encourage you that if you have further thoughts or 

suggestions that you get in touch with us and see if there is some 

way that we can work this out before it starts moving along. 

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CASTLE. Thank you, Mr. Kind. Mrs. Davis is recognized. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you 

to all of you for being here. I wonder if you could talk a little bit 

about evaluation and assessment as you see it and how as we 

bring, as some programs are brought together in states how you 

are pulling out or I guess teasing out in terms of the data, how we 

are having at least, where the base data is and then how we are 

building on that because part of the problem that we often have is 

one of really understanding what is going on. 

And making, if the states in fact are doing some experimentation 

with collaboration, whether we know what accountability measures 

are in place that are working and which in fact are not. Because 

in reality we don’t have a lot of accountability measures, do we, in 

the Head Start program, certainly not using the leverage of funding. Programs are getting funding whether we know a lot about 

what they are doing or not. They are setting up their standards but 

we are not necessarily pulling out funding because they are not 

meeting those standards. 

Am I correct in that? Have you seen programs where that is happening to a greater extent? 

Ms. BLANK. Well, Head Start programs that are seriously deficient are de-funded. In the past several years, there have been 

close to 150 programs who have lost funding, and there was a hearVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:08 Jul 20, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00046 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 H:\DOCS\20780 EDU1 PsN: NNIXON
43

ing on this several weeks ago. No one wants a program that is not 

doing right by children to continue in their communities and they 

should be replaced as members agree immediately. 

There is a significant debate and my colleagues, Dr. Clifford and 

Dr. Barnett can talk about this as well, around how we should be 

assessing children. And there is some concern with the national reporting system that it is inappropriate. Head Start programs do assess their children three times a year to improve teaching practices, and we do an extensive monitoring of Head Start programs 

that need some improvement as has been discussed. 

But Head Start has the most exhaustive monitoring of any Federal system. There are some state pre-K programs that only do a 

desktop review. And as you sort of look into how programs are 

doing in accountability, I think we need to be very careful in terms 

of young children. We don’t support testing of older children until 

the third grade. 

Florida, again, has a very inappropriate provision in its pre-K 

program. It starts with very low quality pre-K, does not do any pretest of children, and ties funding of pre-K programs to children’s 

test results. I think we have to be very cautious, that is something 

we didn’t do in Leave No Child Behind, as we move on. But there 

are accountability measures in Head Start and in some pre-K programs. And I don’t know if Dr. Barnett and Dr. Clifford want to 

talk more about that. 

Mrs. DAVIS. I think more directing that, not just to Head Start, 

but I am talking about a blended system, whatever it may be, and 

how that accountability that is in Head Start is you see being utilized in that way? What leverage would we have as a Federal program in those particular states that would be blending those programs? What do you see happening already? 

Mr. CLIFFORD. I will take a little stab at that. I want to say that 

I completely concur with Ms. Blank’s concerns about the National 

Reporting System that Head Start uses and I am on the technical 

advisory panel for the reporting system. And I have expressed my 

concerns about the system. The problem is not with individual instruments in the system as much as it is with the way the system 

is designed so that it actually goes down to the individual site and 

assesses progress of children at that site. It puts the teachers who 

are doing the assessment or the other staff members who are doing 

the assessment in a bind that says if you tell us kids are not doing 

well, then we are going to take your money away. 

So it is going to corrupt the system itself so the system is not 

going to be an accurate reporter of how well children do. So let’s 

get that out on the table. 

On the other side though, I think there are reasonable ways of 

conducting evaluations that look at child outcomes as part of that, 

that can be done using a sampling approach to look at children so 

you are not doing this with every child and with the teacher having 

to assess their own children. And so I think there are reasonable 

ways of doing that. Some of the states, a few of the states that 

have pre-K efforts are conducting evaluations. Georgia has been 

doing an evaluation for 10 years or more at least I know. North 

Carolina, we have a very comprehensive evaluation system for 

doing that. It is possible to put these together and have a single 

44

evaluation of all pre-K services and early childhood services in the 

state to see how well this system is functioning. 

And it is both at the child level but also are we providing the 

services that families need so that we should be looking at our ability to help people engage in the workforce effectively as well as how 

well our children are doing. It is possible to do that comprehensively at the state level. 

Mrs. DAVIS. And the best example of that that you have are you 

pointing to Georgia as a state that has a good example of that? 

Mr. CLIFFORD. Georgia has done a lot. I think no state is adequately currently doing an entire broad thing where they are looking at the impact on families and the work life of families as well 

as children. They tend to focus on the children themselves. 

Mr. BARNETT. I actually think there is a relatively simple formula for what an evaluation would look like. It would tell you who 

is served and how that differs under the different policy regimes, 

how they are served, what services they get, and it would tell you 

about the impacts on the children and families. How does this impact on children’s learning and development. We can assess that 

very broadly. If we use sampling rather than trying to do every 

child, which doesn’t make sense, sampling you can then take much 

more care to get much better measures on children and families. 

And you want to follow the money. I think it would be useful to 

the Subcommittee to have the results of the current Head Start 

outcome study. It would be nice to know what is happening now. 

It would also be good to know where the money goes now. I don’t 

mean that in the sense of anybody doing anything wrong with it 

but all of Head Start, it is a Federal to local program. And one of 

the advantages of that is surely that they tailor things to their 

communities. But they also make individual decisions about what 

a director and staff thinks is best. How much variation is there, 

what could we learn from the variation that they have already got, 

and how might that help inform states in their work. 

One of the things that occurred to me in response to the Chairman’s question was would it be possible to set up a system in 

which—a study in which states essentially made proposals about—

rather than the experts from the outside coming up with proposals 

for how might states work with Head Start better, let states make 

proposals about what they would do where they have to make the 

case that this is in fact going to improve services for kids. It is not 

going to draw money out of the system. 

So from the very start the plan would have to justify that and 

then of course the evaluation tells you whether in fact it actually 

occurs. There has to be some degrees of freedom for states or states 

and Head Start jointly making these proposals to make some 

changes or we are simply assuming that whatever we have now is 

a perfect mix of services and there aren’t any options for fixing 

that. 

Chairman CASTLE. Thank you, Mrs. Davis. Did you want to add 

something? 

Ms. MOORE. I would like to, if I may, briefly. 

Chairman CASTLE. Thank you, Ms. Moore. 

Ms. MOORE. And just to speak to what Georgia and the importance of I feel like how we are doing it. First of all, we have done 

45

a sample evaluation of the program for about 10 or 11 years. We 

have done that. But the other piece of it that is even more important that we cannot lose is that assessment is important on an individual child level and for certain reasons. It is important to be 

able to identify barriers to learning and also to guide instruction 

so we can ensure the child is receiving the instruction they need 

to step up to the next level of learning and ability. 

But that can be done in a lot of different ways, ways as far as 

portfolio assessment, just teachers being trained on how to gather 

information about the child, not for reporting out information but 

to guide the instruction for the child to make sure the child gets 

the best services the child can receive. 

So I feel like you have to really look at assessment two ways. 

And sampling can meet that, definitely does meet that need because it drives policy. We have changed a lot of our policies in our 

state based on the evaluation that has been done. So there are different ways to look at it and be successful at both. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, I appreciate that, and I certainly understand that there are different ways to assess portfolios, et cetera, 

but I think sometimes we often have a lot more anecdotal than we 

have in evaluation and assessment. The anecdotal is important but 

for us to justify, what is frustrating I think is that sometimes we 

really don’t have the tracking that we need and my interest is in 

looking at good models where there is some accountability and you 

can demonstrate that people actually act on what they know and 

what they find out through those evaluations. 

Chairman CASTLE. Thank you, Mrs. Davis. 

Mr. Hinojosa is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. HINOJOSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to compliment 

the panelists because you all have a very good understanding of the 

programs and the difficulties and the challenges that we have in 

the reauthorization. 

I want to ask my first question to Dr. Richard Clifford, from 

North Carolina. Could you please describe how your state preschool 

program, Head Start programs and other child care programs are 

collaborating to identify and meet the needs of the limited English 

proficient children and their families? We refer to them as LEP 

students but that is of great concern to my congressional district, 

which has a very, very large migrant population. So I would like 

to see what Dr. Richard, how he would answer that. And, second, 

would like to hear from Jeff Alexander from Oklahoma to see how 

you all are handling LEP students. 

Mr. CLIFFORD. I can only give you a partial answer to that. 

North Carolina certainly has this as a major concern. In the last 

decade, maybe not the most recent, but in the last 10 years, about 

3 years ago, we had the greatest increase in the proportion in the 

population of Latino, Hispanic/Latino children in the country, with 

about a 450 percent increase in that population over a 10-year period of time. 

So it is a major issue. I also have a son-in-law who is Latino, and 

so it is a big issue for me personally. We have worked hard in the 

state to try to bring together people across all of these service delivery agencies to begin focusing on this issue. 

46

But it is one that we are struggling with. The huge growth in 

the population has made it difficult for us to have enough staff who 

speaks Spanish to adequately serve the population. And so we need 

many more Spanish-speaking people. 

We have addressed this to some degree through our professional 

development system where we have tried to provide training for 

people that cuts across the agencies. This is one area that I think 

we have done a reasonably good job of making sure that training 

opportunities, in-service training opportunities that are available 

for one segment of the population of teachers are available to all 

staff across all of the agencies. That is our best response so far. But 

we have a long way to go. It is something we have to work on. 

Mr. HINOJOSA. Thank you, I will respond to that after I hear 

from Jeff. 

Mr. ALEXANDER. Thank you. In some of our areas where the migrant has come in, we don’t have like a migrant program but in 

some of our areas we serve the Hispanic population or other, Asian, 

et cetera, by we applied in one area for a specific grant just for 

that, the Hispanic community because there was a large population 

in one area. That was before my time of becoming the assistant director in our area, but we continue to serve that population in that 

area. And it is a growing need and we are collaborating with the 

Workforce Investment Act Agency in our area to provide a training 

for our teaching staff specific for daily conversational Spanish because they may have one student in a classroom. 

Now we also are serving in the Choctaw Nation. That is another 

area in which we are working with those Nations to—in fact, the 

Choctaw Nation is now collaborating with us, they received a 

grant, if I am not mistaken, to provide the Choctaw language in 

some of our classrooms because there is that large variety. 

So in a variety of ways—we can address it in a variety ways, but 

we are working toward meeting that need in the state of Oklahoma. 

Mr. HINOJOSA. I commend you for the statement you made earlier that 87 percent of your teachers have bachelor’s degrees. That 

is outstanding and extraordinary. I want to say that the area that 

I represent is 80 percent Hispanic. We have over 100,000 migrant 

children, that is their home base where I was born and raised in 

south Texas. And so we have found ways in which to address the 

lack of what Dr. Clifford answered and that is lack of trained bilingual students—sorry, teachers who can deal with this growing population that you pointed out to us. 

The University of Texas at Pan American in Edinburgh, Texas 

has some of these programs and training programs. The Region 

One Education Service Center, which is part of TEA, Texas Education Agency, located in Edinburgh, also has this kind of a program. I recommend that you consider talking to them and seeing 

if maybe you all can exchange information that would help you. 

The time has come for us to go vote, and I am going to try to 

bring to closure my last question, which is for Ms. Blank, Helen 

Blank. You recommended that Head Start programs be more flexible. We know that Hispanic families and rural families do not have 

the same access to quality preschool programs as we have in other 

states. And I see that in that many of our teachers get paid minVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:08 Jul 20, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00050 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 H:\DOCS\20780 EDU1 PsN: NNIXON
47

imum wages or slightly higher than minimum wage, which $5.25 

is the minimum wage, so they get paid $6.25 an hour and that 

doesn’t compare with some of our much higher level quality programs. So how can we encourage or expand Head Start programs 

to better serve these populations? 

Chairman CASTLE. Ms. Blank, can you please—

Ms. BLANK. Be quick? 

Chairman CASTLE. Yes. And Mr. Hinojosa is correct, a vote is—

Ms. BLANK. I think we can talk about this more later. I do think 

giving Head Start programs the flexibility if you don’t have programs in rural areas to do Head Start and they do in other settings 

if there is a child care program or if there is a school to provide 

Head Start in those settings because if you give parents certificates, they are not going to find the quality care either. On how 

much you pay teachers, that is the same issue we talked about 

with Congresswoman Woolsey, we have to find the resources and 

it is really essential because you want people to come into programs and you want them to be able to stay there once they get 

some training. And you need the resources to be able to do that. 

Mr. HINOJOSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CASTLE. Thank you, Mr. Hinojosa. Obviously, the 

votes have commenced and we all have to run over to the floor to 

do that. But I want to thank the panel for being here today. I will 

say very briefly in closing that I am still concerned about the collaboration issues. We are dealing with two different animals, I am 

not saying that in the negative sense or a pejorative sense, but obviously you have state programs running a lot of pre-kindergarten, 

kindergarten, early childhood programs. You have some other independent programs. Head Start, though, is a separate entity and in 

some cases there is resistance, in other cases there is cooperation. 

But the fact that there is not good cooperation concerns me. I actually agree with Ms. Woolsey in that it is a separate program and 

it is aimed at a particular segment of our population, I think that 

is very important. But I still think the coordination is also important. And I also agree with those of you who say we need more accountability as well. And that may be different accountability, by 

the way. There is maybe extraneous accountability going on right 

now to be candid. 

So I am not totally satisfied that we have answered all the questions yet, but it is very helpful to hear what you are saying. And 

as we get closer with the states doing more along the lines of early 

education, along with Head Start, to me that collaboration is more 

important than ever. I just hope we can write legislation that 

somehow we can all agree on, that we don’t get into a fight over 

that would be helpful ultimately for these children who obviously 

need that. So that is what we are trying to do and where I am coming from. 

And I yield to Ms. Woolsey if she wants to say anything, but she 

looks like she wants to run and vote. So we will stand adjourned. 

And, again, we thank all of you for being here today. 

[Whereupon, at 12 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

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