U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001

88–542 PDF 2004

S. HRG. 108–314

REAUTHORIZING HEAD START: PREPARING CHILDREN TO SUCCEED IN SCHOOL AND IN LIFE

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION,

LABOR, AND PENSIONS

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

ON

EXAMINING PROPOSED LEGISLATION AUTHORIZING FUNDS FOR HEAD

START, FOCUSING ON PROGRAMS TO PREPARE CHILDREN TO SUCCEED IN SCHOOL AND LIFE

JULY 22, 2003

Printed for the use of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions

(
COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS

JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire, Chairman

BILL FRIST, Tennessee

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming

LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee

CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri

MIKE DEWINE, Ohio

PAT ROBERTS, Kansas

JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama

JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada

LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina

JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia

EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts

CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut

TOM HARKIN, Iowa

BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland

JAMES M. JEFFORDS (I), Vermont

JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico

PATTY MURRAY, Washington

JACK REED, Rhode Island

JOHN EDWARDS, North Carolina

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, New York

SHARON R. SODERSTROM, Staff Director

J. MICHAEL MYERS, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel

(II)
CONTENTS

STATEMENTS

TUESDAY, JULY 22, 2003

Page

Gregg, Hon. Judd, a U.S. Senator from the State New Hampshire .................... 1

Kennedy, Hon. Edward M., a U.S. Senator from the State of Massachusetts ... 3

Hill, Windy M., Associate Commissioner, Head Start Bureau, Administration

on Children, Youth and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human

Services; G. Reid Lyon, Chief, Child Development and Behavior Branch,

National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, accompanied by Russ Whitehurst, Director, Institute

For Educational Sciences; Marnie S. Shaul, Director, Education, Workforce

and Income Security Issues, U.S. General Accounting Office, Washington,

DC; Amy Wilkins, Executive Director, Trust For Early Education, Washington, DC; and Janis Santos, Executive Director, Holyoke-Chicopee-Springfield Head Start Center, Springfield, MA .......................................................... 8

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL

Statements, articles, publications, letters, etc.:

Windy Hill ......................................................................................................... 40

G. Reid Lyon ..................................................................................................... 44

Marnie S. Shaul ................................................................................................ 51

Janis Santos ...................................................................................................... 57

Amy Wilkins ..................................................................................................... 62

Catholic Charities, USA ................................................................................... 66

Stanley B. Peck ................................................................................................. 68

Case study—Raising Preschool Teacher Qualifications ................................ 70

Manda Lopez ..................................................................................................... 85

Navajo Nation ................................................................................................... 88

(III)

(1)

REAUTHORIZING HEAD START: PREPARING

CHILDREN TO SUCCEED IN SCHOOL AND IN

LIFE

TUESDAY, JULY 22, 2003

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS,

Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 o’clock a.m., in

room SD–430, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Senator Gregg

(chairman of the committee) presiding.

Present: Senators Gregg, Alexander, Warner, Kennedy, Dodd,

Harkin, Mikulski, Jeffords, Murray, Reed, and Clinton.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR GREGG

The CHAIRMAN. It is 10 o’clock, so we are going to begin. I understand Senator Kennedy is headed in this direction, and when he

gets here, we will proceed with his statement. But I wanted to get

my statement in and then get started on the hearing.

Today we are going to be talking about Head Start, which is a

program that has had considerable success over the years, and I

think we can take great pride in it, really, as a Federal Government initiative to try to get kids, preschool children, into an atmosphere which is nurturing and healthy. It was begun in 1975 as part of the War on Poverty. It has a $7

billion budget, and it supports about 900,000 children who are of

extreme low income in most instances.

Its strength in my opinion is that it has been community-based,

that it has always involved significant community participation,

and that it has been focused on making sure that the children who

come into the program, many of whom come from difficult family

situations, get a healthy environment and a decent meal or two

through the day and are given some ideas on how to get along with

other kids and, hopefully, ideas on how to deal with life and move

on and get ready for school.

There has been considerable discussion about its reauthorization.

Obviously, the House has already produced a bill. I believe very

strongly that there needs to be a building upon what is I think a

very strong foundation in the program, and that building should be

focused primarily on a more aggressive approach in the area of academic achievement, giving these kids a better chance at succeeding

when they get to the first grade by first off giving them some of

the tools they will need to be competitive with their peers who are

coming from other experiences into the first grade or into kinder-
2

garten and giving them stronger language skills, stronger skills in

the area of basic knowledge of the alphabet and hopefully some

phonics and basic numerology.

In addition, in strengthening the academic component, I think

we also need to look at some accountability to make sure that we

have Head Start programs that are actually accomplishing what

we desire them to accomplish, and we also need to align the programs with the elementary schools that they feed into so that both

the leaders of the Head Start community within the Head Start

Program and the folks who are going to get these children as they

move forward into kindergarten and first grade will have a sense

that they are all talking off the same script.

Those are my priorities as we move forward in this reauthorization. I do not wish to reinvent the wheel. I think we have basically

a very strong product to work from in the present Head Start Program, but I think there are ways to make it a better program for

the children who are participating in it, and I intend to work toward accomplishing that as we go through reauthorization.

We are joined today by five witnesses who are going to formally

testify. Windy Hill has been the associate commissioner of the

Head Start Bureau since January of last year. Prior to joining the

Bureau, Ms. Hill served as executive director of Centex Family

Services in Texas, which administered nine Head Start centers in

four counties.

Dr. Reid Lyon is a research psychologist and chief of the Child

Development and Behavior Branch within the National Institute of

Child Health and Human Development at NIH. Dr. Lyon received

a Ph.D. from the University of New Mexico, and prior to coming

to NIH, Dr. Lyon taught children with learning disabilities.

We also have Marnie Shaul, who is the director of education

issues at the General Accounting Office. She is responsible for the

studies that GAO undertakes for Congress on early childhood programs and elementary and secondary school education. Ms. Shaul

has had a variety of career activities including research, teaching,

and public policy.

Amy Wilkins is executive director of Trust for Early Education

which was established in 2002 to provide a strong and effective

voice in support of high-quality voluntary preschool for 3- and 4-

year-olds. Prior to working with the Education Trust, Ms. Wilkins

worked at the Child Defense Center, and she also served in the

media.

I believe Senator Kennedy will introduce Ms. Santos, who is from

Holyoke, I believe, which is a great town; I have spent many days

in Holyoke.

And Dr. Whitehurst, who is head of OERI, which does research

in the area of education, is here to answer questions as well.

Senator Kennedy.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR KENNEDY

Senator KENNEDY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for having this hearing and for recognizing the importance of taking action

on this legislation. We are looking forward to working with you.

Today’s hearing gives us the opportunity to discuss the achievements of Head Start and the ideas that will be considered for its
3

reauthorization. For 38 years, Head Start has been a helping hand

for our Nation’s neediest families and children. Head Start today

gives nearly one million young children the support they need to

begin school ready to learn. It guarantees that children see doctors

and dentists and are immunized against childhood diseases. It

teaches children to eat healthy meals. It welcomes parents into its

classrooms and urges them to participate actively in the administration of its local programs.

Three decades of solid research show that Head Start works.

Children who participate in the program may gain some vocabulary, become more interested in books, and learn to get along better

with one another. Children from the same background who do not

participate in Head Start do not make these gains.

But the need by children across the country for these services is

miles from being met. Because of inadequate funding, 40 percent

of those eligible still have no Head Start. In the case of Early Head

Start, which serves children ages zero to 3, the figure is a shameful

97 percent. Ninety-seven percent of children eligible for Early Head

Start have no access to it.

The President’s budget for next year recommends only enough

funding to cover inflation; it has no funding to serve any additional

children. That is wrong. Full funding of Head Start should be a

high priority for Congress and the Nation. Putting Head Start on

the path to full funding would require an additional $1 billion for

the coming year compared to the $148 million the administration

proposes.

Obviously, money is not the only answer. But it is a large part

of it. New resources should come with proven effective reforms that

will genuinely improve Head Start, not undermine it. I am confident we can build on Head Start’s record of success by making

several key improvements.

Better coordination with State and local programs makes sense.

We can align Head Start with early learning standards in the

States, facilitate coordination between Head Start and local elementary schools, and provide better training and support for Head

Start staff and for those working in early education programs as

well. This kind of coordination should be our goal in all 50 States.

We should continue Head Start’s focus on the whole child and

strengthen its focus in the area of school readiness. Head Start

needs strong educational standards that emphasize language and

literacy, expanded vocabulary, and pre-math skills.

The key point here is that even if children are excited about

books and know some letters of the alphabet and can recognize

some numbers, they are not ready for school unless they can also

follow a teacher’s directions and cooperate with the child in the

next seat or across the aisle. The development of a child’s pre-literacy and pre-math skills is important, and so is the development

of their social and emotional skills. Children need and deserve support in each of these areas.

We also need to increase our investment in teachers in Head

Start classrooms. Head Start children need the best possible instruction to succeed, and Head Start teachers and staff need to

know the families and the children they serve.
4

In 1998, we set a goal for the program to ensure that half of all

teachers earn an associate degree by 2003. Head Start has met

that goal. In fact, Head Start can be a model for career development. We should work toward the goal of a Head Start teacher

with a bachelor’s degree in every classroom, and we should pay

those teachers a fair wage—give them the ongoing support to keep

them in the program.

We should also strengthen the accountability in Head Start.

Head Start reviews are already among the most extensive in the

field. All Head Start programs should use the data from these reviews to improve their programs and enhance the role of annual

evaluations.

I support the development of a high-quality assessment for Head

Start children. But any assessment of 4-year-olds needs to be very

carefully prepared. It has to be valid and reliable and balanced in

what it measures—not just reading and math skills but social and

emotional skills as well. It must be fair, culturally appropriate, and

recognize the needs of children whose first language is not English.

Above all, though, we cannot afford to undermine the very reforms we are trying to achieve. State block grants are not reform.

A block grant for Head Start would mean no guarantee of services

for the neediest children; no guarantee of medical checkups, dental

visits, and screenings for hearing and vision; no guarantee of support for parents. It would mean lower quality and lower standards,

and it would jeopardize the time that children spend learning.

I oppose any effort to block-grant Head Start—not in 50 States,

not even in one State. Why take a chance on any block grant that

would leave any young child behind?

We know that we can strengthen Head Start and do it in ways

that do not weaken it. We are fortunate to have witnesses today

who will share their expertise and insights on strengthening Head

Start.

Thank you all for joining us this morning. We are looking forward to hearing from each of you.

I appreciate the courtesy of the chair in letting me introduce

Janis Santos. Ms. Santos has served as executive director of the

Holyoke-Chicopee-Springfield Head Start Center since 1979 and is

currently on the National Head Start Association Board of Directors.

Janis began her teaching career by opening up the first early

childhood center in Ludlow, MA, in 1973 under the Head Start Program. Under her leadership, the Holyoke-Chicopee-Springfield

Head Start Center has grown to be the second-largest Head Start

Center in Massachusetts and the largest provider of early education in Western Massachusetts.

Janis has received numerous awards for community service distinction and nonprofit operational excellence. She has been a consistent and strong voice for Head Start programs both in Massachusetts and nationwide, having served as chairperson of the Massachusetts Head Start Directors Association, chairperson of the

New England Head Start Association, and a member of the National Advisory Panel for Head Start 2010.
5

Janis is a Massachusetts native, and I am particularly proud to

welcome her today. She is a good friend and counselor and advisor.

I do not make a move without listening to Janis.

Janis, we are glad to have you here.

The CHAIRMAN. Janis, we need you. In a couple days, I would

like to call you and ask you to make some suggestions to Senator

Kennedy; there are some moves I want him to make. [Laughter.]

Before we begin I have statements from Senators Enzi and Ensign.

[The prepared statements of Senators Enzi and Ensign follow:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR ENZI

Mr. Chairman, I want to express my thanks to the individuals

who will testify about the important issue of early childhood education and the reauthorization of the Head Start program. As a father and soon-to-be grandfather, I am very interested in early

childhood development and believe it is one of the most important

issues to come under this Committee’s jurisdiction.

When the Head Start program was developed over 35 years ago,

it was built on the promise that the Federal Government would

take a role in helping disadvantaged children overcome the developmental obstacles associated with poverty. Where these children

lacked family support necessary to succeed in life, Head Start

would provide a safe environment where they could learn and

grow. In addition to educating the children, the program would also

take on an important role in educating families and providing essential services to children, like nutrition and hygiene assistance,

in order to give these children the best start possible.

Head Start is now one of the largest Federal initiatives to focus

on children under five, reaching hundreds of thousands of children

nationwide, in thousands of centers, with an army of teachers and

support staff. More than half of the program’s teachers have

earned degrees in early childhood education or a related field. In

Wyoming, there are almost 2,000 children enrolled in Head Start

programs in more than 100 classes, including the tribal Head Start

centers. Each class is staffed by a teacher who cares deeply about

the development of the children in his or her classroom, as well as

the ability of the child’s family to provide a safe and stable home.

Despite the investment in the program over its nearly 40-year

history, a significant question has been raised about the effectiveness of Head Start. Study after study has documented how children

who enter a Head Start program are better off when they leave.

That information is encouraging and is appropriately brought up in

this hearing, but a troubling statistic that has accompanied many

of these studies is that children leaving Head Start continue to lag

behind their peers who come from more advantageous circumstances.

According to information released by the Department of Health

and Human Services in their Family and Child Experiences Survey

(FACES), most children in Head Start couldn’t identify 10 letters,

a requirement in the last reauthorization of this program. In fact,

many of the children couldn’t identify any letters at all. Across the

board, children leaving Head Start programs fell below the national
6

average in vocabulary, letter recognition, early reading and early

mathematics.

To me, this sends a clear signal that the Federal Government

needs to ensure the program promotes learning in the same way

it does the health and well being of these children. In essence, the

Head Start program has focused so much on promoting a stable

learning environment that the learning has been overlooked. Based

on this information, it seems unnecessary for the Federal Government to require all Head Start teachers to attend a post-secondary

institution and earn a degree in early childhood learning if the program itself isn’t designed with an appropriate focus on the children’s cognitive development.

According to a joint study published recently by the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine entitled Neurons to

Neighborhoods, the most important years in terms of cognitive development are the earliest. I believe we must work to ensure that

the Head Start program emphasizes an appropriate learning environment, not only by providing health and social services for children, but also by challenging them to learn and develop in a way

that will put them on a level field with their peers from more fortunate circumstances. I believe this is consistent with the goals that

guided the development of Head Start over 30 years ago.

Part of the discussion on early learning should be how Head

Start might better prepare students for elementary school by

strengthening the program’s performance standards. Many of the

students leaving Head Start are better off than when they entered,

and that is important, but I feel it is important to ask the question

of whether or not Head Start students are doing as well as they

could be. If the Head Start program can be revised to include

stronger, reachable academic goals, that needs to be a part of the

discussion. We owe it to the children participating in this program

to design it in a way that they can start school on level footing with

their peers.

I also believe the discussion should include the issue of collaboration between Head Start and similar programs operating at the

State level. Many States are running preschool programs, including

Wyoming. It makes sense to get the staff and administrators from

the different programs talking to each other to make sure the children in these programs are getting the best material and curricula

available, so children in several different types of programs can improve simultaneously.

The Senate has an important role to play in helping to improve

Head Start so it can provide better support for the dedicated men

and women who make the program function from day to day, so

Head Start children can succeed just as well as their peers. I believe we need to explore potential program changes to see where

we might build on Head Start’s successes and address any shortcomings. I am convinced that an increased emphasis on early education, combined with Head Start’s success in providing a safe and

stable learning environment can serve as the successful foundation

for thousands of American children participating in the program.

With these questions in mind, I am grateful to the experts appearing here today who have brought their collective experience to

share with the Committee. I am confident that this hearing will be
7

the starting point for a valuable discussion of how the Senate

might address potential changes to the Head Start program, as we

paint a vivid picture of how well the program is doing to help disadvantaged children reach their potential.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR ENSIGN

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased that this committee is moving forward with the reauthorization of the Head Start program. As a

new member of this committee, I am looking forward to playing an

active role in this process.

While the Head Start program has been successful for many of

the children and families who have enrolled. However, I believe

that the program can do better.

The Head Start program should continue to promote the wellbeing of the whole child. However, that should not be incompatible

with an effort to focus more on early literacy skills. This program

needs to ensure that all children leaving Head Start programs are

entering kindergarten at a skill level equal to their peers. That is

not happening right now. While I agree that many of these children

are entering kindergarten at a higher level than they would have

without the assistance of the Head Start program, these students

are still not at a level comparable to other children their age. It

would be a disservice to Head Start kids to ignore this disparity.

It would be a disservice to conduct business as usual while Head

Start kids are being left behind.

I was looking forward to the results from the completion of the

first national-level research study on this program and was disappointed to learn that the Department of Health and Human

Services has delayed the completion of this study until 2006. This

research would have provided us, as policy makers, with the first

comprehensive nationwide study of this important program and the

impact it has had on the children and families it serves. Every witness testifying today will point to research regarding the effectiveness of the Head Start program, none of which I am denying as untrue or invalid, but it would have been very useful to have a fully

comprehensive study as we consider the reauthorization of this program.

It is my hope that we can work on this committee to improve the

coordination at the local level between Head Start programs and

early childhood and childcare programs. Currently there is no

mechanism in place for local Head Start grantees to coordinate the

services they provide with those provided by State and local early

education providers. This coordination is necessary to ensure that

we are not duplicating services, and, more importantly, that children and families who need some extra help are getting the services they deserve.

In closing, I would like to reiterate that I do believe that this

program can do better for both the children and families that it

serves, and I believe that many of those improvements can be

made by this committee.

The CHAIRMAN. We will begin the testimony, then, with Ms. Hill.
8

STATEMENTS OF WINDY M. HILL, ASSOCIATE COMMISSIONER,

HEAD START BUREAU, ADMINISTRATION ON CHILDREN,

YOUTH AND FAMILIES, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND

HUMAN SERVICES; G. REID LYON, CHIEF, CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND BEHAVIOR BRANCH, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF

CHILD HEALTH AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH, ACCOMPANIED BY RUSS WHITEHURST, DIRECTOR, INSTITUTE FOR EDUCATIONAL

SCIENCES; MARNIE S. SHAUL, DIRECTOR, EDUCATION,

WORKFORCE AND INCOME SECURITY ISSUES, U.S. GENERAL

ACCOUNTING OFFICE, WASHINGTON, DC; AMY WILKINS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, TRUST FOR EARLY EDUCATION, WASHINGTON, DC; AND JANIS SANTOS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,

HOLYOKE-CHICOPEE-SPRINGFIELD HEAD START CENTER,

SPRINGFIELD, MA

Ms. HILL. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the

committee. As associate commissioner of Head Start and also as a

former Head Start child and mother of a Head Start child, I appreciate this opportunity to discuss the President’s plan to strengthen

Head Start.

The House took a major step toward ensuring that Head Start

children have the skills they need to succeed in school by marking

up the School Readiness Act of 2003. We look forward to building

on the momentum created by the House bill and your hearing

today to move the Head Start reauthorization forward in the coming weeks.

Head Start was launched in 1965 as part of a bold ‘‘big idea’’ that

no child should be limited in his or her education because of the

circumstances of their family. None of us should be satisfied until

we have achieved the vision reflected in the ‘‘big idea’’ that is synonymous with Head Start—that economically disadvantaged children should arrive at school on a more level playing field with economically advantaged peers—a challenge for us to do even better.

The Head Start Program has triggered changes in early care and

education across the country. More than 40 States and the District

of Columbia now have early childhood programs of their own. Numerous States are revising their standards for child care and preschool programs, and as research has demonstrated the importance

of providing comprehensive services, States are now involved in

trying to integrate a multitude of other programs aimed at young

children and their families.

Federal and State Governments currently spend more than $23

billion each year for child care and preschool education, and much

more when you consider the other State health, nutrition, and welfare-related programs that serve the same children and families.

At the same time, however, although Head Start children make

progress in areas of school readiness during the Head Start year,

they continue to lag behind their more economically advantaged

peers on a number of important measures of early literacy and

math skills at kindergarten entry.

In addition, we are seeing an alarming lack of coordination between Head Start and State-administered programs that is undermining our ability to provide high-quality preschool services to as

many children as possible. President Bush is asking Congress to in-
9

clude a provision in the reauthorization of the Head Start Act to

allow interested States to integrate Head Start in their overall

plans for preschool services.

Under both the President’s proposal and in the House bill, States

could offer the opportunity to coordinate their preschool programs

and child care programs with Head Start in exchange for meeting

certain accountability. States eligible to participate must submit a

State plan for approval to the Secretary of Health and Human

Services that addresses several fundamental issues. Each State

must indicate in its plan how it would better coordinate Head Start

with State-administered preschool programs.

In addition, the State plan must address how it will work to develop goals for all preschool children in the State and devise an accountability system to determine whether children are achieving

the goals.

States must describe in their plan how they will maintain the

comprehensive array of child development services for children supported by Head Start funds and guarantee that they will continue

to provide at least as much financial support for State preschool

programs and Head Start as they are currently providing.

The President’s proposal, and now the School Readiness Act,

share characteristics that are frequently misunderstood that I

would like to clarify.

First, neither the President nor the House is proposing to block

grant Head Start funding to States.

Second, States taking advantage of this option must make a commitment to maintain the comprehensive services currently available to Head Start children under the State plan as supported with

Head Start funds.

And third, States who choose this option and who have their

plans approved will still be accountable to the Federal Government

for their use of Head Start funds and for achieving positive outcomes for children.

The President’s plan and the School Readiness Act will not allow

States to supplant State preschool or any other State funds with

Head Start dollars. Neither would a State be eligible of they reduced their State spending levels on early childhood programs.

One of the reasons why the Head Start Program has remained

strong is that it adapts to accommodate the changing needs of children and families. Most important, we cannot afford to have children slip through the cracks that nonsystematic approaches create.

Our children and families deserve the best programs that we can

provide and that communities and States can support.

Thank you, and I will be happy to answer any questions you may

have.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Ms. Hill.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Hill may be found in additional

material.]

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Lyon.

Mr. LYON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Senator Kennedy, for

the opportunity to come before you and talk to you about the research that we have done at NIH, at the NICHD, with respect to

child development and how that interfaces with Head Start and

other early childhood programs.
10

To my left is Dr. Russ Whitehurst, director of the Institute for

Educational Sciences, who not only holds a role in coordinating research nationally on this same topic but himself is a national expert in early childhood education and the study of such.

Over the past 15 years, we have learned that our preschool children can acquire a great deal of information about language, reading, and cognitive skills, more than we originally thought. We know

that preschool kids from disadvantaged environments are significantly behind their more affluent age-mates in linguistic skills essential for later reading and language development.

Our research tells us that this is because youngsters growing up

in low-income environments engage in significantly fewer literacy

interactions, such as shared book-reading and language interaction,

such as child-adult discussions.

As Hart and Risley pointed out in their NICHD-supported research with professional working class and welfare families, the average child on welfare was having half as much experience listening and speaking to parents—about 616 words per hour—as the average working child—1,251 words per hour—and much less, obviously, only one-third of the average professional family youngster

who is receiving 2,153 words per hour.

What does this mean? It means that our preschool programs

must provide children from low-income families with systematic

and evidence-based interactions to close these gaps. In many ways,

a comprehensive preschool program designed to help children develop the necessary cognitive, language, early reading, social and

emotional competencies is their last hope to eventually succeed in

school.

In the next decade, if the American early care and education system does not change, millions more children will never realize their

potential.

What makes this issue so compelling and troublesome is that it

does not have to be this way. We do know a great deal about the

foundational preschool abilities that predict success or failure in

reading in the early grades, and we are making substantial

progress in identifying the characteristics of high-quality preschool

programs that are able to help 3-and 4-year-old children acquire

these critical abilities.

We do know that the development of oral language abilities—

what I mean by that is vocabulary and an understanding of grammar, the development of phonological awareness—and what I mean

by that is the understanding that words are structured in smaller

bits, either syllables or sounds—and the development of print

knowledge, that is, knowing your letters and letter sounds and so

on—development of these capabilities during the preschool years is

absolutely essential for their development of later language and literacy skills—absolutely essential.

These critical language and cognitive abilities can be developed,

by the way, in warm, nurturing environments that can also enhance the development of emotional health and social competency,

as both the chairman and Senator Kennedy pointed out.

Our research tells us that if preschool children are not taught

and do not learn these concepts and skills, they will not be ready

for school. Unfortunately, our research also indicates that Head
11

Start as traditionally structured and implemented is not fully

achieving its stated purpose of promoting school readiness by enhancing the social and cognitive development of low-income children.

Our studies continue to point to the fact that low-income youngsters from Head Start programs perform significantly below their

more advantaged peers in language, reading and mathematics once

they enter school. This gap places a tremendously unfair burden on

the youngsters so that from the very first day of kindergarten, they

are already behind. This is unfortunate, because with proper preschool instruction, many can enter school on an equal footing with

every other child.

As Dr. Zigler stated in 1996, ‘‘Head Start’s goal is and always

was to prepare children for school.’’ Over the past three decades,

it was thought that ensuring adequate nutrition, healthy bodies,

emotional health, and social competencies would lead to robust

learning in schools. To be sure, and there is no doubt—physical

health, adequate nutrition, parental involvement, family social

services, and interactions to develop emotional health and social

competencies are necessary to achieve this goal. But indeed they

are not sufficient.

Social and emotional competence do not guarantee school readiness and academic achievement. Children must also come to kindergarten and first grade with strong foundational knowledge of

language, reading, mathematics, and science concepts essential for

success.

The goods news is that high-quality early childhood education

programs can enable preschoolers to develop these fundamental

language and cognitive concepts. The bad news is that far too many

children are spending time in preschool settings, including many

Head Start classrooms, that do not meet a child’s essential learning

and cognitive needs and thus neglect a very important aspect of

child development.

If Head Start classrooms are to prepare children for entry to and

success in school, our research tells us that they must foster language and emergent literacy skills. If we do not, they will fail in

school. If they fail to read and fail in school, we will most likely

condemn them to a life of continued disadvantage.

We would like to put forth several recommendations for the committee to consider.

No. 1, it is critical that early childhood programs including Head

Start provide a genuinely comprehensive set of activities and educational opportunities to all children, including those with disabilities, that are grounded in developmental science. It is imperative

that children’s social, emotional and cognitive growth be fostered

on the basis of what developmental science tells us about what preschool children can learn, what they need to learn to succeed in

school, and how learning is most optimally supported. For too long,

our understanding, development, and implementation of preschool

programs have been based on philosophical beliefs, untested assumptions, or out-of-date science.

Second, we must develop and implement a comprehensive assessment and reporting system to ensure that Head Start programs

produce the positive outcomes that we know are achievable.
12

This reporting system will, for the first time ever in the history

of Head Start, provide outcome data on all Head Start programs

and children, with and without disabilities, and thus help to identify areas in need of continued improvement as well as to document

systematically the successes derived by Head Start programs.

We owe it to the parents of Head Start to assess their children’s

progress on a regular basis in ways that will help guide the instruction and support of Head Start children.

And by the way, our data clearly tell us that youngsters are not

stressed or frightened by the assessment. They typically have fun

in a one-to-one interaction with an adult who is allowing them to

demonstrate their skills and mastery as long as that adult understands how to gain rapport with the youngster and capture the

youngster’s attention throughout the assessment process.

No. 3, we must ensure that our youngest children are learning

from teachers who are highly competent in their ability to help

children develop social competencies, emotional health, and the

cognitive language, literacy, and mathematics concepts critical to

school success.

Numerous studies have shown that program quality and the benefits to children with and without disabilities are inextricably

linked with staff educational background and training. The significant benefits to children provided by the Chicago CPC program and

the CIRCLE program described in my full testimony underscore

this point.

All preschool teachers, for example, in the CPC program had college degrees and certification in early childhood. While the teachers

in the CIRCLE program ranged in education from high school degree through graduate degree, the systematic mentoring, training,

and follow-up training produced many teachers of high quality.

And by the way, that training was the professional development

that Commissioner Hill provided to most Head Start teachers who

signed up for that particular program.

No. 4, it is essential that preschool programs be coordinated with

other programs providing early care and education as well as with

the curriculum framework and goals of kindergarten and early

public school programs.

Moreover, greater coordination and collaboration are needed between State and Federal programs to ensure that all children entering kindergarten are ready to learn. The value of a highly-coordinated series of programmatic interactions from age 3 through

the early grade school years can be seen in the results, for example, produced by the Chicago CPC program. The fact that the CPC

program that is provided through the Chicago public schools provides a continuity in children’s learning environments as well as

appropriate levels of compensation for teachers and staff. Other

communities, as noted in the Strengthening Head Start Report,

which I would like to enter into the record, provide good examples

of programs located outside the school system that are also able to

provide seamless services.

Finally, while many Head Start programs need to be strengthened to ensure high-quality interactions to support and develop

physical, social, emotional and cognitive strengths in an integrated

and accountable fashion, it is clear that many States do not have
13

such high-quality programs in place. It will be critical to identify

these programs that are beacons of light and expand and build on

them with both local and State funding. It will also be critical to

identify low-performing programs and provide the necessary technical assistance to strengthen them—but in the end, to ensure that

the health and development of our children are the priorities, not

the continuation of ineffective programs.

Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Dr. Lyon.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lyon may be found in additional

material.]

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Shaul.

Ms. SHAUL. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I appreciate the opportunity to discuss GAO’s work on Head Start.

Head Start is nearly 40 years old and since its beginning has

served about 21 million children at a total cost of about $66 billion.

Head Start is a popular program, enjoying bipartisan support,

and many believe it to be one of the most successful social programs.

Head Start’s reauthorization provides an opportunity to consider

two major issues that my statement addresses—how Head Start

fits into today’s environment of early childhood programs, and what

is known about the effectiveness of Head Start.

My message today is that Head Start is one of a variety of programs for young children, so coordination is important. And my

second message is that little is known about the effectiveness of the

Head Start Program.

Since Head Start’s establishment in 1965, the early childhood environment has changed greatly to meet the needs of a changing society. Head Start is no longer the only major provider of services

for children from low-income families. It now operates alongside

other early childhood education and care programs funded by Federal, State, and local governments.

This array of programs has been created in part to address the

increased number of low-income working mothers. Working families often need full-day services, but some Federal programs such

as Head Start are mainly part-day services. So full-day care requires coordination. However, it may be challenging for programs

to coordinate because of different income eligibility requirements,

different geographic locations, and different program standards.

Although there is a substantial body of research on Head Start

that describes the program and its participants, little is known

about the effectiveness of the program on children’s progress. HHS

currently has studies showing that the skills of children who participate in Head Start do improve. However, these studies cannot

provide definitive evidence that the improvement in children’s

skills is because they participated in Head Start.

HHS has a study underway that will provide more definitive information on Head Start’s effectiveness, but according to HHS, the

results will not be available until 2006.

I would like to briefly elaborate on these two points. First, funded at over $6 billion, Head Start is the largest recipient of Federal

funds for early education and care. Two other major programs

funded through HHS provide funds for child care—the Child Care
14

and Development Fund and the Temporary Assistance for Needy

Families, otherwise known as CCDF and TANF.

The Department of Education also has programs like Even Start

and Title I that provide services for children under 5. In addition

to Federal programs, State and local governments provide services

for children of low-income families. For example, the majority of

States fund preschool programs, and some supplement Head Start

programs.

As the number of working parents has increased, so has the need

for full-time care. Congress mandated that Federal programs coordinate with one another to provide greater access for children of

low-income families, and some progress has been made. For example, Head Start programs are required to coordinate with programs

such as CCDF, and some programs report sharing staff or sharing

space.

Although there are some successes, gaps in care remain. Barriers

such as difference in program standards, different geographic locations for local programs, and differing eligibility requirements

hinder coordination. For example, Head Start’s income eligibility

standard requires that 90 percent of the children come from families at or below the Federal poverty level or eligible for public assistance, whereas CCDF funds may be used to fund families with

higher incomes.

Turning to my second point, although there is an extensive body

of research that describes the program, there is no definitive national-level research about the effectiveness of Head Start for the

programs and families it serves.

In 1998, GAO testified about this lack of evidence, and during

the last reauthorization of Head Start, the Congress required that

HHS undertake an impact study with the completion date of 2003.

The Congress was specific in requiring that this study use rigorous

research methods.

Conducting impact evaluations is difficult and often expensive,

but the size and the significance of the Head Start Program indicates that knowing about its effectiveness is important.

The impact study now underway addresses two questions—how

Head Start affects the school readiness of children, and under what

circumstances does Head Start work best and for what types of

children.

The study is using a rigorous methodology that many researchers

consider to be the best way to determine a program’s effect—an experimental design whereby children are randomly assigned to the

Head Start Program or to a control group that does not receive

Head Start services. By comparing outcomes for these two groups,

one can show the effective of the Head Start program rather than

the effect of other developmental influences on children.

This national impact study is budgeted at about $28 million and

will follow children through spring of their first grade. According

to HHS, as I said, this study will be completed in 2006.

Head Start is also conducting another study, FACES, which is

currently providing Head Start a variety of descriptive information

on a national sample of children. Study results describe such

things as children’s progress, family involvement, and teaching

practices. For example, FACES research published in 2003 shows
15

that children enrolled in Head Start demonstrated progress in

early literacy and social skills.

However, FACES does not compare the gains that Head Start

children have made to those who have not participated in Head

Start, and this lack of a control group limits HHS’s ability to determine whether the progress of these children would have been made

without the program.

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared remarks. I would be

happy to answer any questions you might have on my statement

or on GAO’s ongoing work on Head Start teachers and children’s

cognitive development.

Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Ms. Shaul.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Shaul may be found in additional

material.]

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Wilkins.

Ms. WILKINS. Good morning. Thank you for inviting me to speak

to you this morning.

In this reauthorization of Head Start, you will consider a number

of issues. I am here today to address just one—narrowing the

school readiness gap between Head Start children and more affluent children by ensuring that each Head Start classroom is led by

a teacher with a bachelor’s degree and specialized training in early

education.

Head Start has provided millions of our most vulnerable children

with a foundation of integrated health, nutrition, academic, and

family support services. In doing so, it has already narrowed the

gap between these children and other children. Nonetheless, the

gap remains.

The effort to further narrow this gap must be focused on the promotion of strong literacy skills. However, as important as it is for

Head Start to enhance the intellectual growth of children, it must

not do so by cutting back on the other critical services that have

provided the foundation of Head Start’s success.

Promoting literacy schools should be in addition to—not a replace

for—the elements of Head Start that have demonstrable positive

impacts on school readiness.

Vocabulary is a critical building block to later literacy. Low-income 3-year-olds have vocabularies that are only about half the

size of the vocabularies of 3-year-olds living in our most affluent

families. To improve their vocabularies, we must provide Head

Start children with highly literate teachers who themselves have

rich and robust vocabularies. Data from the National Adult Literacy Survey indicate that adults with only AA degrees are twice

as likely to have literacy skills below the competent level as those

with B.A. degrees.

Requiring Head Start teachers to have bachelor’s degrees rather

than just associate degrees will increase the likelihood that children will experience richer, more complex speech and be able to

build strong vocabularies needed for later reading success.

The National Child Care Staffing Study found that teachers with

more formal education are more sensitive to their children, and

that children with more sensitive teachers develop stronger literacy

skills and higher language scores.
16

Well-educated teachers also foster strong positive social and emotional development than do teachers with less formal education.

Teachers with more formal education are less harsh, punitive, and

critical of their students than are teachers with less formal education, and they are more sensitive and supportive of their students with less formal education.

The most renowned early childhood ps for low-income children— the Perry Preschool Program, the Chicago Child-Parent Center

that Reid has already spoken about, and the Abecedarian Program

are all staffed by teachers with 4-year degrees. If we hope Head

Start will have the same high outcomes for its children, we must

staff Head Start with the same caliber of teachers.

Many of the most respected research institutions in the field support increasing the percentage of teachers with bachelor’s degrees

in the Head Start Program.

Staffing preschool programs for low-income children with welleducated teachers is not revolutionary. In fact, many States are

ahead of the Federal Government in this area. Half the States with

preschool programs already require that all of their teachers have

4-year degrees.

There are some who will say that while it may be desirable to

staff Head Start with teachers with 4-year degrees, it is impossible

to meet this goal. We would suggest that they consider the recent

success of New Jersey. In 1998, the State U.S. Supreme Court in

Abbott versus Burke ordered that the State establish preschool programs in the 30 highest-poverty school districts in the State. The

Court later required that each of these programs be staffed by a

lead teacher with a bachelor’s degree.

New Jersey has created and executed a plan that has moved the

percentage of bachelor’s degree teachers in their preschool programs from 35 percent to 80 percent in less than 4 years.

We strongly urge this committee to require that all Head Start

lead teachers have B.A.s as soon as possible. The House action on

this issue was significant and laudable. However, we hope the Senate will build on this work by increasing the percentage of teachers

with B.A.s in Head Start classrooms and making the resources

available to educate, attract and retain those teachers.

The Federal Government should demand higher levels of education from Head Start teachers. However, as they attain higher

levels of education, they must be compensated at higher levels.

Head Start teachers with B.A.s currently earn only about half of

what public school kindergarten teachers earn. Increased educational requirements without improved compensation will lead to

high teacher turnover rates, which will undermine every effort to

improve outcomes for Head Start children.

We have estimated the cost of providing Head Start teachers

with scholarships and other supports needed to earn B.A.s to be

about $1 billion. An additional $3 billion over 5 years will allow us

to increase the salaries of about 64 percent of Head Start lead

teachers to levels comparable to the salaries of kindergarten teachers. This increase would put us on a solid path toward having and

keeping well-educated Head Start teachers in every classroom.

But program improvement is more than just about increased investment. It is also a question of coordinated policy. This commit-
17

tee will undoubtedly spend a great deal of time discussing how

Head Start programs can be coordinated with State preschool programs. I am eager to participate in these discussions. But I would

remind you that to be successful in this area, we also need to consider coordination between Federal programs as well.

I look forward to continuing the dialogue on bachelor’s degrees

and Head Start as this committee moves forward to work on the

Higher Education Act.

Head Start has been successful for so long because it has evolved

and incorporated the best research into its program and practices.

The single best way to continue to improve the quality of Head

Start is to ensure that every Head Start classroom is led by a

teacher with a bachelor’s degree in specialized education and early

childhood education.

Thank you very much for allowing me to testify.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. I appreciate the testimony.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Wilkins may be found in additional material.]

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Santos.

Ms. SANTOS. Mr. Chairman, Senator Kennedy, and members of

the committee, good morning.

I am Janis Santos, executive director of the Holyoke-ChicopeeSpringfield Head Start Program. I also serve on the board of directors of the National Head Start Association.

I would like to take just a moment to thank Senator Kennedy for

his many years of commitment and dedication to the Head Start

children in our country. In Massachusetts, we see him as our

champion for Head Start. I have a clear remembrance of him visiting my preschool in Ludlow, MA and reading to our children many

years ago. So thank you, Senator Kennedy.

Senator KENNEDY. Thank you.

Ms. SANTOS. And Senator Dodd, where I served as an interim

grantee in Connecticut for a short time, for your commitment to

the Head Start, and members of the committee this morning for

their commitment to early childhood education and Head Start.

I appreciate the opportunity to testify today on behalf of the

thousands of successful Head Start programs across the country

and to discuss ways in which Head Start can be improved for the

900,000 children who rely every day on this program for their

health, nutrition, and cognitive development.

You have heard a lot today about numbers and studies and data.

I bring a different perspective to the discussion—one born of 30

years of experience working with some of the most vulnerable children and families in my community. And for me, the success of

Head Start is not about numbers or data; it is about making a difference in the life of one child and one family at a time.

As executive director of the Holyoke-Chicopee-Springfield Head

Start Program for the past 24 years and as a Head Start teacher

for 6 years, I have dedicated my entire working life to ensuring

that Head Start provides high-quality, comprehensive services to

the poorest children in my community, that we work collaboratively

with other early childhood programs and with the public school

system, and that the program applies the best thinking in early

childhood research in our work with our children.
18

I want to tell you a little bit about the children and families that

Head Start serves. My program is the second-largest Head Start

program in Massachusetts. We serve 1,200 children in Head Start

and 40 infants and toddlers in our Early Head Start program

through centers located in three cities and four towns.

We were honored to just be named the new grantee for the migrant program in the State of Massachusetts and will begin this

summer serving migrant children.

Our mission statement tells our story. We are committed to providing low-income children and their families with a beacon of hope

and a source of support for a brighter future. We strive to do so

by providing high-quality, comprehensive child development services to enrolled children and empowering families to achieve stability in their home environment.

Although the children we serve come from diverse backgrounds,

and the circumstances of their lives vary, they bring to the classroom a common set of challenges which we seek to meet in preparing them for their first experience in school.

My program is located in one of the most economically disadvantaged regions in Massachusetts. Poverty and stress indicators for

the area consistently exceed State and often national percentages.

Most of the children in our program come from single-parent

household with incomes below the poverty level. Three-quarters of

the parents have a high school education or less. For many of the

children and families, English is not the first language. And finally,

too many of the children in our classrooms have witnessed or experienced domestic or community violence.

For these children and families, Head Start is a safe haven

where they encounter the positive experience that help build the

foundation that will serve them throughout their school careers

and foster curiosity, an interest in learning, and the ability to pay

attention in the classroom.

Head Start insists upon a comprehensive range of services because we know that preparing children for school is about more

than just teaching letters or numbers.

Consider the example of my student who was part of the witness

protection program because he saw his father shot and killed in his

apartment in an incident in which the child himself was injured.

He was so traumatized by this experience that before we could

even begin the process of preparing him to learn, we had to get him

the mental health services that allowed him to move beyond the

trauma that no young child should ever have to face.

I am so pleased to report that because of this intervention in

Head Start, the child is now thriving in elementary school.

For another child in our program, poor nutrition and the lack of

good dental hygiene resulted in tooth decay so severe that all of his

teeth needed to be pulled. Not only did this painful tooth decay affect his ability to learn; it adversely impacted his speech and his

self-esteem.

Through the intervention of the Head Start staff and dental services provided by the program, this boy was put on the road to improvement.

I have literally hundreds and hundreds of anecdotes like this in

terms of the comprehensive services that have made the difference
19

in the lives of so many Head Start children and families, but I

know you do not have the time to listen to all of them today.

Head Start fully recognizes and appreciates the importance of

serving the whole child. However, that does not mean that literacy

is shortchanged in the process. In fact, I can tell you from firsthand

experience that Head Start focuses intensely on literacy and

numeracy. In my own program, we work closely with the public

school system and the university system to design and implement

a literacy program that fully prepares our children for kindergarten. In fact, we are often told by kindergarten teachers and

school officials that they can recognize Head Start graduates when

they enter kindergarten because they are better-prepared than

similarly situated peers.

We repeatedly are told that our Head Start children enter kindergarten well-prepared, with good reading readiness skills, social

skills, and the ability to pay attention.

I find it curious that this reauthorization has sparked such an

interest in the issue of literacy. This may be a new focus for some

of the people in this room, but it is not for Head Start. In my own

program, we have stressed pre-reading skills and nurtured an interest in books for decades now.

It is true that in the course of the last several years, we have

learned a great deal more about the cognitive development of children and have refined and renewed our emphasis on literacy. In

my program, we are fortunate to have the resources of a local university that helped us design and implement teaching tools to boost

the literacy and numeracy outcomes of our children. This partnership with the local education system proved beneficial when we

were searching for ways to improve the pre-math skills of our students. The university worked with us to design a course of instruction that has made a tremendous difference in our ability to teach

the new concepts.

Indeed, Head Start is the first of all childhood programs to assess whether the students are learning and the progress being

made in their cognitive development. Toward that end, we assess

our students three times a year to determine whether they are benefitting from the lessons that we are teaching. And as part of our

effort to provide a smooth transition to kindergarten for the children in our Head Start classroom, we provide parents a copy of

their children’s development assessment—or profile, as we call it.

This profile gives parents and, with their permission, the kindergarten teacher a summary of the child’s accomplishments while attending our program.

In my remaining short time, I would like to address a few issues

directly related to the reauthorization of Head Start.

First, I strongly encourage this committee to reject any form of

block grants no matter how limited. Absent the program performance standards that ensure quality, comprehensive services to

Head Start children and their parents, the program as we know it

will cease to exist.

Second, there has been a great deal of attention on the issue of

teacher qualifications. I am a big proponent of improving the quality of instruction in the Head Start classroom. In fact, I insist that

our program continually strive to make itself stronger.
20

In 1976, our program required that each Head Start teacher

have a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education. We had to

change this requirement in 1980 to add an associate’s degree because of the high turnover of teachers as a result of our inability

to pay salaries competitive with those of the local public school system. At that time, we determined that we gained few benefits with

more qualified teachers if those same teachers stayed for such a

short period of time.

I would encourage you to learn from our experience and provide

the new funding necessary to attract and retain these more qualified teachers who otherwise will be lost to the public school system

where the salaries are higher.

Third, we know that what we can accomplish with our students

and families in the short time they are part of the Head Start family is limited. For some students, they are part of our program for

just 9 months. And while much more can be achieved during that

period, we know that so much more could be accomplished if Early

Head Start were expanded to serve more babies and toddlers.

We believe it is time to make a serious commitment to providing

seamless services to children prenatal to the age of 5. To accomplish this goal, we propose that the Early Head Start set-aside by

increased and that Head Start grantees be given the flexibility to

provide services to children prenatal to 5.

Finally, I would like to say a word about collaboration. I gather

that, based on the testimony here today, collaboration and coordination does not work as well in other places as it does in Massachusetts. We collaborate with and have partnerships with dozens

and dozens of other programs, including the State government,

local government, school districts, and so on. I encourage you to

look at these areas where collaboration and coordination is working

and to replicate our experience across the country.

Mr. Chairman and Senator Kennedy, thank you for your consideration. I believe that Head Start does need to be a loving and nurturing place for at-risk children. At the same time, we should be

demanding in our expectations of children and teachers. I insist

upon this in my program, and so should others.

I look forward to working with you to move to reauthorize Head

Start.

Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Ms. Santos.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Santos may be found in additional material.]

Senator MIKULSKI. Mr. Chairman, I regret that I will not be able

to stay to ask questions, but I would ask unanimous consent that

my statement be in the record.

My first job out of graduate school in social work was working

as the social worker for a Head Start program. It was a big idea,

I think it has had big results, and I look forward to working with

you on a big bipartisan effort to reauthorize it.

Thank you, and thank you to all the dedicated people here.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator, and of course your statement will be included in the record.

[The prepared statement of Senator Mikulski follows:]
21

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR MIKULSKI

I want to thank Chairman Gregg, Senator Kennedy, Senator Alexander, and Senator Dodd for calling this hearing. I also want to

thank the witnesses: Windy Hill, Dr. Reid Lyon, Dr. Marnie Shaul,

Amy Wilkins, and Janice Santos. I look forward to hearing your

testimony.

Head Start had been one of the more successful Federal programs. It’s not perfect, and I agree we can improve it. But we can’t

let reform be a code word for dismantling Head Start. I am concerned that the Bush plan will turn Head Start into slow start or

no start.

Head Start is for the poorest children. 74 percent of Head Start

families are at or below the poverty level. These children are often

the farthest behind in learning to read and learning the alphabet.

Yet Head Start makes a difference. In 1 year, these students go

from the 16th percentile in vocabulary to almost the national norm.

And Head Start does so much more. It brings children to the doctor to get immunizations or hearing checks. It helps parents get on

the right track. Many parents become Head Start teachers and go

back to school to get their degrees. It provides nutritious meals for

children who might otherwise go hungry. I’m a social worker. I’ve

seen first hand children whose lives were changed by a simple

hearing aid. It can make all the difference.

Head Start is working well. I think we can aim higher—especially in academics. Yet it will take a serious investment not a

block grant and a prayer.

Currently, only 60 percent of eligible pre-school children are in

Head Start, and only 3 percent of eligible infants and toddlers are

in Early Head Start. In Maryland, about 25 percent of eligible children age zero to 5 years are in Head Start and Early Head Start.

We should expand Head Start to serve all children. Yet the Bush

Budget requested only $148 million more for Head Start. That’s the

same amount provided in the fiscal year 2004 House and Senate

Labor/HHS Appropriations bills. It’s not even enough to cover inflation. This means communities have to make tough choices between

two bad options: diluting the quality of Head Start, or shutting the

doors on some eligible children.

The Bush Head Start plan does nothing to solve this problem. It

tries to avoid the issue by putting the tough decisions and responsibility on local communities. In my own State of Maryland, we are

facing this kind of impossible choice. For years, the Montgomery

County contributed $16 million of its own money to run a very high

quality Head Start program. But they still didn’t have enough

money to serve to all the low-income children in Head Start. Recently, Montgomery County proposed using its money for a Pre-K

program that would serve more children. But, they also proposed

making cut-backs and sacrifices. They proposed cutting back on

comprehensive health and family services for the new Pre-K classes. They proposed shortening Pre-K classes, so teachers wouldn’t be

able to accomplish as much.

And they proposed reducing the number of children in Head

Start by almost half.
22

The Bush Budget forced Montgomery County into this situation

by not providing the resources to serve all children in Head Start.

Yet the Bush Head Start block grant plan won’t help. It enables

communities to make these choices. But they are still bad choices

between bad options, because the Bush Budget is inadequate. The

Bush plan tells communities, ‘‘You must sacrifice quality for quantity. You have to make all the tough choices, because the Federal

Government won’t help you.’’

The Republican plan is contradictory. On the one hand, it calls

for flexibility and block grants. On the other hand, it adds new

mandates without providing the resources. The House bill requires

that 50 percent of Head Start teachers have Bachelor’s degrees by

2008. This will cost at least $2 million. Yet the House bill doesn’t

provide resources. It authorizes a mere $202 million more, which

barely covers inflation.

I think we should improve teacher qualifications. I think Head

Start children should have the best teachers available. Yet I am

very concerned about more unfunded mandates. Look at what’s

happening with No Child Left Behind. Are there even enough

qualified teachers available, especially in rural areas?

You can’t get more for less. You get what you pay for. A block

grant is not the answer. Federal investment is the answer. The

Bush Budget requested only $148 million more for Head Start.

That’s what the fiscal year 2004 House and Senate Labor/HHS Appropriations bills provide. It’s not even enough to cover inflation.

We need to increase Federal funds so that all eligible children can

benefit from high quality Head Start. We need Federal leadership

to improve academic standards in Head Start and to help coordinate between Head Start and public schools. We need a dedicated

Federal investment to help recruit and retain qualified teachers.

Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. We do have a very strong turnout of member

Senators today, so we will limit the questioning to 5 minutes, and

I hope people can stick to that so everybody can get their time in.

Let me begin. First, I want to thank the panel. I think the presentations were excellent, and I think it reinforced a lot of the

issues that we as a committee are going to have to be looking at,

primarily, first, Ms. Santos’ point, which is that there are a lot of

very wonderful things being done by Head Start, and we want to

make sure that in the reauthorization we do not upset what is

being done well in order to get on to trying to do other things even

better, and that will certainly be a focus of our committee, making

sure that the social issues and the nutritional issues and the socialization issues are maintained as an aggressive element of Head

Start.

I am not trying to underplay that, but I believe the focus of the

reauthorization is going to be around the issue of how we engender

a stronger academic experience in the Head Start Program, maybe

not in the Holyoke area, where you seem to have a really positive

program, but to have consistency throughout the system. I think

that that really is the core element of issues that we are going to

be dealing with in the reauthorization, although there are some

other tangential issues like what the States’ role is.
23

Focusing on the question of assessment and academics, I would

be interested in knowing whether we actually know if there are

some criteria or a curriculum or a standard that Head Start centers should be trying to get to with these children. I mean what

level of numerology, what level of identification of the alphabet or

phonics—there is the 10-letter rule that I guess is still in place

technically, but hopefully, everybody is ignoring it and getting on

to all the letters of the alphabet. I would be interested in hearing

from Dr. Lyon or Ms. Hill or others as to is there an identifiable

academic standard that we should be trying to seek for children in

this age group.

Mr. LYON. I believe there is. I believe that we, under the best

conditions and implementation of those conditions, move Head

Start youngsters to the average range as the enter kindergarten.

We do have ongoing studies now showing that if we have teachers in place who understand the critical kinds of things kids need

to know to be able to succeed in school, our youngsters’ development is enhanced dramatically.

We know from both Dr. Whitehurst’s research as well as other

research—and he will talk to this—that the specific kinds of things

that kids need to know in preschool can in fact be brought right

up to the average range, and that particular level of development

in word-level knowledge, in vocabulary, in phonological awareness,

and in print knowledge clearly predicts downstream performance in

school.

We do know that a condition where children from preschool or

Head Start who are entering kindergarten are in fact moving toward a program that not only reinforces the abilities learned in

preschool, but the preschool development in fact meshes quite well

with the kindergarten curriculum and the first grade curriculum.

So there are a number of conditions that need to be in place no

doubt within the context of a comprehensive program—meaning

these kids have to be physically squared away, they have to be

well-nourished, the parents, to the best of our ability, need to be

involved, and we need to be developing social and emotional competencies systematically but synergistically with the more cognitive

language-oriented capabilities.

When we do that well, we clearly have gems or beacons of light

where we can move most kids to near or the average range.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Dr. Whitehurst, briefly, because my time is up. Please go ahead.

Mr. WHITEHURST. I would just add to that that the criterion

should really be, if not a head start, an even start, that children

who start school in the normal range, knowing the things that

other children do as they enter the kindergarten classroom, are

much more likely to succeed academically. Those children who do

not have those skills are at very high risk of failure. We can predict

reading failure at the end of first grade with 85 percent accuracy

from knowledge of what children know as they enter kindergarten.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Senator Kennedy.

Senator KENNEDY. Thank you.

Ms. Santos, it is wonderful to hear you again, and I think anyone

who listens to you and ever has the chance to visit your program
24

up there understands that what you have told us here in the committee is alive and well in the faces of those children and the wellbeing of those children. After a lifetime of commitment, we should

take your assessment about what is needed for those children and

the way to strengthen Head Start with a great deal of attention because it is based upon an enormous amount of personal caring in

your own situation and a great deal of knowledge and sort of

around-the-clock working at that program. So I am so glad that you

have come to help us today.

I was going to ask you about your ideas and suggestions for

strengthening the program; you summarized those very briefly—

that the earlier the intervention, the better; the continuation of

help and support for children from zero all the way up to 5 with

good-quality programs; continuing to march toward quality; people

working with these children and finding ways to maintain them so

that they are not moving into the educational system unprepared.

And I want to come back and ask Ms. Wilkins to give a reaction

to ideas about how best to do that.

But time is limited, and I would like to ask Windy Hill—in reviewing what the States have done, the real authoritative studies

have been the Gilligan and Zigler studies that have been done at

Yale, and they indicate that the States have not had such a good

record themselves, looking at the quality programs. The Zigler

study says only three States have completed an analysis relating

classroom quality indicators to the program—South Carolina,

Michigan, and Kentucky. Only three States have even looked at it.

Ms. HILL. Well——

Senator KENNEDY. Let me just finish. In their conclusions, they

say that ‘‘Considerably more needs to be done about the effectiveness of State-funded preschool programs.’’ Effectively, not enough

is known about the effectiveness of the State programs. And in the

final conclusion, it says, ‘‘These positive findings are encouraging

for State-funded preschool programs, but on the whole appear to be

no more or less encouraging than the findings for other large-scale

preschool programs for low-income children such as Head Start,

which often suffer from similar methodology limitation in their

evaluations.’’ They make a big point about the methodology and

evaluations, and effectively, they are concluding that the States are

no more or less effective than the large-scale programs like Head

Start. We only have a smattering of States that have done this.

What possible sense does it make to roll the dice and give the

Head Start Program to the States?

Ms. HILL. Well, I appreciate the research of Dr. Zigler and others

in this area. Having been in Head Start for so many years—8 years

in a local program, 2 years as a board chairman, 2 years as a policy

council chairman, a parent, a child, and a volunteer for several

years—I think that early on, early in the 1990’s, we began to recognize that not enough was known about Head Start, and people

really began to look very closely at its success.

It is true that it does a tremendous amount in the area of comprehensive services, and we are beginning to see early on that

States recognize that there is value in adding that comprehensive

array of services for children.
25

It really is a situation where several States have taken the leadership role in showing us that they can and will invest in pre-K

programs in a way that models the experiences and the values of

Head Start.

The goal is to have more States do what States like Connecticut,

Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Georgia have done and to

bring that into some kind of alignment, an integrated, coordinated

system that takes the best of Head Start and to begin to blend and

to mold in a way that all children in the State experience the important early care and intervention.

Senator KENNEDY. I have just 50 seconds left, and I am going to

try to get in two questions.

Dr. Lyon, very quickly, the administration has proposed a reporting system that would test the outcomes on two domains of child

development—language and literacy, and preschool program. Head

Start obviously measures children’s outcomes three times a year in

language, literacy, math, creative arts, cooperative skills, social relationships, and physical health. Give me your evaluation of each

approach, briefly.

And then, finally, Ms. Wilkins, if you would respond to Ms.

Santos’ concept about how you are going to help keep good-quality

teachers, just briefly, I would appreciate it.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. LYON. Senator Kennedy, the fact is we are behind the curve

on the development of appropriate assessments for a number of the

domains within the comprehensive array provided by Head Start.

The first step was to try to carve out from the 1998 list of cognitive

indicators those domains that we had good measures on—that is,

measures with sufficient reliability and validity and all those kinds

of things—to be able to determine if we were doing well by the

kids.

Socially and emotionally, we are even further behind the curve

in the sense that the measure available typically assess pathology,

social pathology and emotional pathology. That puts us in a position to have to develop new measures that are more proactive and

pro-social and pro-emotional.

We are in the process, with Dr. Whitehurst, the Institute for

Educational Sciences, and NIH, of developing a fairly massive early

childhood education research program which includes the development of measures across all of these domains.

To answer your question, we do not have pro-social and pro-emotional measures that can actually give us a good look at how well

the kids are doing. What we can do is identify those youngsters

who are at risk for attention deficit disorder, other forms of psychopathology, and so forth and so on. That is not good enough, but

what we can say is we are working hard to fill out the comprehensive need for these assessments in the areas you are interested in.

Ms. WILKINS. It is an easy answer, Senator. The first thing that

needs to happen is that the salary scales in Head Start need to ensure that compensation is closely related to the level of formal education that the teacher has, so that as the teacher increases the

amount of education she has, her salary will increase.

And the second thing you need to do is give the Head Start centers the money to pay the teachers. Ms. Santos had to lower her
26

educational requirements because she could not afford to keep the

teachers. If Congress finds the money so that she can pay wages

that are competitive to what teachers with B.A. degrees can earn

teaching in public schools, you will be able to keep the teachers.

Ms. SANTOS. That is right.

Senator KENNEDY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Kennedy.

Senator Alexander.

Senator ALEXANDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to

the witnesses for coming today.

We all have a story, and I have one, and a comment and a question about coordination. My story is this. I grew up in a county at

the edge of the Great Smokey Mountains, where my mother was

literally the only preschool education teacher in the county, and

she taught in a converted garage in our back yard. There were 25

3- and 4-year-olds and 25 5-year-olds in the afternoon, and everyone who could afford it paid $25 a month so their child could have

that advantage. We learned letters, numbers, music, and we all

had an advantage. So I know the advantage, and we have learned

so much more about it since then.

My comment is that I think the President has done us a service

by putting on the agenda, as only a President can, the concerns of

school readiness, of accountability, and of coordination. That is

where a lot of the discussion was this morning. Many of you have

already been thinking about those things, but for the President to

focus on those three things is a help as we think about reauthorizing Head Start.

I think he is also wise to suggest that we should think about

what role the States can add to the Head Start Program, but I do

not think we should let the whole train run off the track because

we have differences of opinion about just how the States should be

involved. I would like to see us focus on the first three and do as

much as we can on school readiness, on accountability, and on coordination, and I will have some other suggestions about how

States might be involved which I would like to share with members

of the committee and get their reactions as time goes along.

Now, my question is this, on coordination. In the last 10 years,

42 States have started investing pretty heavily in pre-K, and it is

now up to $1.7 billion a year. There are 69 Federal programs that

deal with early childhood; that is $18 billion a year, of which Head

Start is nearly $7 billion a year.

Can any of you identify, or is there a consensus about or is a listing of the 19,000 Head Start centers around the country that do

the best job of coordinating services with the other State programs,

the 69 Federal programs, and with the public schools and private

schools into which the Head Start graduate? Are there any that we

ought to be spotlighting and paying attention to?

Ms. HILL. There are certainly programs that are model programs, like there are States who are beginning to look across

programs——

Senator ALEXANDER. Have they been listed somewhere so that

we can know them?

Ms. HILL. We do have a list of those who are, I think, exemplary,

such as Ms. Santos’ program, where we begin to hear more about
27

how they are coordinating and linking. Unfortunately, the list is

not as long as the list of those who are not coordinated and not integrated.

We can develop for you a list of the ones that have been recognized in the last year as having strong programs, but again, it will

be a shorter list than the list of those programs that are not—— Senator ALEXANDER. Are there things we can do in Congress to

make it easier for a Head Start center director who is in Holyoke

or Maryville, TN and who looks up at this array of Federal programs and wonders how do I find them all, how do I figure out

whether they are available to my children?

I talk with many of my constituents who just do not know how

to get through the maze to find all those—I am sure that is the

Congress’ fault, but what can we do about it?

Ms. HILL. Congress is to be commended, because in the 1998 reauthorization as well as in the 1994 reauthorization, there was

quite a bit of language added to encourage, promote, to move programs to greater coordination in local communities as well as

across programs.

Unfortunately, that language is not sufficient to bring about the

type of integration and coordination that we have seen to be most

effective when you look across programs across the State, when you

look for needy children in all pockets of a community as opposed

to a particular catchment area.

So I think Congress has done a tremendous amount to this date,

but the authority to bring Statewide coordination does not exist

within the existing statute.

Senator ALEXANDER. Stepping back if you can, Ms. Hill, from the

President’s specific proposal, what is the major value, or what can

the States bring to the table? What is the most important thing the

States could do—if our objectives are school readiness, accountability, and coordination, what is the most important thing that the

States could bring?

Ms. HILL. Well, to continue what the States are already doing,

recognizing that our ability to provide comprehensive services rests

within State governments. We do not pay for medical and dental;

we rely on Medicaid and Medicare administered through the State.

We do not pay for dental; we rely on SCHIP. We look to our local

community partners to link families to needed services, whether it

is crisis intervention, domestic violence.

So there is already inherent in the work of the States a great

deal of support for Head Start. What we can begin to do is to make

it easier to coordinate across those programs through some master

plan.

Senator ALEXANDER. Thank you.

Ms. SHAUL. Could I just also add that Congress has funded the

Head Start collaboration centers in States which have had as their

focus enhancing collaboration among the childhood programs within States.

Senator ALEXANDER. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Senator Jeffords.

Senator JEFFORDS. I would like to look at it on a little broader

scale. Certainly, Head Start has been wonderful to help people with
28

lower ability, compensation, etc. On the other hand, in the late

eighties and early nineties, we discovered, and the world discovered, that children ages 2, 3, 4, and 5 ought to have a good start

and that the ability of our Nation would increase with that.

Now we see, because of the economic situation, that early childhood education is being unfunded by the States because they do not

have sufficient funds. So it seems to me that we ought to be trying

to look at all of these together and to get the money available for

these schools, whether it is Head Start or whether it is early childhood education, because if we just turn it over to the States, if they

are cutting out on early education now, it is hard for me to see how

they are going to handle both and do a good job at either of them.

Ms. HILL. Well, interestingly enough, 2210 certainly takes that

into consideration, the House bill, as well as the President’s proposal in that it is not about supplanting or driving dollars into

State coffers for purposes other than care for young children and

early care and education.

Under the House bill and the President’s proposal, the States

must use Head Start dollars to support Head Start children, and

it must also lock in its spending for preschool programs so that if

it is a State that is eligible and meets certain threshold requirements, it would be required to maintain its Head Start spending,

maintain the number of children currently served, and also maintain its State preschool. So there is protection within the School

Readiness Act to ensure that what you just described does not happen. I think the strength in that is that it is not just services, but

it is the comprehensive services that have made Head Start this

premier program in the country.

Senator JEFFORDS. Ms. Santos.

Ms. SANTOS. I would like to comment on that. I served on the

Massachusetts Early Childhood Advisory Council for about 15

years, and I have a good handle on the early childhood programs

in Massachusetts, and I remember clearly that it was just over the

past years that the Department of Education got involved in the

business of early childhood education. During that time that I was

on the Council, they were struggling trying to develop standards

and actually used the Head Start standard as the model for developing their own.

So I am very much aware of what the early childhood programs

are in Massachusetts, and I would say that Head Start is the

model. The comprehensiveness of the program, the high quality of

the performance standards should be the model for States for their

early childhood programs. I know that many educators have said

that, and I believe that we should keep the program Federal to

local and be the model for our States in early childhood education

because of the comprehensiveness and the high-quality standards

that we provide to children in all areas.

Senator JEFFORDS. I just think we ought to be looking at the

total picture and see how Head Start fits in, so we do not disadvantage situations by funding problems from one to the other.

Ms. HILL. Well, it is interesting that in the 1993-1994 Head Start

Quality and Expansion Advisory Committee report, one of the

things that was recognized early on was that Head Start has to become more a part of its community and its State, and it cited it
29

as one of the recommendations. I think what you are seeing in the

School Readiness Act and the President’s proposal is an acknowledgment that the glass is half full, and that it is important to acknowledge the great need to have Head Start be a part of its

broader community, that children are ready to learn, and the alignment occurs between Head Start and its other partners.

But this has the benefit of more than just Head Start. It has always been that national laboratory. Here is our opportunity, and

it is an opportunity that we take at no risk to losing Head Start

services, since you would maintain the current level of services

being provided, maintain the same number of children, you protect

the Federal funds, you avoid the supplanting by States—it is an

opportunity without risk to begin moving toward a 21st century

Head Start.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Dodd.

Senator DODD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and let me thank all

of our witnesses today for participating and you, Mr. Chairman, for

holding this hearing.

Mr. Chairman, as you know, I was planning to introduce a pretty

comprehensive bill on Head Start with Senator Kennedy, but at

your request, and I appreciate it, we are going to delay doing that

for a while to see if we may not be able to work out something.

So I am not going to be placing down a bill before the committee

today for their consideration, but I would like to briefly share with

the committee some of the concepts and ideas that we are thinking

about, at any rate, for the committee’s consideration and for the

witnesses to respond to.

First, Dr. Lyon, we certainly agree that literacy and issues related to it ought to be enhanced if we can. There is not much of a

debate up here about that. The concern we have is that Head Start

would become primarily a literacy program and would disregard

the other important functions which are absolutely necessary for

any hope of a child learning. You may in the laboratory be able to

talk about a child acquiring literacy skills, but in the absence of

having the other kinds of medical and social requirements that

Head Start places such importance on, it seems to us rather difficult to achieve that. So I will not go through that with you.

And by the way, Ms. Wilkins, I want to commend you, because

we also include in our legislation the idea that we increase the educational levels of those who work in Head Start. The difference between our proposal and the House proposal, at least as it is presently suggested, is that we pay for it, which you have got to do.

There is no point in having this stuff if you cannot pay for it. If

we are going to saddle States with huge deficits today and expect

them to pick up the cost of that, we might as well not write it, in

my view. So I will not dwell on that.

To my colleague, Senator Alexander, who raises some very good

points, we also suggest in this proposal that there be greater coordination, which I think is extremely important there. It will give

States a greater role in coordination and collaboration, which is I

think one goal the States can really help us achieve, among early

care and education programs. It would require Head Start programs to align curricula and classroom practice with early learning

and school readiness standards and strengthen accountability
30

among Head Start programs to ensure they are complying with

Head Start performance standards. So we invite you to sit with us

as well as we try to work out a bill that we can have bipartisan

support on.

Let me get to the standards issue if I can with you, Ms. Hill, because I am troubled by what is in the House bill and what the

President is proposing.

First of all on the block grant, you said, and I quote from page

9 of your testimony, that ‘‘neither the President nor the House proposal allows States to do away with the comprehensive services

currently available through Head Start.’’ In my reading of the bill, however, nowhere do I see that the

Head Start performance standards must be retained by any State

in order to participate in the pilot. In fact, the language on page

59, lines 5 through 8 of the bill, and I quote, says that ‘‘The State

standards generally meet or exceed the standards’’—‘‘generally

meet or exceed’’—‘‘the State standards that ensure the quality and

effectiveness of programs operated by Head Start agencies.’’ ‘‘Generally meet’’—that causes a lot of us a great deal of pause. What

does the word ‘‘generally’’ mean? Does it mean on average? Does

it mean that some standards should be in, but not all? Does it

mean, like in horseshoes, that if you get them close, that may qualify, or not? So we have a great concern, and we wonder whether

or not you might be willing to strike the word ‘‘generally’’ and just

say flat out that if you are going to have any of these programs,

they must meet Head Start standards—and not have an escape

clause like ‘‘generally’’ in the wording.

What is your response to that question?

Ms. HILL. In terms of the ‘‘generally meet or exceed’’—you know,

I am the neophyte here; this is my first hearing and my first

reauthorization——

Senator DODD. Isn’t it fun?

Ms. HILL [continuing]. It is quite exciting. But I have noticed

that language in State often differs from language in rules and regulations. And whether ‘‘generally’’ stays in or not, I can tell you

that Head Start programs generally meet or exceed performance

standards now.

Senator DODD. All right. I will not quibble with you here. I am

not expecting you to give an answer for the administration; you

will have to check. But the point is the word ‘‘generally’’ does give

us a lot of pause because it is unclear, it is vague, to put it mildly.

Second, I want to pick up the point—Senator Jeffords raised the

issue, and Senator Kennedy did as well—just going back to the

States, we have put up this chart—and I know you cannot read

this, but we will provide you with it—but just to give you an idea,

over the last few months, the number of States that have actually

cut back on early childhood learning programs has been significant.

The deficits are huge. The $2 billion that the States have been

spending in this area has been reduced pretty significantly.

The GAO—and we will provide this for you as well—enumerates

the amount of cutbacks that are occurring in early childhood programs across the country.

But second, I think it is important to note as well that where

there have been—and this is prior to the cuts, again going back to
31

the Gilligan study that Senator Kennedy talked about done at the

Bush Center at Yale—if you start looking at some of the areas

where Head Start plays such an important role, that is, dealing

with the whole child and all of his or her needs, only 18 percent

of States provide family caseworkers; home visits, 25 percent; dental referrals, only 40 percent of the States do it; nutritious meals,

only 50 percent of the States provide any meals at all; mental

health, about 55 percent of States provide it; vision and hearing,

58 percent; only 65 percent of States require immunizations for

Head Start.

So when we start talking about the State programs and understanding that cuts are occurring, it gets very, very weak in some

of the areas that are absolutely critical for Head Start children to

receive the kind of support they deserve and need.

I wonder if you might comment on some of these State figures.

Ms. HILL. Well, it is important to note that the changes in States

in terms of providing pre-K services have only happened since

about 1990, maybe as early as 1985. They certainly have not been

on this path as long as Head Start has, since 1965; and it was not

until 1972 that Head Start performance standards were put in

place to help guide us through this process.

So that States are beginning to make the effort to provide in

their pre-K programs the kinds of things that add value to children.

Senator DODD. Don’t you acknowledge that these cuts are occurring? Are you not aware that cuts are occurring across the country?

Ms. HILL. Certainly the President’s proposal in the School Readiness Act takes into account that States will deal with budget restraints, and that being the case, only those States that are able

to make a commitment to Head Start—that is almost equal to

Head Start—at least 50 percent of the Federal investment; States

that have standards and are willing to implement those standards

Statewide. In addition to that, at the end of the process, if they are

approved by the Secretary, they must commit to 5 percent additional in terms of State support.

So Title II of the School Readiness Act is not designed for every

State, but it is designed to allow those States who are ready, who

can meet the threshold, to become partners—a greater partner—in

services to Head Start.

Senator DODD. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Reed.

Senator REED. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the panel

today.

Let me go back to the issue of what will this all cost. Ms. Hill,

the House bill calls for 50 percent of Head Start teachers to have

a B.A. by 2008. How much additional funding would that require?

Ms. HILL. Our estimate internally is that the cost for meeting the

requirements of the School Readiness Act is about $150 million. I

think it is important to note that since 1999, we have added about

$1.7 billion into the base of Head Start, and the majority of those

funds has gone into the quality money that pays for teacher education. We have met the mandate for AA by 2003 at 50 percent.
32

Senator REED. So your model presumes a competitive salary level

for a B.A. in the localities across the country, and you think that

is going to be an additional $150 million?

Ms. HILL. No. The average salary currently being paid to 4-year degreed teachers in Head Start is $25,600. Currently, we have

about 29 percent of Head Start teachers with a B.A. We need about

12,000 more to meet the language in the School Readiness Act.

Senator REED. Ms. Wilkins, I think you have a comment.

Ms. WILKINS. Yes. We have estimated a very different cost for

meeting the requirements of the House bill. The Trust for Early

Education estimates that in order to pay the additional teachers to

meet the House requirement, competitive salaries with kindergarten teachers, it would cost about $2 billion over 5 years.

We have also estimated that to provide the supports—that is, the

scholarships and other supports—to meet the House requirement, we would need about $1 billion over 5 years.

Senator REED. So we are talking about a range of estimates.

[Laughter.] But these things, in my view, tend to get more expensive rather than less expensive, so I would lean somewhere in the

middle or even toward Ms. Wilkins’ estimates.

In addition, the House bill has put a cap on the training and

technical assistance at 2 percent just at the time when we are trying to enhance the skill levels of teachers and improve the quality.

Isn’t that counterproductive?

Ms. HILL. Well, I think that the House bill, the School Readiness

Act, is designed to allow the Secretary to have some authority,

some discretion, to use dollars to add more children. When T&TA

needs are addressed in a way that satisfies the language of the

Head Start Act and the needs of programs, any additional funds

would be used to bring more children into Head Start centers.

Senator REED. Well, certainly in terms of the training, it is not

discretion with a cap; you are capped out at 2 percent.

Let me turn to another issue because the time is short. About

how many religious-sponsored entities participate in Head Start

throughout the country?

Ms. HILL. Our latest data is about 115 faith-based organizations.

Senator REED. One hundred fifteen; and how long have they participated in Head Start?

Ms. HILL. The extent varies. It ranges from programs that were

in at the beginning of Head Start in 1965 to some that are within

2, 3, 5 years of beginning service delivery.

Senator REED. And in all these years from the beginning, they

have been required to meet the anti-discrimination aspects in hiring staff; is that correct?

Ms. HILL. Whatever the current language in the statute at that

time, that is what they were required to meet.

Senator REED. And that has not proven an obstacle to these religious organizations that participate?

Ms. HILL. Well, I might point out that it is 115 out of 1,500

grantees and 400 delegates.

Senator REED. But has it been an obstacle to their participation?

Ms. HILL. It is my understanding that many faith-based organizations have attempted to apply to serve Head Start children but

have not been successful for a variety of reasons.
33

We know that Head Start is rooted in faith-based organizations,

and elimination of barriers is a goal of the administration by adding language—— Senator REED. But you are begging the question. Has it been a

barrier to participation for the 115? Obviously, that is a significant

number that are participating today.

Ms. HILL. Well, I think it sounds like a small number compared

to the number of grantees currently providing services to Head

Start.

Senator REED. Dr. Lyon, have you done any research on the relative difference or relative efficacy of unified religious staff teaching reading versus diversified religious staff teaching reading?

Mr. LYON. No, we have not.

Senator REED. Wouldn’t that be important in terms of making

decisions, particularly decisions that involve fundamental civil

rights?

Mr. LYON. If in fact the question were cast in a context where

we had a scientifically robust purpose—that is, we do a lot of examinations of how different curricula, different programs benefit

kids from different backgrounds. Frankly, we have not looked at

their religious affiliation; what we have looked at is the kinds of

things we have been talking about, that being their background,

their training, interactions that occur between adults and kids, and

so on.

But I will have to take this one back to NIH and talk to my colleague at IES; he may want to comment.

Senator REED. Well, does it suggest to you that you have looked

at a myriad of different details, but that one is so far down your

list that you have not looked at it? Doesn’t that suggest how critical it is in your scientific field?

Mr. LYON. Well, it certainly has been far down my list, I will

grant you that.

Senator REED. This opens up an issue, because the House bill

has language which I think will be very controversial. Frankly, it

does not seem to me to be an impediment to participation to date

nor going back 30 years, and it seems to have no scientific basis

in terms of the efficacy of teaching children how to read.

I would hope we could move beyond that quickly in this Senate.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Murray.

Senator MURRAY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I

thank all of our witnesses.

Let me start with the administration witnesses and just say that

I understand your concerns about ensuring that Head Start children have the pre-literacy and pre-numeracy skills that they need

to succeed in school. I think everyone shares that goal.

I do not agree that the quality of Head Start explains why children who have gone through most of their lives without support or

resources or stimulation are not on par with middle-class children

after just 9 months of 3 hours a day in a Head Start program.

However, I do agree that we need to take action to ensure that

they are on par with school children, and I think we should look

at a number of proposals that have been laid before us.

But where you really lose me on your proposed solution is that

you propose no requirements for teacher credentials, no money for
34

large-scale literacy effort in classrooms, and no expansion for children who receive Head Start or receive more intensive services.

What you do say is that in order to strengthen literacy, we ignore

all the performance standards that we have worked over the years

long and hard to build and strengthen, in favor of allowing States

to see if they might do a better job.

Now, it is true that some States have developed some great preschool programs—and my home State of Washington is one of

them—but I have talked to a lot of people around my State who

administer both Head Start and ECAP, and they all tell me the

same thing. They say that the program that they provide through

Head Start is far better than what they can provide with State dollars.

Senator Dodd had a chart up here showing how many State are

really struggling with budgets right now, and providing additional

dollars is not something I have heard any of them talking about.

But what all of our teachers agreed is that the difference comes

in the same performance standards that your block grant proposals

says we should allow States to ignore. So before we throw the baby

out with the bath water, tell me if you have any studies—at all,

anything—showing that any State preschool program has better results in improving the achievement of low-income children than

Head Start does currently.

Ms. HILL. The first comment in response is that there is not a

proposal to throw out the Head Start performance standards. Certainly, everything that has been done—— Senator MURRAY. But your proposal does not say that those performance standards will remain. It gives a block grant to States,

who can then choose whether or not to keep those performance

standards.

Ms. HILL. There is quality in Head Start in a number of areas,

and we have been very successful in Head Start. Having been

a——

Senator MURRAY. Is there any requirement in your bill that the

performance standards have to be kept if the States get a block

grant?

Ms. HILL. Programs are to meet or exceed the current standards

that are being implemented in Head Start.

Senator DODD. ‘‘Generally.’’ Senator MURRAY. ‘‘Generally.’’

Ms. HILL. As Senator Kennedy and Senator Dodd have pointed

out, they would like to see that ‘‘generally’’ removed.

I can tell you the intent of the administration is not to dilute or

dismantle Head Start but to take those things that have been extremely successful in preparing children to the next level, to build

on the 1998 platform of early language and literacy and to continue

to enhance.

Senator MURRAY. My time is short. I have heard that part of the

argument. What I want to know is if there are any studies of any

State programs.

Mr. WHITEHURST. Senator Kennedy mentioned a review by Ed

Zigler, who is usually acknowledged as the father of Head Start,

with respect to State programs and Head Start programs, and that

review indicates, consistent with Dr. Shaul’s testimony, that we
35

really do not have rigorous studies that speak either to the impact

of Head Start as currently delivered or to the impact of State programs.

Senator MURRAY. OK. So there are no studies on which to base

your proposal that say that States are doing much better in performance than the Federal Government is, but we are going to

change all that and just give them the benefit of what we do not

know?

Mr. LYON. I think what we do know are the conditions that need

to be in place wherever the programs are located to optimize our

kids’ development to get them ready for school. We do know those

conditions.

I cannot speak to the State block grant issue. What I can speak

to is the need to develop new models where in fact we can bring

together interactions to develop all of these capabilities that we are

talking about.

And if I could just mention in terms of Senator Dodd’s question,

the fact is we are finding that the development of social and emotional competencies are enhanced when we can build good seamless

programs with teachers who know how to do that, and in fact—— Senator MURRAY. Dr. Lyon, the rhetoric sounds great. The prob- lem is that the Federal Government right now invests $6.5 billion

to serve three out of five of our poorest 3- and 4-year-olds. States

now invest $2 billion in preschool—much less than the Federal contribution—and the bulk of that funding is concentrated in 10

States, and right now, we see investment in States’ budgets just

unraveling.

Have any States come forward to you to say that they are going

to invest more money in Head Start and maintain the same level

of services should we change this program around?

Ms. HILL. Certainly there are States who are very interested

in——

Senator MURRAY. Which States have come forward with budget

requests to their legislatures for additional dollars?

Ms. HILL. At this point, there are no legislative budget proposals,

but there are States who have expressed interest in this model.

They appreciate the opportunity—— Senator MURRAY. This model to get Federal dollars sent directly

to them rather than to their local communities, so that they—— Ms. HILL. They are interested in a model that allows them to integrate Head Start into their other early care and education programs.

Senator MURRAY. I can tell you that if I were a Governor, I

would love to have the Federal Government send me additional dollars so that I could deal with the budget crisis that I was having

right now. But I know that that would come at the expense of our

current Head Start programs that are meeting performance standards, are doing the best they can, and should have expanded resources to serve more children. I guess that is what really concerns

me about this proposal at this time.

I know my time is up, Mr. Chairman. I just want to ask Ms.

Santos very quickly—do you have any foster kids in your program,

or any homeless students?

Ms. SANTOS. Yes, we do; homeless and foster children, yes.
36

Senator MURRAY. So you serve all those populations.

Ms. SANTOS. I am sorry?

Senator MURRAY. We always talk about Head Start like we have

a bunch of 4-year-old robots who all look alike, and they go through

this program and get assessed and move on. The reality of a preschool program, a Head Start program, is that you have homeless

children, you have foster children—— Ms. SANTOS. Yes.

Senator MURRAY [continuing]. You have children from one-parent

families, two-parent families, kids who may not have had their dad

come home last night, or what you described; and I just think we

have to be really careful with that perception.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Harkin.

Senator HARKIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Sometimes, the longer I am around here, the more it seems like

nothing every really changes; we just come back and plow the same

ground over and over again.

In the late 1980’s, the Council for Economic Development had a

major study done. This was a group of CEOs of leading corporations in America, and the head of that group was Jim Ranier, who

at that time was the head of Honeywell. They spent the better part

of 2 or 3 years studying what needed to be done for economic development—economic development—in the United States based on

education.

You would have thought that they might have focused on more

science and math courses in college, they might have focused more

on technology training in high school. They looked at everything,

and at the end, they came up with a report. And do you know what

their executive summary said? It said that we must understand

that education begins at birth, and the preparation for education

begins before birth.

Here was a group of the leading CEOs in America—no social scientists, mind you—doing a study and concluding that we do not

focus enough on WIC programs, on maternal and child health care

programs, and Head Start programs.

But their focus was on early programs. Now, we know from studies from NIH that 85 percent of brain development occurs before

the age of 3. I think that is well-accepted data.

So all the talk I have heard this morning has to do with something after 3 years of age. And Ms. Hill, in your testimony, you do

not even mention Early Head Start. You do not even mention it.

But I am not singling you out. A lot of you did not, either—a couple

of you mentioned it.

Yet if all we are going to do is pour money in after age 3, after

a lot of damage has already been done, we are just spending

money, and we are not catching up. So it seems to me that what

we have got to do is focus more on these early years, Early Head

Start.

Right now, you have, what, 3 percent; is that right, Ms. Hill?

Ms. HILL. Yes.

Senator HARKIN. Three percent of eligible kids are served by

Early Head Start programs. Again, we can talk about how we are

going to do this with the States, and how we are going to monitor

this and fix that, but unless and until we commit ourselves as a
37

nation and as a society to reach down to every pregnant woman

and guarantee that she is going to have full maternal and child

health care programs, good nutrition programs, to make sure that

every baby is born healthy, to make sure there are intervention

programs and home visit programs and support for every child

early on in life, from zero to age 3, forget about it. You are never

going to get any better than what we are doing right now.

I mean, we will do well—Head Start has been a wonderful program; it has been successful—but it has been limited and constrained by the fact that we will not commit the resources needed

to get down to these early kids, and even from 3 on. We pay teachers $21,000 a year. That is more than they have been paid in the

past.

The kids are there for 3, 31⁄2 hours a day. Most of their days are

spent with someone else—spent in a nonloving environment, perhaps, an environment that is not conducive to their social, emotional, and educational well-being. And we expect that 31⁄2 hours

a day to somehow overcome the other 21 hours a day that that

child is living.

So I have a lot of questions, but I just think we can beat this

around, and we can tell you the States—I think Senator Dodd had

it right. When you look at what the States are doing, they are not

doing one fraction of what we are doing in Head Start in terms of

home visits, support services, monitoring, referrals—all that is

mandated under Head Start. So it seems to me that if a dispassionate observer came from outer space and looked at what the States

were doing and what the Federal Government is doing, they would

say the States ought to give everything to the Federal Government

and let them run it—not the other way around.

So I think this is one case where theology—or ideology, I should

say—ideology has gotten ahead of what we know—not only what

we intuitively know, but what we know empirically—over the last

50 years.

So if we just want to ignore the empirical data, if we want to ignore the scientific basis, if we want to ignore all the reports that

have been done going back 25 years, fine—but do not expect any

more than what we are getting out of Head Start right now.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator.

Senator Clinton—thank you for your patience, Senator.

Senator CLINTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this

hearing. I think it is not only very important but essential that we

try to sort out the different reactions to the administration’s proposal, and I hope that out of this committee, we will have a bipartisan bill along the lines of what Senator Dodd has proposed.

And I am sure that the witnesses, particularly the administration witnesses, understand our concerns and our cautions. I am

struck, when I think about programs for children, by how often

they are in the States used as piggybanks for other programs, and

they do not provide the basis for a sustained commitment.

When we passed the CHIP program back in the Clinton Administration, we put in a provision that States that did not use their

money to provide services to children, because they would have had

to match those dollars to some proportion, would lose them. I
38

thought that was a pretty good idea, because I could not imagine

any State being willing to stand up in front of their own citizens

and the rest of the country and say: Guess what—we did not spend

all the money we could have spent to take care of children. But indeed, that did occur.

So there is an enormous amount of not only suspicion but evidence and experience which many of us who have worked on these

issues for a long time bring to this debate. And I think the reauthorization that we are considering should be building on the positive changes that took place during the 1990’s.

We have already discussed the extraordinary successes of Head

Start, and I agree with the research findings and with the experience in the field that we do have to increase the overall educational

level of the Head Start teachers. Every Head Start director I know

believes that—but where are they going to get the funding to do

it?

I know that many Head Start directors are frustrated by the lack

of resources which they know they need to provide the high-quality

educational services that the children they are entrusted with deserve to have.

But we were making progress. We increased enrollment in Head

Start during the Clinton Administration. We increased funding by

120 percent. We created the Early Head Start Program to begin to

do exactly what Senator Harkin said we needed to do, which was

to focus on infants and toddlers. And in the 1998 reauthorization,

we doubled the Early Head Start Program so that it can serve

62,000 infants and toddlers.

We have a long way to go, but we know what direction we should

be heading, and with all due respect, the administration is coming

to us and essentially raising suspicions in many of our minds that

the real agenda is to eventually block grant this important program, turn it over to the States, which have a mixed record at best.

Instead, it would be very helpful if we continued to build on the

performance standards and outcomes, if we invested more money

in the kind of research that both Drs. Lyon and Whitehurst do,

that we actually took the evidence we do have about what works

and fund it.

But it is also very hard for any of us who look at the Federal

budget to believe that there is going to be the funding available to

do any of this. So on the one hand, the budget picture is dismal.

Children are always competing with other more powerful forces for

the money they need, especially if they are vulnerable poor children. And we do not have the commitment to the performance

standards in specifics as opposed to generally that many of us

would like to see.

So I do not think you will get any argument from any of us on

this committee that anything we can do to improve the quality and

the outcomes of Head Start, we are committed to doing. The clearest way of doing that, as Ms. Wilkins has so eloquently advocated,

is to put more money into raising the educational levels of the educators in Head Start. I do not see that forthcoming in this proposal.

Instead, I see, as I do with so many of the administration’s recommendations, that we are looking at the unraveling of a Federal

commitment and the hoped-for State commitment that has not ma-
39

terialized to date, and we do not really believe it will in all 50

States. There may be exceptions. There may be court decisions like

Abbott in New Jersey that force a State to act. But I have been

around for a long time. We have been fighting this battle for decades. If the States really wanted to do this, they would have done

it. Head Start started because we knew that in the absence of a

Federal commitment to poor children, there would be very few

States that would provide the services that these children deserve

to have.

And I do not in any doubt the sincerity of the witnesses, but the

facts and the evidence of decades of experience lead me to doubt

the administrations intention.

So I am hoping that what we can do is, in a bipartisan way here

on our committee and in the Senate, under our chairman’s leadership and Senator Kennedy and Senator Dodd’s leadership, come up

with a reauthorization that truly will build on the progress we

made in the 1990’s, put some real dollars into it, and put Head

Start on a firm footing for the 21st century, with additional requirements and standards, which every decent Head Start person

I have ever talked to is begging for. And I hope that we are going

to be able to produce that, and I would look forward to working

with the administration to achieve that goal, but it is going to take

money and commitment, not just rhetoric.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator.

I want to thank the Senators for their patience and for their participation. This has been an excellent hearing. We especially thank

the panel for their presentations, which were extremely informative.

Thank you very much. Have a great day.

[Additional material follows.]
40

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL

PREPARED STATEMENT OF WINDY M. HILL

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, I appreciate this opportunity to

testify before you today on the President’s plan to strengthen Head Start as one

means for helping to ensure that every child has the opportunity to enter school

ready to learn. I testify before you not only as the Associate Commissioner of Head

Start, but also as a former Head Start child and the mother of a Head Start child

who is now an accomplished high school student following her ‘‘great start’’ in Head

Start. I truly believe that the President’s plan will help ensure that our preschool

children will indeed have the opportunity to enter kindergarten ready to learn and

prepared with knowledge and skills they must have to succeed no matter where

they started.

I believe the House took a major step toward ensuring that Head Start children

have the skills they need to succeed in school by marking up legislation to reauthorize and strengthen the Head Start program. We look forward to building on the momentum created by H.R. 2210, the ‘‘School Readiness Act of 2003’’, and your hearing

today to move the Head Start reauthorization forward in the coming weeks.

Head Start was launched in 1965 as part of a bold, ‘‘big idea’’—that no child

should be limited in his or her education because of the circumstances of their families. For 38 years this country has demonstrated a national, bipartisan commitment

to this ‘‘big idea’’. Congress has sustained funding for the Head Start program and

has shown a willingness to make changes when necessary to improve outcomes for

children such as the addition of the Program Performance Standards and raising

teacher qualifications. We have the same goal—to prepare children—many like

me—for success in school and later in life. Given that goal, none of us should be

satisfied until we have achieved the vision reflected in the ‘‘big idea’’ that is synonymous with Head Start—that economically disadvantaged children should arrive at

school on a more level playing field with economically advantaged peers. While anything short of fully achieving this goal should not be seen as a failure, we must all

see it as a challenge for us to do even better.

Consequently, when research showed that Head Start graduates, even those making significant progress, continue to lag too far behind on a number of important

indicators of early literacy and math skills, the President and Secretary Thompson

sent a clear message—given this compelling evidence, more had to be done to

strengthen the educational outcomes for children. As part of the President’s Good

Start, Grow Smart initiative, we were directed to increase the knowledge and skills

of Head Start teachers in the area of preschool language and literacy and to create

and manage a National Reporting System that will help measure children’s progress

in mastering the skills necessary to prepare them for a lifetime of learning.

Furthermore, the broader social context has changed dramatically since 1965

when many States were just beginning to implement universal kindergarten and no

State had a publicly funded preschool program primarily targeted to low-income

children. In 1965 there was no need for Head Start to coordinate with State-run preschool programs because there weren’t any. Today, more than 40 States and the

District of Columbia have early childhood programs of their own. Numerous States

are creating or revising their standards for child care and preschool programs. Research also supports the importance of providing comprehensive services, so States

now are involved in trying to integrate a multitude of other programs aimed at

young children and their families—including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), Medicaid,

special education, developmental screening, and outcome assessments.

In response to the President and Secretary Thompson’s charge and our changing

social context, we looked for ways to improve the effectiveness of the Head Start

program. Much about the program was working, and working well, but we knew the

program needed to move ahead—particularly in the area of educational gains and

coordination. I would like to briefly describe our on-going efforts to improve the educational component of Head Start over the past 2 years, as well as provide detail

on the President’s innovative proposal.

The Bottom Line is School Readiness

The bottom line for the President, and now underscored in H.R. 2210, is school

readiness—improving early childhood learning experiences while holding programs

accountable for achieving positive educational outcomes. Research tells us a great

deal about the skills and knowledge children need to be successful in school. Success

in school is a strong predictor of success in life, as reflected in lower delinquency
41

rates, less teen pregnancy, higher income, fewer health issues, less suicide, and so

forth.

Federal and State governments currently spend more than $23 billion each year

for child care and preschool education—and much more than that when you consider the other State health, nutrition, and welfare-related programs that serve

these same children and families. Never has there been such a clear commitment

on the part of Federal and State governments to enhance the well-being of children

and families. Never have we known so much about what children need for healthy

growth and development. Never have so many programs been focused on meeting

these needs of our most vulnerable children and families.

At this same time, however, though Head Start children make progress in areas

of school readiness during the Head Start year, they continue to lag behind their

more economically advantaged peers on a number of important measures of early

literacy and math skills at kindergarten entry.

The Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) is at the center

of our research on the quality of Head Start and the outcomes for children. In the

FACES studies, child outcomes are measured through direct assessment, observation, and parent and teacher ratings, drawing upon a nationally stratified random

sample of 3,200 children. FACES provides national data on Head Start child outcomes, family involvement, key aspects of program quality and teacher practices.

Research findings from FACES allow us to compare the performance of Head

Start children enrolled in 1997–1998 with children served in 2000–2001. Both

groups of children entered Head Start with levels of academic skills and knowledge

far below national norms. Both groups demonstrated progress in early literacy and

social skills and that is good news. However, their overall performance levels when

they left Head Start still remained significantly below national norms for school

readiness and that is not good news for these children. Therefore, we must do more

to ensure that Head Start children enter kindergarten with strong early literacy and

math skills.

In responding to the President’s Good Start, Grow Smart initiative, the Head

Start Bureau has already undertaken a number of efforts aimed at bolstering the

school-readiness of Head Start children. The Strategic Teacher Education Program,

known as STEP, launched last summer, was designed to ensure that every Head

Start program and every classroom teacher has a shared, basic, fundamental knowledge of early language and literacy development, and of state-of-the-art early literacy teaching strategies. More than 3,300 local program teachers and supervisors

have received this training and have served as ‘‘trainers and coaches’’ to the nearly

50,000 Head Start teachers across the country. I am pleased to report that the local

trainers, coaches, and directors are reporting that the STEP training is making a

difference in their classrooms.

Following the summer training sessions, the Head Start Bureau conducted national training on mentor-coaching and on the social-emotional development of

young learners. These events expanded the skills of teachers and supervisors in fostering effective classroom learning environments and additional teaching practices.

A national web-based resource, called STEP-Net, has been created to help early literacy specialists and coaches access and use resources and tools, and to exchange

information and promising practices.

As you know, the President has made accountability a guiding principle of this

Administration. In keeping with that principle, we are working to make sure that

we measure the outcomes of our efforts, not merely the services that make up each

of our programs. To that end, one of the most important indicators of any program’s

efficacy is whether or not it helps those it is intended to help reach certain goals

and outcomes.

Good Start, Grow Smart, therefore, calls for not only the improvement and

strengthening of Head Start through intense, large-scale efforts in the areas of early

language and literacy, but also for a method to track the results of this effort. Good

intentions, although better than bad intentions, are not good enough. This Administration believes that we must also challenge ourselves to determine whether or not

good intentions and well-designed implementation are translating into good outcomes. We must, therefore, do a better job of determining how well Head Start children across the country are being prepared for kindergarten success. This fall we

will begin implementing the national assessment of some of the congressionallymandated, school readiness indicators for the 4-year-old children in Head Start.

In developing this child outcomes assessment system, we worked with, and will

continue to work with a technical workgroup that advises and guides the selection,

development, field-testing and use of reliable and valid measurement tools for Head

Start children. When no reliable and valid instruments currently exist, we will engage the appropriate researchers to develop or refine them before including them
42

in this outcomes reporting system. Our short-term goal is to include only those assessment tools that are reliable and valid for use with economically disadvantaged

4-year-old children with the cultural, socio-economic and linguistic differences of

Head Start children.

The President’s Proposal

We believe this focus on the educational component of Head Start and the measurement and assessment of outcomes will move the Head Start program to a higher

level of overall success for low-income children. However, even more must be done

as we have heard from Governors, advocates, and even some Head Start directors

that a lack of adequate coordination between Head Start and State-administered

programs is undermining the program’s ability to provide high quality preschool

services to as many children as possible throughout every State. Where coordination

is not currently occurring, we are finding large gaps and patchy areas in our safety

net, to the detriment of young children and their families.

In some places, State pre-kindergarten and Head Start programs are located in

the same community and one or both programs are under-enrolled and are competing for the same children and families. Meanwhile, there are other communities

where large numbers of children remain unserved by either State pre-kindergarten

or Head Start. To further complicate this issue, when services in the early childhood

years are not well coordinated, children can end up in three different settings within

a single day: for example, early childhood special education services, Head Start and

child care.

Lack of coordination accelerates troubling and often, avoidable problems—one of

them is under-enrollment. Our most recent statistics indicate that a Head Start program, by mid-year can be under-enrolled by seven percent. Nationwide this would

translate as 62,000 slots for children that the Federal Government is paying for, but

are going unfilled. We believe a growing problem of under-enrollment is caused, at

least in part, by Head Start programs and other early childhood programs competing for the same children, rather than collaborating to serve as many children as

possible.

To strengthen the Head Start program, improve services to low-income children,

and promote the coordination and integration of early care and education services,

President Bush is asking Congress to include a provision in the reauthorization of

the Head Start Act to allow interested States to plan for, manage, and integrate

Head Start in their overall plans for preschool services.

As part of the solution, under both the President’s proposal and in H.R. 2210,

States are offered the opportunity to coordinate their preschool programs and child

care programs with Head Start in exchange for meeting certain accountability,

maintenance of effort and programmatic requirements. States eligible to participate

must submit a State plan for approval to the Secretary of Health and Human Services that addresses several fundamental issues.

The School Readiness Act supports the President’s plan in other ways as well.

Each State must indicate in its plan how it would better coordinate Head Start with

State-administered preschool programs. The shared goal in making this option

available to the States is to coordinate preschool programs to better meet the needs

of more children. In addition, the State plan must address how it will work to develop goals for all preschool children in the State and devise an accountability system to determine whether children are achieving the goals. In keeping with the

President’s plan, H.R. 2210 concurs that States must describe in their plan how

they will maintain the comprehensive range of child development services for children supported by Head Start funds, including the provision of social, nutrition and

health services, and guarantee that they will continue to provide at least as much

financial support for State preschool programs and Head Start as they are currently

providing.

The President’s proposal, and now, the School Readiness Act, share characteristics

that are frequently misunderstood, misinterpreted or overlooked altogether. I imagine, Mr. Chairman, that you and your colleagues have received numerous phone

calls and letters around some of these issues. I would like to speak directly to a few

of those areas.

First, neither the President, nor the House is proposing to block grant Head Start

funding to the States. In fact, Head Start will continue to be managed as a Federalto-local program, except in those instances where States are ‘‘eligible’’ to apply and

are funded for integrated preschool services that are approved by the Secretary of

Health and Human Services. To be clear on this point, no State will be required

to take advantage of this opportunity nor is anyone proposing that the Head Start

program be turned over to States with no strings attached.
43

Second, neither the President nor the House proposal allows States to do away

with the comprehensive services currently available through Head Start. Indeed,

States taking advantage of this option must make a commitment to maintain the

comprehensive services currently available through Head Start for those children

who, under the State plan, are supported with Head Start funds. In addition, this

Administration believes that the need for parental involvement in Head Start is a

vital component to its success.

Third, both the President’s plan and the House bill make clear that the Federal

Government will not cease or relinquish its oversight responsibilities for the Head

Start program. Under the President’s proposal, States who choose this option and

who have their plans approved will still be accountable to the Federal Government

for their use of Head Start funds and for achieving positive outcomes for children.

In cases where a State does not choose this option or where a State’s plan is not

approved, the Federal Government will continue to administer the Head Start program as a direct Federal-to-local program.

And the final major area of agreement I want to mention is that neither the President’s plan nor H.R. 2210 will allow States to supplant State preschool—or any

other State funds—with Head Start dollars. Neither would a State be eligible if they

reduced their State spending levels on early childhood programs. Indeed, H.R. 2210

concurs with the President’s proposal that States must maintain their current level

of State spending on preschool programs.

Current Partnerships

Even in its historical, Federal-to-local program structure, Head Start has always

recognized the important role that States play 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 partnerships with local governments—with 150 city and county governments now operating Head Start programs.

In addition, we currently have State collaboration projects in all 50 States, as well

as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. One of their roles is to facilitate significant, statewide partnerships between Head Start and the States in order to meet

the increasingly complex challenges of improving the quality and efficiency of services for economically disadvantaged children and their families.

Through these and other efforts at the State and local levels, Head Start has

sought to support the development and enhancement of State-level efforts to build

early childhood systems through linkages, coordination, and integration of goals,

policies and services. We will continue these efforts to forge meaningful partnerships on behalf of children and families to remove as many obstacles to partnership

as possible. In addition, the reauthorization of the Head Start Act affords us the

opportunity to do even more, by offering States the option to include Head Start in

their State preschool plans.

The Time is Right

One of the reasons the Head Start program has remained strong over the course

of nearly four decades is that it adapts to accommodate the changing needs of children, families and communities. Now, more than ever, economically-disadvantaged

children and their families need a strong, coordinated system of early care and education to help families and children succeed.

The time has come to allow full integration of early childhood services and preschool education, including Head Start within States. We cannot afford to disperse

resources through overlapping, competing or ill-coordinated early childhood programs.

Most importantly, we cannot afford to have children slip through the cracks that

non-systematic approaches create. We do not want any more preschool children— Head Start and others—to be left in the early childhood ‘‘learning gap’’, particularly

when children with the greatest need for support continue to remain well below national norms of school readiness.

Our children and families deserve the best programs that we can provide and that

States and communities can support. The President asks that you allow States the

option of integrating Head Start—our nation’s leading program for low-income preschoolers—into their planning for, and delivery of coordinated services.

Other Improvements

Before concluding my statement, I would like to briefly highlight a couple of other

aspects of the President’s Head Start reauthorization proposal that will strengthen

our ability to ensure program quality and accountability and better support school

readiness.
44

Of particular note, our proposal would change the current set-aside for training

and technical assistance to provide the Secretary with greater discretionary authority to allocate these resources each year in a manner that will maximize benefits

to children and families. Our proposal would also provide flexibility in targeting necessary funding for quality improvements. Training and technical assistance resources have grown considerably in recent years at a rate well above the growth

of Head Start—while, at the same time, grantees have had access to quality improvement funds that provide them additional resources for these activities. These

changes will allow the Secretary to determine the most appropriate level of funds,

taking into account all the other needs of the program, the children and their families. For example, in fiscal year 2004, the increased flexibility will provide enrollment increases in areas of the country with the greatest unmet needs for Head

Start services.

Conclusion

This committee has worked tirelessly over the years to provide a solid support

system for our nation’s most vulnerable children and families. Head Start remains

a part of our nation’s commitment to the original ‘‘big idea’’ that no child can be

left behind because of the circumstances of their families or communities. This

means that while recognizing the important contribution that Head Start has made

over the past 38 years, we can, should and must do more—for we have not yet fulfilled the full promise of the Head Start program.

The Administration is committed to strengthening the educational component of

Head Start and improving the coordination of services to benefit school readiness

for preschool children. Given the current social environment, with the collage of

services available, we believe it is time to test a new approach to coordination. Can

we guarantee that it will work? That is an empirical question to be answered

through assessment of outcomes—and I believe that is one reason that the House

concurs with the President’s proposal to give at least some States the option to develop new ways to better coordinate services for low-income children and families

rather than proposing a block grant. Under this option, the Administration is committed to carefully monitor progress, measure results, and determine whether

States can successfully offer alternatives that will result in better outcomes for children. At the same time, our efforts to strengthen the educational aspects of the

Head Start program will continue and the outcomes will be examined.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your commitment and dedication to the well-being

of our nation’s children, and thank you—Members of the Committee, for your desire

to hear more about our strategies to make Head Start stronger to impact the lives

of children and families. I look forward to any continued dialogue as work proceeds

on the reauthorization of the Head Start program. I will be happy to answer any

questions you may have.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF G. REID LYON

THE CRITICAL NEED FOR EVIDENCE-BASED COMPREHENSIVE AND EFFECTIVE EARLY

CHILDHOOD PROGRAMS

Good morning Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee. My name is Reid

Lyon and I serve as the Chief of the Child Development and Behavior Branch at

the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) within

the National Institutes of Health (NIH). I am honored and humbled to appear before

you today to discuss several critical issues that must be addressed if we as a Nation

are to ensure that all children have the opportunity to enter school ready to learn.

I am humbled because I know of no greater gift, beyond the basics of life, love

and health, that we can give to our children than to provide them with the social,

emotional and cognitive foundations that will enable them to succeed in school. I

have spent a good part of my career studying reading development and reading difficulties and directing research programs that study children and their development

from kindergarten into their adult years. It is very clear to me that young children

who come to kindergarten without essential language, early reading and math skills

and other cognitive and conceptual abilities are already at risk for significant school

failure.

Comprehensive Preschool Programs: Helping Children Become Ready for

School and Ready to Read

Our research tells us that children entering kindergarten who understand the

structure and sounds of words, the meanings of words, the rudimentary elements

of the writing system, and the concept that print conveys meaning, have significantly higher reading scores at the end of the first grade than children who do not
45

have these skills. In fact, the difference between children who do and do not have

this knowledge upon entering kindergarten is approximately one year’s worth of

reading development at the end of the first grade. We also know that well over 80

percent of children reading poorly at the end of the first grade will be reading poorly

at the end of the fourth grade. We know that if we do not close these gaps by nine

years of age, there is an overwhelming probability that reading failure will follow

the individual into adulthood. Data obtained from the NICHD Connecticut Longitudinal Study show that approximately 75 percent of students reading poorly at nine

years of age continue to flounder in reading into the adult years. To be sure, limited

reading abilities portend dire consequences.

Unfortunately we are not talking about a small number of lives that are adversely

affected by reading and academic failure. Over the past decade, almost 40 percent

of the nation’s fourth graders, and at least 60 percent of fourth-grade children growing up in poverty have failed to meet basic literacy standards. For example, in many

urban school districts the percentage of fourth grade students who cannot read at

the basic level approximates 70 percent. By grade twelve, Black and Hispanic students read, on average, at the same level as white eighth grade students. And the

majority of these children would not suffer from reading failure in grades four or

twelve if they entered kindergarten with a strong language foundation and with a

good understanding about print, sounds, sound-letter connections, and writing concepts, followed by strong early reading supports in the first few years of school. In

fact, the National Research Council (Snow et al., 1998) estimated that if children

receive proper exposure and systematic opportunities to develop foundational language, reading, and emergent writing skills during early childhood, as few as five

percent may experience serious reading difficulty. This would be of enormous benefit

to our children, to their families, and to society. Preschool programs that succeed

in promoting children’s language and early literacy skills—so they enter school with

age-appropriate competencies—have been proven to change the course of children’s school careers and their adult lives (Ramey & Ramey, 2001).

In the next decade, if the American early care and education system does not

change, millions more children will never realize their potential. What makes this

issue so compelling and troublesome is it does not have to be this way. We do know

a good deal about the foundational preschool abilities that predict success or failure

in reading in the early grades, and we are making substantial progress in identifying the characteristics of high quality preschool programs that are able to help three

and four year old children acquire these critical abilities.

We also know that preschool children from disadvantaged environments are significantly behind their more affluent age-mates in linguistic skills essential for later

reading development. Our research tells us that this is because youngsters growing

up in low-income environments engage in significantly fewer literacy (e.g., shared

book reading) and language (adult-child discussions) interactions in the home. As

Hart and Risley pointed out in their NICHD supported research with professional,

working class and welfare families, the average child on welfare was having half

as much experience listening and speaking to parents (616 words per hour) as the

average working-class child (1,251 words per hour) and less than one third that of

the average child in a professional family (2,153 words per hour). What does this

mean? It means that our preschool programs must provide children from low-income

families with systematic and evidence-based interactions to close these gaps. In

many ways, a comprehensive preschool program designed to help children develop

the necessary cognitive, language, early reading, social and emotional competencies

is their last hope to eventually succeed in school.

Let me be more specific about why youngsters from low-income environments are

at substantial risk for reading, and thus school failure. A number of studies conducted by Grover Whitehurst, Chris Lonigan and their colleagues with children

ranging in age from two to six found that phonological sensitivity (the ability to detect and manipulate the sound structure of oral language) and letter knowledge

were highly predictive of success and failure in developing later reading skills in

kindergarten and first grade. When comparisons were made between low and highincome children, two conclusions were evident. First, children from low-income families have significantly less well-developed phonological sensitivity than children

from higher income families. Second, children from lower income families experienced significantly less growth in phonological sensitivity during the preschool years

compared to their higher income age-mates. In a recent study reported in 2002,

Lonigan studied longitudinally the growth of phonological sensitivity and print

knowledge of 325 three to 5-year old children attending Head Start. Over a 1 year

period, these youngsters experienced average approximate growth of 1.3 items on

phonological sensitivity tests and learned on average 4.4 letter names, .45 letter

sounds, and 8 new words assessed on an expressive vocabulary measure. These
46

gains were much less than those made by children from middle-income families. The

gap between low and higher-income children in these foundational abilities is quite

stark when you consider that the typical middle-class child will learn nine new

words a DAY from 18 months of age until entry into school, and will be able to

name all the letters of the alphabet upon entry into kindergarten. These gaps are

indeed unfortunate given that reading scores in the 10th grade can be predicted

with robust accuracy from knowledge of the alphabet in kindergarten.

Can We Close These Gaps

Yes. The Strengthening Head Start report prepared by HHS in 2003 provides several examples of programs that provide comprehensive interventions with systematic language and pre-academic components that develop the knowledge and skills

necessary for kindergarten and the early grades and for closing the achievement gap

between children from higher and lower-income environments. I would like to request that this report be entered into the formal record. As noted in the report, Dr.

Landry’s CIRCLE program has found that Head Start teachers who received two

years of professional development to learn how to teach oral language skills, phonological abilities and print awareness skills along with interactions to help develop

social and emotional competencies significantly increased the development of these

abilities in the children served by these teachers involved in the training. In addition, NICHD supported research over the past 5 years conducted by Joseph

Torgesen and Chris Lonigan at Florida State University has found that a preschool

emergent literacy program designed to develop oral language, phonological sensitivity, and print awareness produced significantly more growth in these skills than

children not receiving the program. Again, why is this important? Because these

three areas of emergent literacy are significant contributors to how easily, quickly

and well children learn to read.

Why Has the Development of Cognitive, Language and Early Literacy Skills

Been De-Emphasized in Head Start and Other Early Childhood

Programs?

For many years, Head Start and other early childhood programs have focused on

healthy development, adequate nutrition, help for families with problems, and social/emotional readiness and general cognitive development with lower priority

given to the development of language, and early reading and math skills. One reason for this is a concern among many early childhood educators that any focus on

cognitive readiness will compromise a child’s social and emotional well-being. A frequently heard concern is that exposure to ‘‘academic’’ content during preschool is not

‘‘developmentally appropriate’’ and such exposure tends to ‘‘hurry’’ and ‘‘stress’’ the

child at the expense of emotional health and developing social skills with peers. In

fact however, if stress is produced in introducing cognitive concepts during preschool, the evidence shows that it has nothing to do with the youngster’s ability to

learn the concepts, and everything to do with the manner in which the information

is presented. This is a teaching issue—not a content issue.

Three and 4-year-old children are not first graders and should not be taught as

such. They should not be exposed to cognitive concepts while being asked to sit still

or remain attentively quiet for long periods, and they should not be presented with

rote information practiced through drills and routines (I would argue that first graders should not have to endure this either). I mention this because it is a frequently

voiced concern. However, we do know that most children, irrespective of background, can learn foundational cognitive and language skills (including vocabulary,

reading, and math skills) in preschool when their interests are recognized, supported, and extended rather than ignored or redirected. We also know that preschool

children enjoy learning new vocabulary, letter names, letters sounds, and number

and science concepts when caregivers and preschool teachers: (1) are sensitive to a

child’s level of understanding, (2) are contingently responsive to a child’s signals, (3)

are able to maintain and build on a child’s focus, (4) avoid high levels of restriction

on behavior and oral language usage, and (5) provide choices and adapt to a child’s

changing needs. We also know that children learn cognitive, language, and literacy

concepts through a blend of child-directed discovery and teacher-provided explicit information about vocabulary, letters, and number concepts.

Nevertheless, while the belief that preparing a youngster’s cognitive readiness

will compromise social and emotional well-being is unfounded scientifically, it does

continue to pervade the early childhood culture and leads to predictable outcomes.

Children do demonstrate short-term gains in social and emotional development in

programs like Head Start but demonstrate limited to no long-lasting gains in cognitive, reading and math skills. As a result, graduates of programs like Head Start
47

typically enter kindergarten with much lower skill levels than their non-poverty

peers.

Another reason it has been difficult to close the gap between what we know from

converging research and preschool practices is the difficulty we face in translating

current scientific findings into practice in a timely fashion. For example, in the mid

1960s, developmental science suggested that the major tasks for children during the

preschool years revolved around socialization—separating from the home environment, learning how to interact with peers, developing healthy emotional attachments to unfamiliar adults and experiencing new material in novel environments.

Likewise, it was known that the development of social, emotional, and cognitive capabilities was extremely difficult if children were not well nourished, physically

healthy and supported by parental involvement and responsive social systems. And

it is important to acknowledge and celebrate the significant contributions that Head

Start provided in developing and implementing this knowledge into preschool practice in our nation’s most disadvantaged communities.

But, as Dr. Zigler stated in 1996, ‘‘Head Start’s goal is, and always was, to prepare children for school.’’ Over the past 3 decades it was thought that ensuring adequate nutrition, healthy bodies, emotional health and social competencies would

lead to robust learning in school. To be sure, physical health, adequate nutrition,

parental involvement, family social services, and interactions to develop emotional

health and social competencies are necessary to achieve this goal, but they are not

sufficient. Social and emotional competence do not guarantee school readiness and

academic achievement. Children also must come to kindergarten and first grade

with strong foundational knowledge of language, reading, math, and science concepts essential for success. The good news is that high quality early childhood education programs can ensure that preschoolers develop these fundamental language

and cognitive concepts as noted earlier. The bad news is that far too many children

are spending time in preschool settings—including many Head Start classrooms—

that do not meet a child’s essential learning and cognitive needs, and thus neglect

a very important aspect of child development.

In short, there have been major advances in research showing us that preschoolage children are ready to and can learn language, reading, mathematics, and science

concepts to a far greater extent than previously thought. Our research tells us that

if preschool-age children are not taught and do not learn these concepts and skills,

they will not be ready for school. Unfortunately, our research also indicates clearly

that Head Start, as traditionally structured and implemented, is not fully achieving

its stated purpose of promoting school readiness by enhancing the social and cognitive development of low-income children. Our studies continue to point to the fact

that low-income children from Head Start programs perform significantly below

their more advantaged peers in reading and mathematics once they enter school.

This gap places an unfair burden on the children so that from the very first day

of kindergarten they are already behind. This is unfortunate because, with proper

preschool instruction, they can enter school on an equal footing with every other

child

What Do the Data Tell Us About Head Start and School Readiness?

As mentioned earlier, a recent report by the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary

for Planning and Evaluation reviewed the literature relevant to the effectiveness of

Head Start in closing the gap in educational skills and knowledge for school success.

The conclusions drawn from this review of the evidence are sobering and will no

doubt be controversial. The bad news is that many children in Head Start are not

getting what they need to succeed in school. The good news is that children in Head

Start and other early childhood programs can make significant gains if the programs implement effective early childhood instructional practices, which will enhance the comprehensive mission of Head Start.

I would like to summarize the major findings of the Strengthening Head Start report. First, allow me to provide some relatively good news that the report provided

based on data obtained from the 1997 and 2000 Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES).

1. Head Start children made some progress in some areas:

A. In 2000, the mean standard score for vocabulary increased 3.8 points, from 85.3

to 89.1 on a scale for which the average is 100. This result is similar to the data

for 1997 that showed Head Start children scored about 85, at the beginning of the

year and gained about 4 points by the end of the year.

B. In 2000, the mean standard score for writing increased by 2 points, from 85.1

to 87.1.

C. In 2000, children showed gains in book knowledge and print conventions (that

is, they can show an adult the front of a storybook and open it to where the adult
48

should start reading). This progress is statistically greater than for the 1997 Head

Start year during which no progress was made in this area.

D. Spanish-speaking children in Head Start showed significant gains in English

vocabulary skills without declines in their Spanish vocabulary.

E. Children showed growth in social skills and reduction in hyperactive behavior

during the Head Start year. Even children with the highest levels (scoring in the

top quarter) of shy, aggressive, or hyperactive behavior showed significant reductions in these problem behaviors. Teachers rated children’s classroom behavior as

more cooperative at the end of the Head Start year than when children first entered

the program.

F. Children who received higher cooperative behavior ratings and lower problem

behavior ratings from Head Start teachers scored better on cognitive assessments

at the end of kindergarten, even after controlling for their scores on cognitive tests

taken while in Head Start.

G. Children who entered Head Start in 1997 showed significant gains in their social skills, such as following directions, joining in activities, and waiting turns in

games and gains in cooperative behaviors, according to ratings by teachers and parents. The quality of children’s social relationships, including relating to peers and

social problem solving, also improved.

H. Head Start has other positive qualities. In 1997, the program received very

high ratings of satisfaction from parents, and for the roughly 16 percent of children

in Head Start with a suspected or diagnosed disability, 80 percent of parents reported that Head Start had helped them obtain special needs resources for the child.

2. Most children enter and leave Head Start with below-average skills

and knowledge levels. Unfortunately, the 1997 and 2000 FACES data indicate that despite some strengths within the Head Start program, many children are being left behind:

A. The 1997 FACES data indicate that children enter Head Start at shockingly

low levels compared to the average performer (performance at the 50th percentile)

on measures of vocabulary (average percentile=16), letter recognition (average

percentile=27), early writing (average percentile=16) and early mathematics (average percentile=17) and leave the program showing only very modest gains in vocabulary (average percentile=23), early writing (average percentile=23) and early math

(average percentile=19). Note that these improvements still indicate performance far

below the average range. Note also that exit performance on the letter recognition

task, something that children love to learn, and is one of the predictors of later

reading ability, remained low, even declining slightly to the 25th percentile.

B. The more recent 2000 FACES data show modest improvement in results for

children, but overall progress is still too limited. Children continue to lag behind national norms when they exit Head Start. Data from Head Start FACES 2000 show

that:

i. The level of children’s achievement in letter-recognition for the 2000 Head

Start year is far below the majority of U.S. children who typically know all letters

of the alphabet upon entering kindergarten, according to the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study of the Kindergarten class of 1998.

Spanish-speaking children in Head Start did not gain at all in letter recognition

skills in 2000.

ii. Although writing scores increased 2 points during the 2000 Head Start year,

this was a drop from children who entered Head Start in 1997 who increased 3.8

points in writing during that year.

iii. Though children who entered Head Start in 2000 made more progress in some

areas compared to 1997, scores at the end of the Head Start year remained far

below the average level in all areas of competency. For example, over the Head

Start year, vocabulary development increased from the 16th percentile to the 23rd

percentile (identical to 1997). Letter recognition upon entry into the program was

at the 31st percentile and remained at the 31st percentile at the completion of the

program. Early writing skills increased over the year from the 16th to the 23rd percentile and early mathematics skills also increased from the 21st to the 23rd percentile.

iv. As noted earlier, children who entered Head Start in 2000 made progress in

early mathematics during the Head Start year that was statistically significant;

however the difference was miniscule (from 87.9 to 89.0 on a scale where 100 is the

average). Moreover, this amount of progress was no greater than that found for children who attended Head Start from Fall to Spring in 1997.

v. Children who entered the program in 2000 with overall lower levels of knowledge and skill showed larger gains during the program year than children who entered with higher levels of knowledge. However, they still lagged far behind national

averages.
49

vi. Head Start children did not start kindergarten with the same social skill levels

as their more economically advantaged peers and they continue to have more emotional and conduct problems than do middle class peers.

vii. Only 25 percent of Head Start teachers were college graduates, compared to

86 percent in State pre-K programs. Research points clearly to the important role

of teacher knowledge and education in learning outcomes for children, including preschoolers.

In summary, there is more work to do. Despite small gains and the positive qualities of Head Start programs, children in Head Start are making only very modest

progress in only some areas of knowledge and skill, and children in Head Start are

leaving the program far behind their same-age peers. To be sure, Head Start programs vary significantly in quality as well as in the amount of time children attend

Head Start programs. Some youngsters spend only part of the day, week and year

in a program, while other children are provided programs for the entire day, week

and year. These differences will certainly affect the overall outcomes for children,

since both quality and quantity of learning experiences impact children’s progress.

What we must do is identify those factors and conditions that characterize high

quality Head Start programs and duplicate them in all Head Start programs. More

progress must be made and can be made to put Head Start children on par with

others by the time they enter kindergarten.

3. Disadvantaged children lag behind their age- and grade-mates

throughout the school years. Effective early childhood intervention is important because disadvantaged children are at significant risk for poor

educational outcomes throughout the school years.

The Strengthening Head Start report reviewed data from the nationally representative Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten (ECLS–K), the National

Center for Educational Statistics (NCES), and the National Assessment of Educational Progress and reported the following findings. While a number of specific

conclusions are provided in the Report, the following two general trends are noteworthy:

A. Children with multiple risk factors (e.g., parents have not completed high

school, low-income or welfare family, single parent family, parents speak a language

other than English in the home) are at the greatest risk for educational failure.

B. The achievement gap persists into elementary and high school years. Data

from the ECLS–K show that the gap for low-income children begins to close in kindergarten in very basic reading and mathematics skills such as letter recognition

and counting, but the achievement gap widens for the more advanced reading and

mathematics skills, such as recognizing words and adding and subtracting.

In summary, data from several sources converge to show that achievement gaps

between advantaged and disadvantaged children that are evident during the prekindergarten years continue to characterize disadvantaged children in kindergarten

and throughout elementary school. It is critical that we better understand the conditions under which programs have a real opportunity to close these gaps and implement them at the earliest possible time.

4. Fragmented service delivery hinders improvements in Head Start and

other early childhood programs. At both the Federal and State levels, the early

childhood services are characterized by multiple funding sources and requirements—each with different rules and standards, eligibility requirements, and desired child and family outcomes.

In a report published in 2000, the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) found

69 Federal programs, administered by nine different Federal agencies and departments, funding early education and/or child care for youngsters under age 5. The

GAO noted that when multiple agencies manage multiple early childhood education

and care programs, mission fragmentation and program overlap can occur. This in

turn creates the potential for BOTH duplication and service gaps. Although GAO

pointed out that duplication can sometimes be necessary, fragmentation and overlap

can also create an environment in which programs do not serve participants as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Reports from parents, providers, and State program administrators underscore

how a lack of program coordination undermines the efficiency and effectiveness of

early childhood programs. Parents report that a poorly coordinated system makes

it difficult for them to find good quality care for their children. They are put in a

position to try to determine which programs best suit their needs, and then go

through the application and eligibility determination process for each program separately. Some programs, including Head Start, may only be offered in the parent’s

neighborhood for part of the day or year, while the parent needs a full day/year program because of their work responsibilities. If the local Head Start program does

not collaborate with other local child care programs, parents are forced to cobble to-
50

gether various arrangements to ensure adequate care for the necessary length of

time.

From the provider’s perspective, the lack of program coordination forces them to

juggle different eligibility requirements for children and families, different methods

of receiving subsidies or other State or Federal funds, and different requirements

and standards for the programs they provide. In addition, different early childhood

programs typically require different credentials for teachers and providers, and offer

a range of salaries and benefits, making it difficult for providers in a community

to view themselves as part of a comprehensive system. In fact, differences in salaries and benefits may have the unintended effect of drawing the most qualified providers to some programs rather than others—for example, toward teaching in prekindergarten school-based programs rather than in a Head Start program or infant

and toddler care. Lack of coordination also affects health and social service providers who must struggle to serve patients and clients who do not have a single point

of entry into the system and who have a variety of needs that must be met.

From the perspective of State administrators, programs can be both inefficient

and ineffective when States must juggle funding, enrollment, eligibility and other

concerns for multiple programs administered by different Federal agencies. States

are held responsible by the public for the care and education of young children, but

lack power and control to create a seamless system and to provide access to all eligible families. Lack of coordination significantly complicates State efforts to engage

in strategic and fiscal planning. Key stakeholders may have competing priorities

and objectives and have difficulty agreeing on how best to meet the needs of the

community. Instead of collaboration, there may be competition at the State level for

scarce resources. Finally, States are aware that they will be held responsible for student performance in elementary school through the No Child Left Behind Act, and

want to make sure that all children in the State enter kindergarten ready to learn.

However, a fragmented system makes it difficult, if not impossible, for a State to

provide the needed comprehensive services to all children from low-income homes

who will begin kindergarten in the public schools.

This uncoordinated approach to service delivery significantly impedes providing

effective early childhood programs that are successful in preparing at-risk children

for school. To be sure there are many complex barriers to achieving coherence and

coordination across early childhood programs and many of these are identified in

the Strengthening Head Start report.

We Can Do Better Than We Are Doing

As pointed out earlier, converging evidence indicates strongly that young children

who are provided frequent, systematic, positive interactions with adults and other

children to foster the development of social, emotional and cognitive capabilities in

an integrated fashion are FAR more likely to succeed in school than children who

are in lower quality and less stimulating programs. The HHS Strengthening Head

Start report submitted with this testimony and the Proceedings from the White

House Summit on Early Childhood Cognitive Development convened by Mrs. Bush

summarize the critical foundational skills that children must have to succeed in

school. In brief, research tells us that if language, literacy, and other cognitive factors are attended to through high quality programming in early childhood settings,

children’s school readiness can be significantly improved. In the pre-kindergarten

years, research describes three key components of high quality programs for reading

and academic success. These include a strong foundation in: (1) language development; (2) early literacy (phonological awareness, letter knowledge, written expression, book and print awareness, motivation to read); and (3) early math (number

and operations).

RECOMMENDATIONS

1. It is critical that early childhood programs including Head Start provide a

genuinely comprehensive set of services and educational opportunities to all children, including those with disabilities, that are grounded in developmental science.

It is imperative that children’s social, emotional, and cognitive growth be fostered

on the basis of what developmental science tells us about what preschool children

can learn, what they need to learn to succeed in school, and how learning is most

optimally supported. For too long, our understanding, development, and implementation of preschool programs have been based on philosophical beliefs, untested assumptions, or out-of-date science. This practice has left many children behind. The

NICHD, in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special

Education and Rehabilitation Services (OSERS) and the Department of Health and

Human Services (ACYF, ACF, ASPE) has developed a comprehensive research program to develop and evaluate comprehensive early childhood programs that combine
51

interactions to enhance cognitive, social and emotional abilities in children at risk

for developmental difficulties and school failure. But we now know enough at this

time to develop and implement preschool curricula that are effective as described

in this testimony. Standards should be developed to reflect the need for preschool

curricula to stimulate verbal interaction, enrich children’s vocabularies, encourage

talk about books, develop knowledge about print, generate familiarity with the basic

purposes and mechanisms of reading, math and science, and appreciate the needs

of children with disabilities and children acquiring English as a second language.

2. It is clear that we must develop a comprehensive assessment and reporting system to ensure that Head Start programs produce the positive outcomes that we

know are achievable. This reporting system will, for the first time ever in the history of Head Start, provide outcome data on all Head Start programs and children,

with and without disabilities, and thus help to identify areas in need of continued

improvement, as well as to document systematically Head Start’s successes. Note

that all of the high quality demonstration projects that have produced large and

lasting benefits for children and their families have involved systematic assessment

and reporting about both the program quality and the children’s development. High

quality programs that endorse continuous quality improvement welcome assessment. We owe it to the parents of Head Start to assess their children’s progress on

a regular basis, in ways that will help guide the instruction and support Head Start.

And children are not stressed or frightened by the assessment; they have fun in a

one-to-one interaction with a responsive adult who is allowing them to demonstrate

their skills and mastery.

3. We must ensure that our youngest children are learning from teachers who are

highly competent in their ability to help children develop social competencies, emotional health, and the cognitive, language, literacy and mathematics concepts critical to school success. Numerous studies have shown that program quality and the

benefits to children, with and without disabilities, are inextricably linked with staff

educational background and training. The significant benefits to children provided

by the Chicago CPC program and the CIRCLE program described in the HHS

Strengthening Head Start report underscore this point. All preschool teachers in the

CPC program had college degrees and certification in early childhood. While the

teachers in the CIRCLE program ranged in education from high school degree

through graduate degrees, the systematic training, mentoring, and follow-up training produced many teachers of high quality.

4. It is essential that preschool programs be coordinated with programs providing

early care and education as well as with the curriculum framework and goals of kindergarten and early public school programs. Moreover, greater coordination and collaboration are needed between State and Federal programs to ensure that all children entering kindergarten are ready to learn. The value of a highly coordinated

series of programmatic interactions from age 3 through the early grade-school years

can be seen in the results produced by the Chicago CPC program. The fact that the

CPC program is provided through the Chicago public schools provides a continuity

in children’s learning environments as well as appropriate levels of compensation

for teachers and staff. Other communities have developed alternative models for coordination that include programs located outside the public school system.

5. While many Head Start programs need to be strengthened to ensure high quality interactions to support and develop physical (health) social, emotional, and cognitive strengths in an integrated and accountable fashion, it is clear that many

States do have such high quality programs in place. It will be critical to identify

these programs that are beacons of light and expand and build on them with both

local and State funding. It will also be critical to identify low-performing programs

and provide the necessary technical assistance to strengthen them but, in the end,

to ensure that the health and development of our children are the priorities, not the

survival of ineffective programs.

Thank you very much for providing me the opportunity to discuss these issues

with you today. I would be happy to answer any questions you may have.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MARNIE S. SHAUL

EDUCATION AND CARE

Head Start Key Among Array of Early Childhood Programs, But National

Research on Effectiveness Not Completed

Why GAO Did This Study

The Federal Government invests over $11 billion in early childhood education and

care programs. These programs exist to ensure that children from low-income families are better prepared to enter school and that their parents have access to early
52

childhood education and care that allow them to obtain and maintain employment.

The Federal Government invests more in Head Start, which was funded at $6.5 billion in fiscal year 2002, than any other early childhood education and care program.

Head Start has served over 21 million children at a total cost of $66 billion since

it began. The Chairman, Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions asked GAO to discuss Head Start—how it fits within the array of early childhood education and care programs available to low-income children and their families and what is known about its effectiveness.

WHAT GAO FOUND

Head Start, created in 1965, is the largest funded program among an array of

Federal early childhood education and care programs, most of which did not exist

until decades later. The early education and child care demands of families have

changed significantly since Head Start’s inception. More women are working, the

number of single parents has been increasing, and welfare reform has resulted in

more families, including those with young children, entering the workforce. To help

meet families’ demands for early childhood education and care services, an array of

Federal programs, such as the child care block grant, have been added over time.

Program legislation requires some of these programs to coordinate the delivery of

early childhood education and care services for low-income families with young children. For example, to provide parents with full day coverage, Head Start, a predominately part day program, may coordinate with child care programs for the other

part of the day. However, barriers—such as differing program eligibility requirements—sometimes make it difficult to blend services across the different programs.

Although extensive research exists that provides important information about

Head Start, no recent, definitive, national-level research exists about Head Start’s

effectiveness on the lives of the children and families it serves. In its last reauthorization, Congress mandated a Head Start effectiveness study and specified that it

be completed this year. According to HHS, the study will be completed in 2006.

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, I am pleased to be here today to

discuss our work on early childhood education and care programs, and in particular,

Head Start, which many view as one of the most successful social programs. Nationwide attention has been focused on ensuring that children from low-income families

are better prepared to enter school and that parents have access to early childhood

services that allow them to obtain and maintain employment. In response, the Federal Government has increased funding for early childhood education and care programs to over $11 billion. Head Start—the Federal Government’s single largest investment in early childhood education and care for low-income children—has served

over 21 million children and their families at a total cost of $66 billion since its inception in 1965; its funding for fiscal year 2002 was $6.5 billion.

The reauthorization of the Head Start program offers a timely occasion for considering the two major issues my statement will address today: How Head Start fits

into the array of early childhood education and care programs available to low-income children and their families and what is known about Head Start’s effectiveness. My statement is based primarily on recent studies that we have conducted on

early childhood education and care programs.

In summary, much has changed in society since Head Start was established nearly 40 years ago, including an increase in the availability of Federal early childhood

programs for low-income families. Changes in women’s employment, family structure, and public assistance have dramatically increased the demand for early education and child care for low-income families. To help meet the increased demand

brought about by societal changes, an array of Federal education and care programs,

as well as many State and local community programs, has been created for children

from low-income families. The largest sources of additional Federal funding for child

care services come from the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). To meet the demands of families,

some Federal programs require coordination of services among early childhood education and care programs. To illustrate, most Head Start programs are predominately part day, part year programs, and they cannot meet the demands of working

families who need full-day, full-year education and care services. In response to this

requirement, some Head Start programs collaborate with other programs to provide

families full day coverage. However, differing program eligibility requirements and

other coordination barriers sometimes impede coordination efforts.

Although a substantial body of Head Start research exists that provides important

information about the program, little is known about its effectiveness on the lives

of the children and families it serves. Although the Department of Health and

Human Services (HHS) currently has studies that show that the skills of children
53

1GAO analysis of Department of Education and HHS data using proportions based on analysis in U.S. General Accounting Office, Early Education and Care: Overlap Indicates Need to Assess Crosscutting Programs, GAO/HEHS–00–78 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 28, 2000).

who participate in Head Start have improved, the studies do not provide definitive

evidence that this improvement is a result of program participation and not other

experiences children may have had. HHS has a study underway, however, that is

expected to provide more definitive information on Head Start’s effectiveness in preparing young children for school. The study, mandated by Congress to have been

completed this year, is expected to be completed in 2006, according to HHS. Currently, no preliminary results are available.

BACKGROUND

Head Start was created in 1965 as part of the ‘‘War on Poverty.’’ The program

was built on the premise that effective intervention in the lives of children could

be best accomplished through family and community involvement. Fundamental to

this notion was that communities should be given considerable latitude to develop

their own Head Start programs. Head Start’s primary goal is to prepare young children to enter school. In support of its school readiness goal, the program offers children a broad range of services, which include educational, as well as medical, dental, mental health, nutritional, and social services. Children enrolled in Head Start

are primarily 3 and 4 years old and come from varying ethnic and racial backgrounds. Most children receive part day, part year program services in center-based

settings.

Head Start is administered by HHS. Unlike most other Federal early childhood

education and care programs that are funded through the States, HHS awards Head

Start grants directly to local grantees. Grantees may contract with organizations—

called delegate agencies—in the community to run all or part of their local Head

Start programs.

ARRAY OF EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AND CARE PROGRAMS EXISTS TO HELP MEET

INCREASED DEMAND

Families’ needs for early childhood education and care have changed dramatically

since Head Start’s inception, and to meet the increased demand, the Federal Government has created an array of Federal early education and care programs. Many

of these programs are required to coordinate the delivery of services to low-income

families with children. However, barriers sometimes exist, making it difficult to

blend the services offered across programs to meet the demands of families.

INCREASED DEMAND FOR EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AND CARE SERVICES HAS LED

TO AN INCREASE IN THE SIZE AND NUMBER OF PROGRAMS

Since Head Start was created in 1965, it has provided a wide range of services,

through part day, part-year programs, to improve outcomes for children from lowincome families. However, the demographics of families have changed considerably

over the past several decades and increasingly, families need full-day, full-year services for their children. More parents are working full time, either by choice or necessity, and the proportion of children under age 6 who live with only one parent has

increased. Moreover, welfare reform has meant that more families, including those

with very young children, are expected to seek and keep jobs than ever before.

To help meet the demand for early education and care, the Federal Government

has increased the number of, and funding for, programs providing early education

and care services. For example, Head Start program funding has tripled over the

past decade. Moreover, the Federal Government invests over $11 billion in early

education and care programs for children under age 5, primarily through six major

programs, including Head Start (see table 1). These programs are funded through

HHS and the Department of Education. While these six programs receive most of

the Federal funding for early childhood education and care, many other smaller programs also fund services for low-income families with children.1 Funding under

these six programs can generally be used to provide a range of services: early education and care; health, dental, mental health, social, parental, and nutritional services; speech and hearing assessments; and disability screening.
54

2 U.S. General Accounting Office, Head Start and Even Start: Greater Collaboration Needed

on Measures of Adult Education and Literacy, GAO–02–348 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 29, 2002). 3 U.S. General Accounting Office, Education and Care: Early Childhood Programs and Services for Low-Income Families, GAO/HEHS–00–11 (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 15, 1999).

All of the programs—with the exception of IDEA—specifically target low-income

children and their families, though they may actually serve different populations

and age ranges of children. For example, Even Start programs serve a larger percentage of Hispanic children and a broader age range of children than Head Start.2

Moreover, some programs differ in their goals. The primary goal of early childhood

education programs such as Head Start, Even Start, and Title I, is to prepare young

children to enter school. In contrast, a primary goal of child care programs, such

as CCDF is to subsidize the cost of care for low-income parents who are working

or engaged in education and training activities. In addition, States have the flexibility to use block grant funds to subsidize child care as States pursue one of the key

TANF goals—promoting employment for low—income adults with families.

In addition to Federal programs that support services for poor children, many

State and local community programs also offer education and care services for lowincome families.3 The majority of States, 39, fund preschool programs. Moreover,

some States provide funding to supplement Head Start and fund child care programs.

HEAD START AND OTHER EARLY CHILDHOOD PROGRAMS REPORT SERVICE

COORDINATION, BUT BARRIERS TO COORDINATION EXIST

To better ensure that low-income families and their children can access the services provided through the myriad Federal programs, Congress mandated that some

programs coordinate with one another to deliver services to low-income families and

their children. As a result, program officials have reported collaborative efforts with

one another to deliver services; however, barriers still remain.

Head Start programs are required by law to coordinate and collaborate with programs serving the same children and families, including CCDF, Even Start, IDEA,

and other early childhood programs. Similarly, CCDF agencies are required to coordinate funding with other Federal, State, and local early childhood education and

care programs. To promote more integrated service delivery systems and to encourage collaboration between Head Start and other programs that fund early childhood

services, HHS began awarding collaboration grants to States in 1990. In fiscal year

2002, Head Start provided $8 million to States to support collaborative activities.

Moreover, in awarding program expansion funds, Head Start has given priority to

funding first those Head Start programs that coordinate with other child care and
55

4GAO–02–348. 5 In fiscal year 2000, the Federal poverty guideline was $17,050 for a family of four while the State median income ranged from a low of $24,694 for West Virginia households to a high of

$43,941 in Maryland in 2000. States have the flexibility to set income eligibility limits up to

85 percent, but generally set them lower. 6 U.S. General Accounting Office, Head Start: Challenges Faced in Demonstrating Program Results and Responding to Societal Changes, GAO/T–HEHS–98–183. (Washington, D.C.: June 9,

1998). 7 U.S. General Accounting Office, Early Childhood Programs: The Use of Impact Evaluations

to Assess Program Effects, GAO–01–542 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 16, 2001.

early childhood funding sources to increase the number of hours children receive

early education and care.

Positive outcomes have occurred as a result of early childhood education and care

program collaboration, enabling some States to expand the options for low-income

families with children. For example, Head Start and CCDF officials reported pooling

resources by sharing staff to add full day care to the half-day Head Start program

and to add Head Start services, such as nutrition and medical care, to day care programs. At the local level, about 74 percent of Even Start grantees reported that they

collaborated with Head Start in some way, including cash funding, instructional or

administrative support, technical assistance, and space or job training support.4

However, collaboration does not eliminate all gaps in care, and sometimes barriers, such as differing eligibility requirements, program standards, and different locations of programs, hinder collaboration. For example, program officials in one

State said that the differing eligibility requirements between CCDF and Head Start

made collaboration difficult. CCDF funds may be used for families with incomes up

to 85 percent of State median income, which generally allows the States to give subsidies to families whose income is higher than the Federal poverty level.5 Head

Start’s income eligibility standard requires that 90 percent of enrollments be from

families at or below the Federal poverty level or from families eligible for public assistance. Thus, collaboration between these programs to achieve objectives might be

difficult because some children may be eligible only for CCDF.

EFFECTIVENESS STUDY UNDERWAY TO DETERMINE WHETHER HEAD START MAKES A

DIFFERENCE

Although an extensive body of Head Start research exists that provides important

information about the program, no definitive, national-level research exists on the

effectiveness of Head Start for the families and children it serves, prompting Congress to mandate such a study when it reauthorized the program in 1998. HHS has

other studies underway that provide important information about the progress of

children enrolled in the program; however, these studies were not designed to separate the effects of children’s participation in Head Start from other experiences

these children may have had. Although obtaining information about Head Start’s effectiveness is difficult, the significance of Head Start and the sizeable investment

in it warrant conducting studies that will provide answers to questions about

whether the program is malting a difference.

In 1998, we testified that the body of research on Head Start though extensive,

was insufficient for drawing conclusions about the program as a whole and recommended that HHS undertake a study of Head Start’s effectiveness.6 In reauthorizing Head Start in 1998, Congress mandated such a study. The law mandated that

the study be completed in 2003 and was very specific in detailing the kind of study

HHS was to undertake. Specifically, Congress required that the study use rigorous

methodological designs and techniques to determine if Head Start programs are

having an impact on children’s readiness for school. The mandated study addresses

two questions: (1) what difference does Head Start make to key outcomes of development and learning for low-income children and (2) under which conditions does

Head Start work best and for which children?

The study is using a rigorous methodology that many researchers consider to be

the most definitive method of determining a program’s effect on its participants

when factors other than the program are known to affect outcomes.7 This methodology is referred to as an ‘‘experimental design’’ in which groups of children are randomly assigned either to a group that will receive program services or to a group

that will not receive program services. This approach produces information that is

more likely to show the effect of the program being studied, rather than the effects

of other developmental influences on young children (see fig. 1).

The Head Start study is a $28.3 million national impact evaluation that follows

participants over time. The study has two phases. The first phase, a pilot study designed to test various procedures and methods, was conducted in 2001. The second
56

8Department of Health and Human Services, Head Start FACES 2000: A Whole-Child Perspective on Program Performance, 2003.

phase began in the fall of 2002 and entails data collection on 5,000 to 6,000 3- and

4-year-olds from 75 programs and communities across the country. The study will

track subjects through the spring of their first grade year. An interim report, scheduled to be released in September of this year, will describe the study’s design and

methodology and the status of the data collection; it will not contain findings. Although Congress required that the study be completed in 2003, HHS reports that

the study will be completed in 2006. This study is a complex, multiyear, longitudinal

study and considerable attention had to be given to both study planning and execution. According to HHS, many aspects of the study needed to be pilot tested before

the larger study could begin.

In another effort, Head Start is collecting outcome data on a nationally representative sample of Head Start children and families as part of its Family and Child

Experiences Survey (FACES). FACES is an ongoing, longitudinal study of Head

Start programs that uses a national sample of 3,200 children. FACES provides national data on Head Start child outcomes, family involvement, and key aspects of

program quality and teaching practices. New findings from FACES research published in 2003 show that children enrolled in Head Start demonstrated progress in

early literacy and social skills; however, their overall performance levels when they

left Head Start was below that of children nationally in terms of school readiness.8

This study, however, was not designed to provide definitive data about whether the

initial gains children made in early literacy and social skills resulted from their participation in Head Start or some other experiences children may have had.
57

1The National Head Start Association (NHSA) is a private not-for-profit membership organization dedicated exclusively to meeting the needs of Head Start children and their families. The

Association provides support for the entire Head Start family by advocating for policies which

provide high quality services to children and their families; by providing extensive training and

professional development services to all Head Start staff; and by developing and disseminating

research, information, and resources that impact Head Start program delivery. NHSA represents more than 900,000 children and their families, 200,000 staff and 2,500 Head Start programs in America

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement. I will be happy to respond

to any questions you or other Committee Members may have.

GAO CONTACT AND STAFF ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

For further information regarding this testimony, please call Marnie S. Shaul, Director, at (202) 512–7215. Individuals making key contributions to this testimony

include Sherri Doughty and Harriet Ganson.

RELATED GAO PRODUCTS

Child Care: Recent State Policy Changes Affecting the Availability of Assistance for

Low-Income Families. GAO–03–588. Washington, D.C.: May 5, 2003.

Head Start and Even Start: Greater Collaboration Needed on Measures of Adult

Education and Literacy. GAO–02–348. Washington, D.C.: March 29, 2002.

Title I Preschool Education: More Children Served but Gauging Effect on School

Readiness Difficult. GAO/HEHS–00–171. Washington, D.C.: September 20, 2000.

Early Childhood Programs: Characteristics Affect the Availability of School Readiness Information. GAO/HEHS–00–38. Washington, D.C.: February 28, 2000.

Early Childhood Programs: The Use of Impact Evaluations to Assess Program Effects, GAO–01–542. Washington, D.C.: April 16, 2001.

Education and Care: Early Childhood Programs and Services for Low-Income

Families. GAO/HEHS–00–11. Washington, D.C: Nov. 15, 1999.

Early Education and Care: Overlap Indicates Need to Assess Crosscutting Programs. GAO/HEHS–00–78. Washington, D.C.: April 28, 2000.

Head Start: Challenges Faced In Demonstrating Program Results and Responding

to Societal Changes. GAO/T–HEHS–98–183. Washington, D.C.: Jun. 9, 1988.

Head Start: Challenges in Monitoring Program Quality and Demonstrating Results. GAO/HEHS–98–186. Washington, D.C.: June 30, 1998.

U.S. General Accounting Office, Head Start Programs: Participant Characteristics,

Services, and Funding. GAO/HEHS–98–65. Washington, D. C.: March 31, 1998.

Head Start: Research Provides Little Information on Impact of Current Program.

GAO/HEHS–97–59. Washington, D.C.: April 15, 1997.

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO—03–840T. To view the full product, including

the scope and methodology, click on the link above. For more information, contact

Marnie S. Shaul at (202) 512–7215 or shaulm@gao.gov.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JANIS SANTOS

Chairman Gregg, Ranking Member Kennedy and Members of the Committee,

thank you for the opportunity to appear here today on behalf of the thousands of

successful Head Start programs across the country and to offer the views of the National Head Start Association (NHSA) 1 on how best to continue to improve Head

Start for the more than 900,000 low-income children who rely every day on this program for their health, nutrition and cognitive development.

Mr. Chairman, for nearly 40 years, Members of Congress and administration officials have worked side-by-side with the Head Start community to identify an agenda

for improvement so that Head Start could meet the evolving challenges facing the

program. We are deeply saddened that, for the first time in the program’s history,

a reauthorization bill may pass the House of Representatives on a straight party

line vote. We are heartened to read your comments that this body will work on a

bipartisan basis to ensure that Head Start continues to be a quality program delivered to at-risk children across the country.

As the Executive Director of the Holyoke-Chicopee-Springfield Head Start program for 24 years, I have dedicated almost my entire adult life working to ensure

that Head Start continues to provide high quality, comprehensive services to the

poorest children in my community; that we work collaboratively with other early

childhood programs in the State and with the public school system; and that the

program applies the best thinking in early childhood research in our work with children.
58

2The Head Start Program Information Report for the 2001–2002 Program Year shows that

Head Start programs have been providing important comprehensive services to children and

families. In Head Start and Early Head Start: 866,005 children had a medical screening;

871,937 children were up-to-date on all their immunizations; 131,873 children were served by

a mental health professional; 139,848 families received emergency or crisis services; 31,908 children were treated for anemia; 47,280 children were treated for asthma; 20,260 children were

treated for hearing difficulties; 39,681 children were treated for being overweight; and 25,869

children were treated for vision problems. In Head Start, 783,861 Head Start children had a

dental examination, and 75,279 children were diagnosed as having speech or language impairments. In Early Head Start, 38,805 children had a dental screening; 2,452 pregnant women received dental examinations and/or treatments; 7,213 pregnant women received prenatal and

postpartum health care; and 7,121 pregnant women received prenatal education on fetal development. See Head Start Program Information Report for the 2001–2002 Program Year. (2003,

June 3). National Level Summary Report, 5.

I can tell you from first hand experience that Head Start does not shy away from

change—we embrace it. In fact, Head Start has seized every opportunity to improve

the services it provides for children and families. We also know that this is not the

time to inject chaos and upheaval into Head Start by turning it over to even a limited number of States. As State budgets are cut and services are scaled back, we

need Head Start now, more than ever before, as a stabilizing early childhood force

in poor communities. Any improvements to the program easily can be accommodated

within the existing structure of the Head Start program.

NHSA is confident that any objective assessment of Head Start will conclude what

we ourselves have determined: Head Start provides real and meaningful benefits,

sustained over time, for our nation’s neediest children and families. At the same

time, there clearly are ways to make Head Start better and NHSA is prepared to

work with the Senate to ensure that this nearly 40-year-old program continues to

grow and improve. In this reauthorization, Congress should once again affirm the

success of this national treasure and expand the program’s benefits to every poor

child and family across the nation.

THE HEAD START SUCCESS STORY

For more than 38 years, Head Start has been a beacon of hope for low-income

children and families. Its mission is straight forward: to prepare children to succeed

in school and to give them the tools necessary to achieve their goals in life. There

is abundant evidence suggesting that Head Start has been successful in meeting its

mission.

This success is rooted in its design, which recognizes that at-risk children need

comprehensive services in order to become ‘‘school ready.’’ The program offers an

array of services, with a strong emphasis on pre-reading skills, mental and physical

health services, immunizations and nutrition services.2 We know that preparing

children to learn is about more than just teaching letters and numbers. Head Start

aims to give children the skills and abilities that will serve them throughout their

school careers—curiosity, an interest in learning, and the ability to pay attention

in class.

Importantly, though Head Start generally is thought of as a program that primarily serves children, it actually is a program that serves families. Visit a Head

Start center and you will see parents reading to children, participating on policy

councils, taking part in family literacy training, or even studying for their GED. It

is the comprehensive nature of the services offered and the focus on the whole family that distinguishes Head Start from more traditional early childhood programs

and explains its success.

The key to quality in Head Start are the program performance standards that

spell out what programs need to do to ensure that Head Start children meet the

high expectations Congress has set for them. These performance standards govern

the range, quality and intensity of Head Start’s comprehensive educational, health,

nutrition, family support, and parental involvement. Head Start has created a proven formula for high quality services and developed a system to ensure that programs deliver the quality services that Congress, parents and the community expect.

INDEPENDENT RESEARCH CONCLUDES THAT HEAD START WORKS

Head Start is one of the most studied and evaluated early childhood programs in

America. The collective wisdom of these studies is inescapable: Head Start delivers

what it promises to this nation’s neediest children—a head start in preparing them

for school and life.
59

3Meier, J. (2003, June 20). Kindergarten Readiness Study: Head Start Success. Interim Report. Preschool Services Department of San Bernardino County. 4 Barnett, W.S. (September 2002). The Battle Over Head Start: What the Research Shows;

Garces, E.D. Thomas, and J. Currie (September 2002). Longer-Term Effects on Head Start. 5 Id.

6 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (January 2001). Head Start FACES: Longitudinal Findings on Program Performance. Third Progress Report, iv and 80; U.S. Department

of Health and Human Services (2003, February 24). Report on Head Start Monitoring Fiscal

Year 2000, 1. 7 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2003, May). Head Start FACES 2000: A

Whole-Child Perspective on Program Performance, 2.

Recent research findings from a rigorous and randomized longitudinal study of

Head Start graduates and their non-Head Start peers in San Bernardino, California

found that for every $1 invested in these Head Start graduates, society receives

nearly $9 in savings. These tremendous benefits include increased earnings, employment, and family stability and decreased welfare dependency, crime costs, grade

repetition and special education. Dr. Meier summarized his new findings as follows:

‘‘The current comprehensive characteristics of the Head Start program and tested

national performance standards constitute exemplary child-care program leadership

and favorably impact the entire society’s quality of preschool child nurturance and

parent involvement. This all further emphasizes the necessity and affordability of

a high quality preschool experience to prepare all of America’s young citizens for

successful school entry and subsequent achievement.’’ 3

Moreover, rigorous studies have found that, after leaving the program, children

who attended Head Start are less likely to repeat a grade, to require special education classes, or to commit crimes than their non-Head Start peers.4 Head Start

graduates have also been found to be more likely to have higher achievement test

scores, to complete high school and college and to earn more than their peers who

did not have the benefit of a ‘‘head start.’’ 5

Importantly, both the most recent Department of Health and Human Services

(HHS) Head Start Monitoring Report and the Family and Child Experiences Survey

(FACES) have found that Head Start programs provide quality, comprehensive services to the children and families they serve and compare favorably with other studies of preschool and child care programs.6 And, we expect the school readiness of

Head Start students to show continued improvement in the FACES data as studies

reflect the enhanced literacy and numeracy components added to the Head Start

program in the late 1990s and fully implemented in 2000.

Launched in 1997, the FACES initiative is an ongoing, national, longitudinal

study of the development of Head Start children and families, the characteristics of

their families, and the quality of Head Start classrooms. FACES consists of two nationally stratified random samples. The 1997 sample consists of 3,200 children and

families in 40 Head Start programs and the 2000 sample consists of 2,800 children

and families in 43 different Head Start programs.7

Key findings of FACES reveal that:

• Head Start narrows the gap between Head Start children and the general population of preschool-age children during the Head Start program year on the key components of school readiness;

• Head Start children leave the program ‘‘ready to learn’’;

• Head Start children have increased their learning since the 1998 Head Start

reauthorization as the children in the FACES 2000 cohort showed greater gains in

book knowledge, letter recognition and print conventions than had the Head Start

children in the 1997 FACES cohort; and

• Head Start children demonstrated a greater increase in vocabulary and early

writing than the typical child during the 2000–2001 program year.

Despite these convincing results, some critics of the Head Start program insist

that it is not doing enough to close the learning gap between Head Start children

and their wealthier peers. It must be emphasized that we have the highest expectations for Head Start children and insist upon holding them to the highest possible

standards. At the same time, we have reasonable expectations of what can be accomplished after just 1 or 2 years of Head Start. The objective of Head Start is to

narrow the gap between Head Start children and their wealthier peers and to help

poor children improve their preparation for school and learning. Jeanne BrooksGunn, a scholar at Columbia University, concludes, ‘‘If policy makers believe that

offering early childhood intervention for 2 years will permanently and totally reduce
60

8 Brooks-Gunn, J. (2003). ‘‘Do You Believe in Magic? What We Can Expect From Early Childhood Intervention Programs.’’ Social Policy Report. Society for Research in Child Development,

9. 9Letter from seven Early Childhood Education and Development Experts to Members of Congress. (2003 July, 9), 1. 10 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2003, May). Head Start FACES 2000: A

Whole-Child Perspective on Program Performance, 11–17.

SES (socioeconomic status) disparities in children’s achievement, they may be engaging in magical thinking.’’ 8

Nevertheless, seven prominent early childhood education and development scholars in a July 9, 2003 letter to members of Congress contend, ‘‘. . . what Head Start

can do and what a recent U.S. Department of Health and Human Services report

concludes it can do, is bolster children’s school readiness.’’ 9 Head Start children

have shown that they are ready to learn by making progress in both the short- and

long-term. In a recent study, during the school year Head Start children demonstrated increased scores in vocabulary, early writing and early mathematics.10

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE REAUTHORIZATION

Head Start remains as important today as it was 38 years ago, helping children

in poverty get the learning opportunities, nutritious meals, health care and social

and emotional support they need to enter school ready to learn. The founding principles of Head Start—that disadvantaged children need comprehensive, quality

early education to start school ready to learn—are no less critical today than they

were 38 years ago.

Despite the impressive accomplishments of Head Start, NHSA and the entire

Head Start community are the first to acknowledge that we can do an even better

job on behalf of this Nation’s neediest children. In fact, throughout its history, Head

Start has embraced change and has never shied away from the kind of critical assessments that have sparked the innovative and quality improvements central to

the success of the program. NHSA recognizes that the program is a dynamic one

that must constantly seek to improve services for children and their families. As

such, in the 2003 reauthorization, NHSA has identified and is supporting a number

of quality enhancements to the program, including those discussed below.

Enhance teacher qualifications. Although our teachers are well trained, motivated,

and have many years of experience, we agree with those who want to continue improving the training of the teachers in the Head Start classroom. We understand

the importance of teacher qualifications. We were the first to insist that all teachers

have at least a Child Development Associate (CDA) Credential, which is an intensive training and assessment of knowledge and practice in early childhood education. We worked during the last reauthorization to ensure that at least 50 percent

of all Head Start teachers have an associate degree or better by September 2003— a goal that already has been met. Today, we are pleased to support recommendations that call for a teacher with a bachelor’s degree in every classroom, phased in

over an 8 year period, and contingent upon additional and adequate funding that

will allow programs to attract and retain such teachers. Specifically, NHSA believes

that any new requirement for bachelor’s degrees should take effect only if adequate

and additional funding is available for current teachers to return to school to meet

this requirement and for comparable pay once they have earned such a degree. Further, NHSA supports a requirement that at least 50 percent of teacher aides/assistants be required to have a CDA by 2008.

Require every Head Start program to have a career development plan for all staff.

Many Head Start programs already have career development plans to ensure that

all staff receive the training they need and want. Nonetheless, it would be helpful

to require that all Head Start programs design career development plans for their

staff so that they receive the necessary guidance to obtain degrees, training, and

the specialized knowledge that will better enable them to better serve the needs of

Head Start children and families.

Create a new training and technical assistance system. NHSA supports the creation of a new training and technical assistance system that would address the comprehensive nature of Head Start and focus on all the aspects of the Head Start program. This system should include coordination with State Head Start Associations

and State preschool entities. This will not only ensure quality but improve the coordination between State preschool programs and Head Start. At a minimum, the

training and technical assistance set aside must be maintained at a level of two percent or greater so we can continue to provide necessary professional development.

Congress should mandate that at least 50 percent of these funds be directed to Head

Start agencies to facilitate compliance with mandated program performance stand-
61

11 Head Start Bureau data; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Bureau of the Census.

(2001). Table 23. Single Years of Age—Poverty Status of People in 2001. Accessed at http://ferret.bls.census.gov/macro/032002/pov /new23—001.htm on October 10, 2002. 12 Head Start Bureau data; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Bureau of the Census.

(2001). Table 23. Single Years of Age—Poverty Status of People in 2001.

ards. The remaining 50 percent should be designated as follows: 60 percent for the

national training and technical assistance system of State training offices and 40

percent for the administration of the national CDA credentialing system and other

initiatives to assist programs in meeting the program performance standards. Congress should further insist that no funds appropriated for training and technical assistance be used for any purpose other than that stated in the authorizing language.

Strengthen collaboration and strategic State-level planning. As the organization

that pushed for 50 collaboration grants, we understand the need for Head Start to

coordinate with other Federal and State early care programs. NHSA supports provisions that will encourage collaboration and strategic State-level planning among

Head Start, education and child care programs to deliver services that help children

succeed in school while meeting the needs of parents. Congress also is called upon

to provide additional funding that will help these State planning activities.

Increase the Early Head Start set-aside and develop a seamless program. More and

more research has found that learning begins at an earlier age than once was

thought to be the case. To address the needs of infants, the Early Head Start program was established. This successful program currently is serving children prenatal to the age of 3. However, because of a lack of funding, it is estimated that

the program has been able to serve only about three percent of eligible kids.11 We

believe it is time to make a serious commitment to providing seamless services to

children pre-natal to the age of 5. To accomplish this goal, we propose that the

Early Head Start set-aside be increased and that Head Start grantees be given the

flexibility to provide services to children pre-natal to age 5.

Allow Head Start programs the flexibility to enroll more families above the income

guidelines and to serve the working poor. Currently, Head Start mostly serves families earning at or below 100 percent of the poverty level. Right now, a family can

be poor enough to receive Medicaid and Food Stamps but not be poor enough for

Head Start. The Head Start Act allows programs to enroll 10 percent of their families earning above the poverty line. With the passage of welfare reform in 1996,

many families that now are working find themselves slightly over the poverty line

and thus ineligible for Head Start. To remedy this situation, NHSA proposes that

Head Start programs be allowed to serve 25 percent of their families above the income guidelines. To ensure that the most deserving families are served first, safeguards should be put in place to ensure programs serve the neediest children before

reaching beyond the poverty level.

Fully fund Head Start. Head Start has enough funding to serve about six out of

every 10 income eligible children. Assuming that 8 out of 10 income eligible children

would like to enroll in Head Start, it is estimated that 252,555 income eligible children were unable to enroll in Head Start during fiscal year 2003 because of a lack

of funding.12 Unfortunately, the administration’s proposed funding increase of $148

million in fiscal year 2004 is not enough even to keep pace with inflation and provides no funds for quality improvements. Fully funding Head Start is not a question

of money or resources; it is simply a question of priorities and values.

COMMENTS ON H.R. 2210

As noted above, the government’s own research and independent studies reach the

same conclusion: Head Start is a program that works. NHSA shares the president’s

desire to enhance the literacy and language components of Head Start, and to improve the coordination of Head Start with State preschool and child care programs.

At the same time, it is our position that these goals can be met within the structure

of the current program.

According to the sponsors of H.R. 2210, the School Readiness Act of 2003, the

main goals of the legislation are to close the school readiness gap between young

low-income children and other children upon entering school and to promote collaboration and alignment at the State level between Head Start and other early childhood education programs. We agree that these are important goals. However, they

are unlikely to be achieved under H.R. 2210. Though there are positive aspects of

the legislation, they are far outweighed by the provisions with which we have very

serious concerns, and which we believe will undermine the program and lead to its

dissolution.

Among our most serious concerns with H.R. 2210 are that it:
62

• Dismantles the national program by allowing eight States the option to receive

Head Start funds in the form of a block grant without full application of the current

Head Start Performance Standards, adequate accountability, or sufficient coordination requirements; • Reduces the Federal commitment to training and technical assistance, a key to

any strategy aimed at improving program quality; and • Establishes a set of significant new goals for Head Start programs without providing the funding that would be needed to meet the goals.

It is not apparent to us how shifting Head Start to a block grant program to even

eight States—without the full application of the program performance standards

and without adequate accountability or sufficient coordination requirements—will

do anything to improve the quality of Head Start. Instead, such a shift likely will

result in chaos for the immediate future as cash-strapped States figure out how to

use the funds. At the same time, sending Head Start dollars to the States will most

assuredly lead to a dilution of the quality of Head Start. While bipartisan Congresses have sought to strengthen the program’s performance standards and enhance monitoring requirements, the administration’s plan would instead rely on the

good will of debt-ridden States to ensure quality.

While Head Start provides low-income children and families with high quality and

comprehensive services, there is no guarantee these standards or services will be

maintained if States are given control over the funding. Though we don’t doubt the

sincerity of the States’ interest in early childhood development, we do know that the

States vary considerably in the services they provide in their early childhood programs. Further, a State’s commitment to providing quality prekindergarten services

can be subject to changing priorities among administrations and budget constraints.

NHSA hopes that Congress will take steps to improve the quality of the literacy

and language skills training in Head Start programs, rather than diverting resources, time, and focus to an untested idea. Literacy and language skills training

have been part of the mission of the program since its inception, and we will work

closely with Members of the Committee and this Congress to raise the bar for our

Nation’s most vulnerable children. It is our hope, however, that this goal can be accomplished without dismantling or weakening the comprehensive components of

Head Start that are so critical for preparing children to succeed in school and to

develop strong literacy skills.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF AMY WILKINS

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me to speak

today. I am honored to join today’s panel to discuss the reauthorization of Head

Start.

My name is Amy Wilkins. I am the Executive Director of the Trust for Early Education (TEE). TEE was established in 2002 to promote high quality, voluntary prekindergarten programs for all 3- and 4-year-olds.

While the school readiness problem is most acute for low-income children and

children of color, large percentages of middle income and white children are entering school without the skills they need to do their best. In fact, we know that children who recognize their letters before entering kindergarten become stronger readers sooner than children who do not. We also know that about one-quarter of white

children and about one-third of middle class children enter kindergarten without

knowing their letters. More startling, perhaps, is data published last Fall by the

Economic Policy Institute, which indicates that the math and reading skill levels of

children from families in the middle socio-economic status (SES) quintile are closer

to the skill levels of children in the lowest SES quintile—our very poorest children—

than they are to the skill levels of children in the highest SES quintile.

The global economy is demanding ever higher levels of skill and knowledge from

all of our citizens. Given this, TEE believes we must quickly and comprehensively

address the school readiness issue faced by this nation and that the most effective

response to the issue is high quality pre-kindergarten for all.

TEE works at both the State and Federal levels because we believe that it is neither possible nor desirable to build the system that will provide access to high quality pre-kindergarten to all children without strong coordination between Federal

and State policies and funding.

In the last 13 months, TEE has distributed over $3 million in grants to advocates

in nine States (Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Oklahoma) to help them advance the cause

of high quality pre-kindergarten at the State level.

Our work at the Federal level has convinced us there is not only the need to coordinate Federal policy with State policy more closely, but also a need to better co-
63

ordinate policy between Federal programs and agencies. As you work on reauthorizing Head Start, it is critical that you coordinate these efforts with the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, which will soon come before you.

For more than three decades, Head Start has provided pre-kindergarten for children living in poverty. The program has, without question, achieved a great deal

of success. The Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) data from both

1999–98 and 2000–2001 suggest that a year of Head Start boosts children’s knowledge and skills, and narrows the school entry skills gap between them and more

affluent children.

Head Start has provided millions of our most vulnerable children a foundation of

integrated health, nutrition, academic and family support services. Nonetheless,

when Head Start children enter kindergarten, a gap remains.

Our paramount goal for this reauthorization of Head Start should be to improve

Head Start in order to narrow the gap even more. As this Committee considers the

many issues which will arise during this reauthorization we urge you to evaluate

each policy choice with this goal in mind. We ask you to ask yourselves this question: ‘‘Is this policy likely to help narrow the school readiness gap?′′

The President and many members of this Committee have noted that narrowing

the gap will require that Head Start do more to promote strong language and literacy skills in the children it serves. We agree, but this still begs the question how

best to do this. TEE believes that the single most important step that this Committee can take in this reauthorization to boost early literacy skills of Head Start children is to ensure that every Head Start classroom is staffed by a lead teacher who

has at least a bachelor’s degree and specialized training in early education. In fact,

we believe that all the other steps that you may take to narrow the gap and to promote early literacy will amount to little without an increase in the percentage of

well-educated Head Start teachers.

As important as it is for Head Start to do more to enhance the intellectual growth

of children, it cannot be asked to do so by cutting back on other critical services

that have demonstrable, positive impacts on school readiness. The health, nutrition,

and family support services that Head Start provides are the foundation of its success and must not be compromised. The truism that children who are hungry or sick

cannot learn has and should continue to guide Head Start policy. It is equally true

that well-fed, healthy children who are not well taught cannot learn either. We cannot sacrifice one aspect of children’s development to promote another.

BETTER QUALIFIED TEACHERS LEAD TO BETTER OUTCOMES FOR STUDENTS

Well-educated teachers improve the quality of pre-kindergarten programs by

building strong academic skills in children and promoting positive social and emotional development. Research indicates that literate, engaged, and attentive teachers—teachers with bachelor’s degrees—help children learn and develop the knowledge and skills they need to do well in kindergarten and beyond.

Strong reading skills are the foundation for success in school and in life. Vocabulary is a critical building block for later literacy. Research shows that low-income

3-year-olds have vocabularies that are only about half the size of vocabularies of 3-

year-olds living in our most affluent families. As a result, without powerful interventions to help build their vocabularies, low-income children have more difficulty

than their more fortunate peers mastering basic reading skills.

Research has established a clear link between the number and complexity of

words spoken by adults—including parents and teachers—and the number and complexity of words spoken by children. When children are exposed to larger vocabularies and more complex speech, they respond with greater comprehension and more

complex speech themselves (Huttenlocher, Vasilyeva, Cymerman, and Levine, 2002).

It would seem then, that in order to boost vocabularies—and thereby lay the foundation for other early reading skills—we must provide Head Start children with highly

literate teachers who themselves have rich and robust vocabularies.

An analysis by the Educational Testing Service (ETS) suggests that adults with

bachelor’s degrees have higher literacy levels than do adults with less formal education. Working with the data from The National Adult Literacy Survey, ETS finds

that adults with only associate’s degrees are twice as likely as those with bachelor’s

degrees to have literacy skills below the ‘‘competent’’ level. Therefore, requiring that

Head Start teachers have bachelor’s degrees—not just associate’s degrees—will increase the chances that children in the program will experience richer, more complex speech, and be better able to build stronger vocabularies that are positively associated with later reading success.

The logic of this notion is supported by the findings of The National Child Care

Staffing Study, which concluded that teachers with more formal education were
64

more sensitive than teachers with less formal education, and that children with

more sensitive teachers received higher language scores than did children in classrooms with less educated teachers (Howes, Phillips & Whitebook 1992; Whitebook

et al., 1990).

But well-educated teachers do more than simply build the framework for later literacy. They support strong social and emotional development in the children they

teach. Three of the largest and most reliable studies of early education and care—

The Cost Quality and Outcomes Study, The Florida Quality Improvement Study,

and The National Child Care Staffing Study—each found very strong evidence of the

positive impacts that teachers with bachelor’s degrees have on overall classroom

quality. These studies suggest that teachers with bachelor’s degrees are:

• Less harsh, critical and punitive than teachers with less formal education;

• Less detached from their students than teachers without degrees; and

• More engaged with and attentive to their students than teachers with less formal education.

The studies also found that children in classrooms with teachers with bachelor’s

degrees engaged in more creative peer play than did children in classrooms with

teachers with less formal education. Moreover, the studies demonstrated that children in classrooms with teachers with more formal education spent less time in

‘‘aimless wondering’’ than did children in classrooms with teachers with less formal

education.

The findings of all of these studies are supported by what we know happens in

good pre-kindergarten programs. The most powerful and renowned early childhood

education programs for low-income children—the programs we all reference when

extolling the benefits of pre-kindergarten for low-income children—such as the Perry

Preschool Program, the Chicago Parent Child Parent Centers, and the Abecedarian

Preschool Program are staffed by teachers with at least 4-year degrees. Children

participating in these programs:

• Enter school better prepared to learn;

• Are less likely to be retained in grade;

• Are less likely to be placed in special education; and

• Are more likely to graduate from high school than their peers who have not had

the benefit of such high quality programs.

If we want the same results from Head Start, we must staff Head Start with the

same caliber of teachers employed by these exemplary programs.

Given all of the evidence suggesting that positive outcomes for children are

strongly linked to the presence of well-educated teachers, it should come as no surprise that many of the most respected research institutions in the field of early

childhood education, including: the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Institute for Early Education Research, the Frank

Porter Graham Child Development Institute and the Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy at Yale University, support the notion of increasing the percentage of teachers with bachelor’s degrees in the Head Start program.

Staffing pre-kindergarten programs for low-income children with well-educated

teachers is not a revolutionary policy. In fact, many States are ahead of the Federal

Government in this area. Half of the States with pre-kindergarten programs already

require that all of their teachers have 4-year college degrees. In an area as critical

as the qualifications of the program’s teaching force, Head Start cannot now lag behind the State programs that were established to emulate it.

WE CAN GET THERE

Even with solid research pointing to the need to put a teacher with a bachelor’s

degree in every Head Start classroom, there are some who say it cannot be done.

They insist that asking the program to substantially ratchet up the quality of its

teaching force may be desirable, but that it is unrealistic to ask for so great an improvement. TEE believes it can—with will, innovation, coordination and resources—

be done. Consider the recent success of New Jersey.

In 1998, the New Jersey State Supreme Court ruled on a school finance equity

case known as Abbott v. Burke. Part of the Court’s decision required the State to

establish high quality pre-kindergarten programs in the 30 highest poverty school

districts in the State. The court later required that each of these programs be

staffed by lead teachers with bachelor’s degrees within 4 years. At the time of the

court order about 35 percent of teachers in the pre-kindergarten programs in Abbott

districts held bachelor’s degrees. Today, about 80 percent of the teachers in these

programs hold 4-year degrees and State certification. Kindergarten and first-grade

teachers in the Abbott districts are already reporting that children are coming into

their classrooms better prepared than in the past.
65

In order to raise teacher qualifications in accordance with the court order, the

State created and executed a plan that included:

• Realistic but ambitious timelines;

• A strengthened and improved teacher education infrastructure;

• Scholarships, release time, and substitutes for teachers; and

• Improved teacher compensation and attempts to reach salary parity with kindergarten teachers.

Today, TEE and the Schumann Fund for New Jersey are releasing a paper on

what it took for the State of New Jersey to meet the court mandate. The New Jersey

experience provides important lessons that I hope this Committee will consider.

Not all of the steps that New Jersey has taken can be addressed through the

Head Start bill, but this Committee also has jurisdiction over the approaching reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. By coordinating policy between the two

bills and using the resources of Head Start and Titles II, III and IV of the Higher

Education Act, the Committee can lay the foundation of a strong system that will

make it possible not only for every Head Start classroom to have a lead teacher with

a bachelor’s degree and specialized training in early education by 2011—but also to

improve the qualifications of teachers working in all settings that serve 3- and 4-

year-old children.

THE TRUST FOR EARLY EDUCATION RECOMMENDATIONS

We strongly urge this Committee to require all Head Start teachers have bachelor’s degrees with specialized training in early education within 8 years. The

House’s action on this issue, while significant and laudable, is limited. If, as a national average, only half of the teachers in Head Start are required to have a bachelor’s degree, it is very possible that not a single State represented on this Committee would see any improvement in the number of teachers with bachelor’s degrees.

While TEE is pleased that the House Committee has recognized the need to increase the percentage of well-educated teachers in Head Start, we call on the Senate

to build on and expand on the work of the Education and Workforce Committee by

both increasing the percentage of teachers with bachelor’s degrees in Head Start

classrooms beyond the level established in the House bill and making the resources

available to educate, attract and retain those teachers.

TEE has estimated the cost of providing Head Start teachers with scholarships

and other supports needed to earn bachelor’s degrees at about $1 billion. We have

estimated the cost of appropriate increases in Head Start teacher salaries at about

$6 billion over 8 years, with about $3 billion needed by the end of this reauthorization to put the program on a solid path to reach the final goal. Some may balk at

theses costs; however, we believe that they are an indispensable investment in better school readiness outcomes for Head Start children.

In addition, TEE supports several other changes to the Head Start law to enhance

the quality of the teaching force, including:

• Adding a requirement for annual center-by-center public reporting on the educational attainment of all teachers. This will help parents, the public, and Congress

better monitor progress toward the important teacher education goal established by

this bill.

• Amending the existing sections of the law which outline requirements for Head

Start programs’ salary scales to require that they relate directly to the level of

teachers’ formal education. It is entirely reasonable for the Federal Government to

demand higher levels of formal education for Head Start teachers. However, as we

demand more education from them we must compensate them at higher levels.

If we require that Head Start teachers have bachelor’s degrees and specialized

training in early education, we will be requiring that they meet essentially the same

requirements that most States have established for their kindergarten teachers. As

it currently stands, Head Start teachers with bachelor’s degrees earn only half as

much as public school kindergarten teachers. Without improved wages, Head Start

teachers with bachelor’s degrees will not stay in Head Start programs. In New Jersey, which experienced mixed success in raising compensation for degreed teachers,

17 Head Start centers lost 125 certified teachers in 3 years. Such high turnover will

not only limit Head Start’s ability to improve quality, but high turnover will also

be detrimental to children’s social and emotional development which depends, at

least in part, on their ability to build long term trusting relationships with their

teachers. Raising Head Start teacher salaries so that they are commensurate with

those of kindergarten teachers with similar credentials will encourage the best

teachers to stay in Head Start and will help attract a new, highly educated workforce of potential teachers for Head Start.
66

The issue here, however, is more than an issue of increased investment; it is also

a question of coordinated policy between Federal programs. This Committee will undoubtedly spend a great deal of time discussing how Head Start programs can be

coordinated with State pre-kindergarten programs. The Trust for Early Education

is eager to participate in these discussions in order to help create a system that is

dedicated to providing access to high quality pre-kindergarten to all children. But

we would urge you to remember the need for coordination between Federal programs as well. The New Jersey success story is largely a story of coordinated effort.

When this Committee takes up the Higher Education Act we recommend that you:

• Expand the use of Title II funds to cover the improvement, expansion and creation of post-secondary education programs for preparation of pre-kindergarten

teachers as well as K–12 teachers as the House did in H.R. 2211;

• Expand the provision of Title II which provides loan forgiveness to K–12 teachers working in high-poverty schools to include teachers in Head Start and other prekindergarten programs serving low-income children.

• Attend to student aid policy that may make it difficult for Head Start teachers

and other working adults to balance the demands of work, family and post-secondary education; and

• Encourage greater cooperation between 2- and 4-year colleges around the transfer of course credits.

CONCLUSION

Head Start has been successful for so long because it has evolved and incorporated the best research into its programs and practices. The single best way to

continue to improve the quality of Head Start is to ensure that teachers with a

bachelor’s degree and specialized training in early education lead each and every

Head Start classroom. It is time to follow the best models and give Head Start children the best chance for success.

Thank you for allowing me this opportunity to testify.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF CATHOLIC CHARITIES USA

Catholic Charities USA is a national network of 1,600 local Catholic Charities

agencies and institutions working to reduce poverty, support families, and build

communities throughout the United States. Catholic Charities programs serve over

10 million people of all religions—and no religion—and of every racial, ethnic, and

social background. Catholic Charities agencies have operated Head Start sites since

the program’s inception in 1965 and currently serve over 20,000 children directly

in Head Start programs. Catholic Charities agencies also serve hundreds of thousands of Head Start children and their families through other services such as

wrap-around child-care, family counseling, job training and housing.

As the Senate prepares legislation, we would like to offer the following recommendations for maintaining and improving the quality of the Head Start program. These come from our 38 years of experience in running the Head Start program, as well as reaction to the ‘‘School Readiness Act of 2003’’ (H.R. 2210) that

is pending in the House.

First, we support maintaining Head Start as a Federal program that directly

funds local sponsoring organizations. It is hard to see what is to be gained by adding an additional State layer of governmental bureaucracy to Head Start, as is proposed in H.R. 2210. Local communities, including the parents of children in Head

Start, are best able to discern what the children of that community need. Local

faith-based organizations, community centers and schools that are known and trusted run many Head Start programs. Involving parents in the program is the hallmark of Head Start.

Head Start helps children succeed in school, not by just teaching children reading

readiness, but also by strengthening their families and teaching parents so that

they can then help teach their own children. For example, in the fall of 1979, Julia,

a single mother of three, enrolled two of her three children in a Catholic Charities

Head Start program located in a housing project in Cleveland. Julia had heard

about the Head Start program from another Head Start parent at the laundry-mat.

Julia was shy, introverted and somewhat non-responsive to the questions asked during the intake process, and the Family Service Worker had to repeat most of the

questions. Julia seemed to lack confidence when questioned about goals for her family.

At first, Julia seldom volunteered in the classroom nor attended the monthly parent meetings, so Head Start staff made a series of home visits, which encouraged

Julia to participate in parent activities at the Head Start center.
67

With the support of Head Start staff, Julia decided to enroll in adult education

classes and earned her high school diploma. A Head Start Family Service Worker

provided her tutoring, and Julia graduated from the program in 1981. She then

began working for Head Start as a part-time Family Service Worker. It has been

almost 26 years since Julia first walked into the Head Start center.

Julia now has a bachelor’s degree in social work from a local university, supervises a staff of seven and has set a remarkable example for her own children. Julia

is just one of many who have never forgotten the difference Head Start made in

their lives and made them better parents.

We acknowledge and applaud the efforts of Congress to encourage partnerships

between government and faith-based organizations. Nonetheless, faith-based organizations could encounter new obstacles to sponsorship of Head Start if Title II of the

House bill, which would allow eight States to take over administration of the program, were to become law. Thirty-seven States have some version of the Blaine

amendment in their constitutions or statutes that could prohibit contracts between

their State departments of education—the likely State administering agencies—and

religious organizations. Moreover, State education establishments are likely to view

public schools and secular agencies, their traditional constituencies, as the natural

choice for administering Head Start programs.

Even with a workable correction in this area, Catholic Charities USA has very

serious concerns about giving States control of Head Start. State budget shortfalls

are already forcing severe cuts in programs for children and families, including

many States’ own early childhood efforts. The current capacity of State Governments to exercise leadership and responsibility for Head Start is very questionable.

States have already begun to make dramatic cuts in early childhood programs. For

example, Ohio has lowered eligibility for child-care subsidies from 185 percent of the

Federal poverty level to 165 percent of the Federal poverty level, and Massachusetts

made a $10 million cut to their school readiness program. Additionally, State education departments are struggling to implement the ‘‘No Child Left Behind Act’’

without the promised increased in Federal funds. It is hard to see how the State

‘‘demonstration projects’’ would contribute more than another layer of bureaucracy.

One of the concerns of Congress is a lack of collaboration between Head Start programs and State educational programs. Our experience is that Head Start programs

do collaborate with State educational programs, albeit sporadically. Fostering collaboration could be achieved without surrendering control over Head Start to the

States. For example, Head Start grantees could be required to demonstrate in their

applications how they will collaborate with pre-school and other early childhood programs. In addition, States could be required, as a condition of receiving Federal

ESEA funding, to show how they coordinate and collaborate with Head Start programs.

The ‘‘School Readiness Act of 2003’’ raises further concerns and questions for us.

While encouraging and rewarding Head Start programs for hiring teachers with

Bachelor’s degrees is a positive step, rapid implementation may be difficult.

• Head Start teachers currently are paid $21,000 annually on average.

• Once Head Start teachers have a degree, they will be recruited by public schools

for elementary grade levels where they will receive pay better and have full benefits.

It is our hope that legislation proposed in the Senate will recognize the comprehensive nature of Head Start. Any reauthorization of Head Start should include

a commitment to health and nutrition, social and cognitive development and services reducing or eliminating any barriers to a child’s success in school. Head Start

recognizes that a child is part of a family system. Family problems and challenges:

loss of income, siblings with problems, violence at home or in the community, all

affect the ability of a child to learn. For example, Jerry, a 4 year-old, who was enrolled in a Catholic Charities Head Start class, had a 15 year-old brother who was

involved in a gang and had started skipping school, creating stress and conflict in

Jerry’s home. Jerry’s Head Start teachers knew about the situation, because they

could see the effects on Jerry who was misbehaving and unable to focus. The Head

Start staff reached out to the family and offered resources to help Jerry’s brother

to get out of the gang and back into school. This intervention not only improved the

home environment, but also provided Jerry and his brother an opportunity to succeed in school. It is unclear whether States would continue this highly effective and

comprehensive approach to Head Start.

We would like to acknowledge the Department of Health and Human Services’

hard work to improve the quality of Head Start by increasing accountability, increasing training and professional development, and integrating school readiness

into the program since the last reauthorization. In addition, the agency has contin-
68

ued to prioritize the comprehensive services of health, nutrition, and social skills

that make Head Start such a high quality program.

Catholic Charities USA supports a reauthorization of Head Start that improves

upon, but remains consistent with the original design of the program, ‘‘to help break

the cycle of poverty by providing preschool children of low-income families with a

comprehensive program to meet their emotional, social, health, nutritional and psychological needs.’’ We urge you to support a reauthorization that would: • maintain the integrity of the Head Start Program; • provide funding to serve all eligible children; • increase resources to enhance literacy, numeracy and school readiness skills;

and• improve teacher training and professional development.

In addition, we support the proposal in H.R. 2210 to apply to the Head Start program the provisions of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which allows religious organizations to consider religion in employment decisions.

We encourage members of the Senate to rigorously examine the Head Start program so that low-income children may receive the best pre-school education available. However, we caution against any major ‘‘experimentation’’ with this successful

program. These children only have 2 years to get ready for school. They will not

get those years back if the experiment fails.

Your efforts to bring sufficient funding and enhanced quality to the reauthorization of the Head Start Program will afford many poor children ages 0-5 and their

families an opportunity for a comprehensive early educational experience. Catholic

Charities USA will be happy to continue working with you in this regard.

STATEMENT OF STANLEY B. PECK

INTRODUCTION

The American Dental Hygienists’ Association (ADHA) appreciates this opportunity

to submit testimony regarding ‘‘Reauthorizing Head Start: Preparing Children to

Succeed in School and in Life.’’ ADHA applauds the Senate Committee on Health,

Education, Labor and Pensions for holding this important hearing on Head Start.

ADHA is the largest national organization representing the professional interests

of the more than 120,000 dental hygienists across the country. Dental hygienists are

preventive oral health professionals who are licensed in each of the fifty states. Dental hygienists across the country provide oral health services to Head Start children.

Please visit ADHA’s web site at < < www.adha.org > > .

As prevention specialists, dental hygienists understand that recognizing the connection between oral health and total health can prevent disease, treat problems

while they are still manageable and conserve critical health care dollars. Dental hygienists are committed to improving the nation’s oral health, an integral part of

total health. Indeed, all Americans can enjoy good oral health because the principal

oral maladies (caries, gingivitis and periodontitis) are fully preventable with the

provision of regular preventive oral health services such as those provided by dental

hygienists.

The Head Start program is designed to foster healthy development in low-income

children and includes a program service area in health. According to the Head Start

Bureau, ‘‘Wellness is recognized as a significant contributor to each child’s ability

to thrive and develop. Accordingly, health screenings evaluate the child’s overall

health status and regular health checkups and good practices in oral health, hygiene, nutrition, personal care and safety are incorporated into the program.’’ Head

Start is the largest federal program with early childhood development and school

readiness as its primary focus, and is the centerpiece of the federal government’s

efforts to prepare the nation’s most disadvantaged children for school. ADHA strongly supports the Head Start program and applauds its recognition that good oral

health is a fundamental part of the wellness essential to success in school.

BLOCK GRANTING HEAD START WOULD THREATEN THE ESSENTIAL HEALTH COMPONENT

OF THE PROGRAM

ADHA is pleased that the Senate HELP Committee’s reauthorization of Head

Start is not expected to include President Bush’s proposal for a pilot program to

block grant Head Start in eight states. The block grant proposal threatens to dismantle the existing federal system which has effectively served at-risk children for

nearly forty years. Changing Head Start to a block grant jeopardizes the health

component of Head Start. This committee’s effort to preserve Head Start as a federal program will ensure that poor children throughout the United States will have

access to the medical care that is requisite to ensure that a child can learn. The
69

health component of Head Start is vital to ensure that Head Start children are prepared to succeed in school. Indeed, sound health is a foundation for advancement

in learning and social development.

ENSURING ACCESS TO DENTAL CARE

An astounding number of children under the age of five suffer from dental disease. Dental caries (tooth decay) is the single largest health problem among children. Dental caries is five times more common than asthma. Although dental caries

is both treatable and preventable, many children fail to receive the proper dental

screening needed to ensure treatment or prevention of the disease.

The General Accounting Office (GAO) has confirmed in two separate reports to

Congress that ‘‘dental disease is a chronic problem among many low-income and vulnerable populations’’ and ‘‘poor children have five times more untreated dental caries (cavities) than children in higher-income families.’’ The GAO further found that

the major factor contributing to the low use of dental services among low-income

persons who have coverage for dental services is ‘‘finding dentists to treat them.’’ Increased utilization of dental hygiene services—appropriately linked to the services

of dentists—is critical to addressing the nation’s crisis in access to oral health care

for vulnerable populations. Indeed, ADHA is committed to working with Congress

to improve access to oral health care services, particularly for our nation’s children.

Children coping with severe dental problems suffer acute tooth ache and pain,

thus inhibiting them from concentrating on learning in the classroom. These children miss twelve times as many days for dental problems compared to those children with access to dental care. Failure to correct dental problems at an early age

can lead to a young adult’s decreased desire to thrive in school, lower self esteem,

and speech impediments.

Head Start has been overwhelmingly successful with providing at-risk children

with dental care when Medicaid and SCHIP have fallen short. Disadvantaged preschoolers enrolled in Head Start are three times more likely to receive a dental

screening compared to other disadvantaged children in Medicaid. In 2001, 81% of

children in Head Start received a dental screening. Thirty percent of those children

screened needed dental care, and 77% of them received it. By contrast, the GAO estimates that only 21% of two to five year olds below the poverty line received dental

screening. This concrete evidence demonstrates that Head Start plays a vital role

in ensuring that poor children not only have health insurance coverage but that

they actually receive dental care.

Establishing Head Start as a block grant to states lifts stringent federal regulations, such as delineating when a child should receive medical care, attached to

Head Start funding. Currently, federal regulations require Head Start grantees to

assist with establishing a dental home for children, to provide oral screenings by

dental professionals, to help families schedule appointments and coordinate treatment with a local dentist, and to follow-up on documented dental problems. Given

Medicaid’s already poor dental coverage for disadvantage children, preschoolers

could be left with very limited or no dental coverage with relaxed regulations.

STRENGTHENING HEAD START’S ORAL HEALTH COMPONENT

With the reauthorization of Head Start before the Senate HELP Committee, committee members have a momentous opportunity to improve and strengthen an invaluable federal program that provides America’s poor children with wonderful educational and developmental experiences. In addition to rejecting the President’s block grant proposal, we urge the committee to consider: supporting and expanding

interagency activities between Head Start and the Maternal and Child Health Bureau at the Health Resources and Services Administration; ensuring that any Medicaid reform effort does not alter currently required pediatric dental and health benefits in Medicaid’s EPSDT program; and encouraging Early Head Start to update

its performance recommendations that dental supervision begins by the age of one.

CONCLUSION

In closing, the American Dental Hygienists’ Association appreciates this opportunity to provide written testimony on ‘‘Reauthorizing Head Start: Preparing Children to Succeed in School and in Life.’’ ADHA understands the need to improve

Head Start’s results within math and literacy; however, we do not believe the solution lies in cutting the health component of the program. Indeed, the health aspect

of Head Start has been remarkably successful with ensuring proper medical care for

participants when other government programs have failed. The cornerstone to learning is sound health. ADHA is committed to working with lawmakers, educators, researchers, policymakers, the public and dental and non-dental groups to improve
70

the nation’s oral health which, as Oral Health in America: A Report of the Surgeon

General so rightly recognizes, is a vital part of overall health and well-being.

Thank you for this opportunity to submit the views of the American Dental Hygienists’ Association. Please contact our Washington Counsel, Karen Sealander of

McDermott, Will & Emery (202/756-8024), with questions or for further information.
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85

STATEMENT OF MANDA LOPEZ

Thank you Chairman Gregg, Ranking Member Kennedy and honorable members

of the Health Education, Labor and Pensions Committee for this opportunity to submit testimony. It is critical that an open discussion take place regarding the

changes that are being proposed for the 2003 Head Start Reauthorization and that

particular attention be paid to some of our nation’s most vulnerable children.

I submit this testimony on behalf of the 28 Migrant and Seasonal Head Start programs that are members of the National Migrant and Seasonal Head Start Association and the parents and children they serve.
86

Our message to you regarding reauthorization of Head Start is twofold. First, we

urge you to consider the unique nature of Migrant and Seasonal Head Start programs as you craft the reauthorization legislation and we support maintaining the

Migrant and Seasonal Head Start Programs Branch as a critical step in that direction. Secondly, we urge you to ensure that this legislation devotes additional resources to Migrant and Seasonal Head Start in order to address the documented

funding shortfall that prevents more than 80% of the eligible children from receiving

services through our programs.

BACKGROUND ON MIGRANT AND SEASONAL HEAD START

As you know, Migrant and Seasonal Head Start programs were launched as a response to the needs of migrant farmworker families and our programs are designed

to address the specific needs and challenges faced by these families.

Migrant and seasonal farmworkers work in various sectors of our nation’s agriculture industry—from harvesting to sorting to processing and everything in between. While it is hard work and requires special skills, most farmworker families

earn less than $10,000/year and have no health benefits according to a study submitted to Congress in 2000 by the United States Department of Labor.

Due to the nature of farm labor, children need full day services—often from 6 a.m.

to 6 p.m. and often 6 days a week. In many states, Migrant and Seasonal Head

Start programs operate from May to October, rather than the typical school year

schedule, and of course, many of the families and children are on the move for much

of the year and need services at different times, in different states and locations.

Migrant and Seasonal Head Start programs serve nearly 32,000 migrant children

and nearly 2,500 seasonal farmworker children annually, operating in 38 states in

every region of the country. Migrant and Seasonal Head Start programs were the

first Head Start programs to serve infants and toddlers and today more than twothirds of the children in the program are infants and toddlers.

For migrant and seasonal farmworker families having access to Head Start is a

public health and safety issue. In 1992, the General Accounting Office found that

at least one-third of all migrant children, as young as 10, work in the fields with

their families either to contribute to the family income or because no child care was

available. It can easily be argued that a lack of services in this situation contributes

to child labor in this country. Children in the field are at risk of injuries from farm

equipment, over exposure to the elements, pesticide poisoning, and of course the

long term health risks associated with exposure to chemicals. In many cases, if a

slot is not available in a Migrant and Seasonal Head Start program or no Migrant

and Seasonal Head Start program exists in the area there is no alternative but to

take a child to the field or perhaps leave them unattended in the labor camp.

ENSURE THAT THE UNIQUE ELEMENTS OF MIGRANT AND SEASONAL HEAD START ARE

ADDRESSED

We recommend that the following issues be addressed in the reauthorization legislation to ensure that the unique elements of Migrant and Seasonal Head Start are

maintained and that the particular barriers that face our programs are taken into

consideration.

Federal Programs Branch or Migrant and Seasonal Head Start

We feel strongly that the Federal Programs Branch for Migrant and Seasonal

Head Start be maintained. Over the past year we have voiced concern with how Migrant and Seasonal Head Start programs would be treated if states were granted

some or all authority to administer Head Start program funds and we have consistently urged both the Administration as well as members of Congress to consider the

unique elements of Migrant and Seasonal Head Start Program when exploring the

state option proposal.

There are several reasons for maintaining the federal branch for Migrant and

Seasonal Head Start. First, the vast majority of children in Migrant and Seasonal

Head Start are migrants and often reside in more than one state through the course

of the year. It is unrealistic to expect that states would or could provide services

to temporary residents. Secondly, Migrant and Seasonal Head Start programs are

unique in that they provide full day services and are targeted to harvesting seasons

which vary from state to state. And lastly, the majority of children served in Migrant and Seasonal Head Start are infants and toddlers, who with their parents are

learning a second language. Loss of this specialized early involvement would be a

huge step backward when considering the brain development research regarding

emergent literacy.
87

Training and Technical Assistance

Due to the unique needs of Migrant and Seasonal Head Start programs, training

and technical assistance is critical to the programs. While changes are currently

being made by the Head Start Bureau to streamline training, it is the hope of Migrant and Seasonal Head Start programs that the training model will take into consideration the approaches to training and technical assistance that have been historically successful for our programs.

The mobility of our families and the specific linguistic and culturally relevant

needs are among the factors that should be considered when designing a training

model in addition to the fact that we have programs operating in 38 states and as

families cross state lines for work our programs are working to see that they continue to have access to services.

Therefore it is far more efficient to maintain the federal nature of the TA for the

same reasons that the program funds have been maintained. For instance the Migrant and Seasonal Head Start programs come together for an annual training conference funded by Training and Technical Assistance funds which ensures that our

professional staff are receiving program specific training. Issues such as

transitioning children and their records from state to state and how to better coordinate the transition of records so that children’s health records follow them and as

a result children are not receiving multiple immunizations. For children with special

needs their records and IEP’s (Individualized Education Program) or ISFP’s (Individualized Family Service Plans) follow them as well so that programs can continue

therapy without a delay in services.

If all technical assistance funds are directed to specific activities such as assisting

local Head Start Agencies or programs to meet performance standards, we urge you

to include specific language setting aside funds to support the training and technical

assistance needs of Migrant and Seasonal Head Start Programs. Unless specifically

named in the statute we fear that the training and technical assistance needs of

Migrant and Seasonal Head Start programs will be overlooked.

Quality Standards

Migrant and Seasonal Head Start programs and the children and families they

serve have unique needs that must be accommodated in the development and enforcement of quality standards and we would like to see language included in the

Senate bill to ensure that the rural and short-term nature of Migrant and Seasonal

Head Start programs are taken into account when developing standards.

Staff Qualifications and Development

Migrant and Seasonal Head Start programs face unique challenges in hiring and

retaining staff. In contrast to the Early Head Start year with 260 days, and the Regional Head Start typical year with 160 days, Migrant and Seasonal Head Start programs operate anywhere from 20 days (four weeks) to 189 days (nine months). Because these programs operate in some of the most rural areas in the nation, it is

difficult to find staff that meet minimum qualifications, especially for the short-term

programs. Programs spend considerable funds training staff and once staff meet the

qualifications, they often leave for longer term, more stable employment. This results in staff retention issues and a low percentage of staff who meet current minimum qualifications.

Rural programs are forced to recruit from a limited pool of applicants including

program parents especially where programs require bilingual staff. In addition,

many staff and parents are monolingual Spanish speaking and must therefore learn

English prior to being eligible to participate in local associate degree programs.

It is critical that Migrant and Seasonal Head Start programs have adequate access to technical assistance and training funds to support their ongoing teacher

training and support needs. We have advocated that in allocating technical assistance and training resources some priority consideration be given to areas where

there is a shortage of qualified personnel. Such a priority would be of great help

to Migrant and Seasonal Head Start programs as well as other rural or short term

programs facing similar challenges in securing and maintaining training staff.

ENSURE ADDITIONAL FUNDS FOR MIGRANT AND SEASONAL HEAD START PROGRAMS

Ensuring that a federal branch for Migrant and Seasonal Head Start is maintained is critical but without additional funds directed to our programs we still face

the realty that only 19% of the children eligible for Migrant and Seasonal Head

Start are being served.

The last Head Start reauthorization bill, the Coats Human Services Amendments

of 1998 (P.L. 105-285), established eligibility for children of seasonal farmworkers

and instructed the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to study the
88

need and demand for Migrant and Seasonal Head Start programs. The HHS study,

The Descriptive Study of Seasonal Farmworker Families, was released in September

2001, and documents that only 31,400 out of 161,400 (19%) of eligible migrant and

seasonal children are served through existing Migrant and regional Head Start Programs. By comparison, Regional Head Start programs serve approximately 60% of

their eligible population.

We urge you to build on the progress made in the last reauthorization bill by

making sure that more eligible children have access to Migrant and Seasonal Head

Start programs. We can now point to an HHS study that documents the unmet need

and we ask that the statute direct additional funds to Migrant and Seasonal Head

Start programs to address the documented need.

Over the last eight years, Migrant and Seasonal Head Start programs have consistently received less than 4% of the Head Start annual appropriation.

The Migrant and Seasonal Programs are funded, along with Indian Head Start,

children with disabilities, technical assistance, program review, research and demonstrations, out of a 13% statutory set aside from the annual Head Start appropriation.

Based on current program funding it would cost an additional $750,000,000 to

achieve parity between the Migrant and Seasonal Head Start and the Regional

Head Start. Such an increase would bring current funding from $250,000,000 to

over $1,000,000,000 and enable Migrant and Seasonal Head Start to serve 60% of

the eligible population.

While completely closing this funding gap between Migrant and Seasonal Head

Start and Regional Head Start may be unrealistic in the near future, we urge you

to consider making the following statutory changes designed to increase funding for

Migrant and Seasonal Head Start programs and move them towards parity with regional Head Start programs.

WE RECOMMEND THE FOLLOWING STEPS:

First, we recommend that language be included in the statute to ensure that Migrant and Seasonal Head Start receive at least 5% of the appropriated funds. The

funding of our programs is currently at the discretion of HHS and programs have

never received more that 4% of the funds appropriated annually.

Secondly, we recommend that language be included in the statute to ensure that

Migrant and Seasonal Head Start programs can access Early Head Start funding:

While Migrant and Seasonal Head Start Programs serve both infants and toddlers

the programs do not have access to the Early Head Start Funds that are available

to Regional Head Start Programs. Early Head Start Funds are only available to full

year program and leaves Migrant and Seasonal Programs to provide full day services to both infants and toddlers without the benefit of these extra program funds

or technical assistance funds.

I appreciate this opportunity to share the concerns of the National Migrant and

Seasonal Head Start Association and I would be happy to answer any questions that

you or your staff might have related to our programs or our policy recommendations. Thank you.

STATEMENT OF THE NAVAJO NATION

INTRODUCTION

Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, the Head Start program is of critical importance to the health and welfare of Navajo children. Head Start enables the

Navajo Nation to invest in its most valuable resource, the children of the Navajo

Nation. On behalf of the Navajo people, I thank you for this opportunity to present

our concerns and recommendations regarding proposals before Congress to change

the Head Start program.

BACKGROUND

The Navajo Reservation is geographically as large as Rhode Island, Delaware,

Connecticut, Massachusetts and Maryland combined. The unemployment rate on

the Navajo Nation currently ranges from 36% to 50%. Our per capita income is

$6,123 which is less than one third of its state neighbors, Arizona and New Mexico.

The Navajo Nation Department of Head Start (NNDOHS) serves nearly 6,500 children who otherwise would not receive comprehensive services. Navajo children alone

represent one third of all Native American children who receive Head Start services

throughout the United States.

The Navajo Nation Department of Head Start (NNDOHS) is one of the largest

Head Start organizations operating in the United States today. In fact, they are one
89

of only ten super grantees recognized by the Department of Health and Human

Services. The 5 Head Start Agency offices of the Navajo Nation must serve a growing population whose birth rate is 21.7 per 1,000 compared to the U.S. at 14.8 per

1,000.

Since its inception in 1965, NNDOHS has taken on new initiatives to provide

comprehensive health, educational, nutritional, socialization and related cultural

services to promote school readiness. NNDOHS provides medical, dental screenings

and nutritional meals to students. Parenting classes and counseling services are

also offered to Head Start families on the Navajo Nation with a special component

for career development to help Navajo parents provide better lives for their children.

NNDOHS is nationally distinguished as the only Head Start that offers programs

to preserve culture and language. Navajo Nation believes that Navajo Language and

culture are an integral part of the whole child. Language and culture is a way of

life that defines one’s self-identity and self-esteem. It is the hope of the NNDOHS

to aid in the preservation of the Navajo language and culture.

ISSUE

The Navajo Nation has two primary concerns related to changes reflecting President Bush’s proposal to Head Start programs. The first is moving existing Head

Start programs from the Department of Health and Human Service to the Department of Education. The second point of contention regards the delegation of Navajo

Head Start authority to States under the proposed demonstration project. The following is a brief outline of these concerns:

1. The Navajo Nation believes transferring responsibility and by extension, services, from HHS to the Department of Education would alter how services are currently provided to Navajo children. Due to the remoteness and unmet transportation

needs of several communities, many children are unable to reach hospitals for regular check ups and other child health care needs. In turn, Navajo head start centers

become providers of this service. Considering the high unemployment and poverty

rates of the Navajo Nation, it is safe to say that without Head Start many children

would go to school hungry. In some instances, the meals children receive through

the head start program are the only reliable means of getting a good breakfast and

lunch. The transfer does not guarantee that these essential program components

such as comprehensive services, career development of community residents, and extended day services meeting the needs of working parents will be sustained.

2. The Navajo Nation believes the proposed state demonstration project would create uncertainty and chaos for communities like the Navajo Nation that reside in

more than one state. The Navajo Nation is located within Arizona, New Mexico, and

Utah. If any of these states were to become a demonstration site, the Navajo Nation

would be thrust into a gulf of uncertainty as to how to reconcile state and federal

Head Start regimes.

Furthermore, such a state demonstration project would undermine the government to government relationship between tribes and the United States government,

forcing the Navajo Nation to seek Head Start funding from a state that may very

well view tribal interests as threatening there own. Our experience has been that

when federal dollars that are intended for tribes are passed through states the

money often does not make it to the reservation. Federal transit funding is a case

in point. States are supposed to pass through a proportionate amount of their federal transit funds to tribes located within a state. However, states typically do not

permit this pass through.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Ensure that Head Start remains within the Department of Health and Human

Services and not be moved to the Department of Education to ensure that children

continue to receive comprehensive services with strong parental involvement.

Exempt the American Indian Alaskan Native Program Branch from State demonstration projects to protect the government-to-government relationship as well as

the delivery of federal funding to tribal communities.

CONCLUSION

On behalf of the Navajo people, I urge this Committee to consider how changing

the Head Start program will effect your most vulnerable and neglected constituentsthe Native American people.

[Whereupon, at 11:40 a.m., the committee was adjourned.]
90Æ