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+
+ - FINANCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY IN THE HEAD START EARLY CHILDHOOD PROGRAM
+
+[House Hearing, 109 Congress]
+[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
+
+
+
+
+
+ FINANCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY IN THE HEAD START EARLY CHILDHOOD PROGRAM
+
+=======================================================================
+
+ HEARING
+
+ before the
+
+ COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
+ AND THE WORKFORCE
+ U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
+
+ ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
+
+ FIRST SESSION
+
+ __________
+
+ April 5, 2005
+
+ __________
+
+ Serial No. 109-6
+
+ __________
+
+ Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and the Workforce
+
+
+
+ Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/
+ house
+ or
+ Committee address: http://edworkforce.house.gov
+
+
+ ______
+
+ U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
+20-472 WASHINGTON : 2005
+_____________________________________________________________________________
+For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
+Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512�091800
+Fax: (202) 512�092250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402�090001
+
+ COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE
+
+ JOHN A. BOEHNER, Ohio, Chairman
+
+Thomas E. Petri, Wisconsin, Vice George Miller, California
+ Chairman Dale E. Kildee, Michigan
+Howard P. ``Buck'' McKeon, Major R. Owens, New York
+ California Donald M. Payne, New Jersey
+Michael N. Castle, Delaware Robert E. Andrews, New Jersey
+Sam Johnson, Texas Robert C. Scott, Virginia
+Mark E. Souder, Indiana Lynn C. Woolsey, California
+Charlie Norwood, Georgia Ruben Hinojosa, Texas
+Vernon J. Ehlers, Michigan Carolyn McCarthy, New York
+Judy Biggert, Illinois John F. Tierney, Massachusetts
+Todd Russell Platts, Pennsylvania Ron Kind, Wisconsin
+Patrick J. Tiberi, Ohio Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio
+Ric Keller, Florida David Wu, Oregon
+Tom Osborne, Nebraska Rush D. Holt, New Jersey
+Joe Wilson, South Carolina Susan A. Davis, California
+Jon C. Porter, Nevada Betty McCollum, Minnesota
+John Kline, Minnesota Danny K. Davis, Illinois
+Marilyn N. Musgrave, Colorado Raul M. Grijalva, Arizona
+Bob Inglis, South Carolina Chris Van Hollen, Maryland
+Cathy McMorris, Washington Tim Ryan, Ohio
+Kenny Marchant, Texas Timothy H. Bishop, New York
+Tom Price, Georgia John Barrow, Georgia
+Luis G. Fortuno, Puerto Rico
+Bobby Jindal, Louisiana
+Charles W. Boustany, Jr., Louisiana
+Virginia Foxx, North Carolina
+Thelma D. Drake, Virginia
+John R. ``Randy'' Kuhl, Jr., New
+ York
+
+ Paula Nowakowski, Staff Director
+ John Lawrence, Minority Staff Director
+
+ ------
+
+ C O N T E N T S
+
+ ----------
+ Page
+
+Hearing held on April 5, 2005.................................... 1
+
+Statement of Members:
+ Boehner, Hon. John A., Chairman, Committee on Education and
+ the Workforce.............................................. 2
+ Prepared statement of.................................... 4
+ Castle, Hon. Michael N., a Representative in Congress from
+ the State of Delaware...................................... 7
+ Prepared statement of.................................... 8
+ Miller, Hon. George, Ranking Member, Committee on Education
+ and the Workforce.......................................... 6
+ Woolsey, Hon. Lynn C., a Representative in Congress from the
+ State of California........................................ 9
+
+Statement of Witnesses:
+ Golden, Olivia, Ph.D., Senior Fellow, Urban Institute,
+ Washington, DC............................................. 30
+ Prepared statement of.................................... 32
+ Henry, Pamela, Jr., Head Start Parent, Las Vegas, NV......... 27
+ Prepared statement of.................................... 29
+ Horn, Hon. Wade F., Assistant Secretary, Administration for
+ Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human
+ Services, Washington, DC................................... 21
+ Prepared statement of.................................... 22
+ Shaul, Marnie S., Ph.D., Director, Education Issues,
+ Education, Workforce and Income Security, U.S. Government
+ Accountability Office...................................... 11
+ Prepared statement of.................................... 13
+
+
+
+ FINANCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY IN THE HEAD START EARLY CHILDHOOD PROGRAM
+
+ ----------
+
+
+ Tuesday, April 5, 2005
+
+ U.S. House of Representatives
+
+ Committee on Education and the Workforce
+
+ Washington, DC
+
+ ----------
+
+ The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 2 p.m., in room
+2175, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John A. Boehner
+(Chairman of the Committee) presiding.
+ Present: Representatives Boehner, McKeon, Castle, Osborne,
+Kline, McMorris, Price, Fortuno, Foxx, Drake, Miller, Kildee,
+Woolsey, Hinojosa, Tierney, Wu, Holt, McCollum, Grijalva, and
+Van Hollen.
+ Staff Present: Amanda Farris, Professional Staff Member;
+Kevin Frank, Professional Staff Member; Kate Houston,
+Professional Staff Member; Alexa Marrero, Press Secretary;
+Jennifer Daniels, Communications Staff Assistant; Jessica
+Gross, Legislative Assistant; Lucy House, Legislative
+Assistant; Deborah L. Samantar, Committee Clerk/Intern
+Coordinator; Mark Zuckerman, Minority General Counsel; Ruth
+Friedman, Minority Legislative Associate/Education; Lloyd
+Horwich, Minority Legislative Associate/Education; Ricardo
+Martinez, Minority Legislative Associate/Education; Alex Nock,
+Minority Legislative Associate/Education; Joe Novotny, Minority
+Legislative Associate/Education; and Tom Kiley, Press
+Secretary.
+ Chairman Boehner. A quorum being present, the Committee on
+Education and the Workforce will come to order. We are holding
+this hearing today to hear testimony on the financial
+accountability in the Head Start Early Childhood program. I am
+going to limit opening statements to the Chairman and Ranking
+Member. Therefore, if other Members have opening statements,
+they can be included in the hearing record.
+ And with that, I would ask unanimous consent for the
+hearing record to remain open for 14 days to allow Members'
+statements and other documents referenced during the hearing to
+be submitted for the official hearing record. Without
+objection, so ordered. Let me change my unanimous consent
+request to also include Mr. Castle and Ms. Woolsey's opening
+statements. Without objection, so ordered.
+
+ STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN A. BOEHNER, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON
+ EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE
+
+ High quality early childhood education is essential to
+closing the achievement gap that exists in our country between
+disadvantaged children and their more affluent peers. President
+Bush urged Americans to unite to eliminate this gap when he
+took office in 2001. Congress has responded by enacting two
+major overhauls of education law, the No Child Left Behind Act
+and the special education bill signed by the President just
+last December. Today, our Committee embarks on another phase of
+this process, strengthening the Head Start early childhood
+program. Head Start's mission is to prepare disadvantaged
+children for kindergarten, and this Committee has strongly
+supported Head Start in this mission over the years and
+particularly during the last decade. Federal funding for Head
+Start has nearly doubled since 1995, increasing from 3.6
+billion annually in 1996 to nearly 7 billion this year.
+ I support Head Start. It is an important program that is
+entrusted with a vitally important mission and I believe that a
+vast majority of those involved with the Head Start program are
+honest individuals who are dedicated to making sure the poorest
+of our Nation's children have a chance to succeed in life. I
+believe we need to listen to these people and support them and
+support the children that they serve. And I know Chairman
+Castle agrees, I believe the President agrees, and I don't
+think there is a single Member of this Committee who would
+disagree with that.
+ I also want to state that neither I nor the President nor
+Chairman Castle have called for turning Head Start into a so-
+called block grant to the States or dismantling Head Start as
+some have claimed. As I said 2 years ago, as a conservative
+Republican, I know a block grant when I see one. And trust me,
+what the President has proposed for Head Start is no block
+grant program. There are, however, two critical problems in
+Head Start that I believe Congress has to address. One problem
+is the school readiness gap that continues to exist between
+some Head Start children and their peers when they reach
+kindergarten. There is no question most Head Start children are
+better off in the program than they would have been without it.
+That is not in dispute.
+ But there is evidence that some Head Start centers could be
+doing an even better job of providing preschoolers with an
+academic foundation they need in order to succeed in school. A
+summary of research released in 2003 by the Department of
+Health and Human Services showed that while children in Head
+Start are learning, they are more than 25 percentile points
+behind the national average on many key learning indicators.
+And we need to listen to people who run the best programs in
+the Head Start system, get their input on what works and use
+that information to strengthen the weaker program. Last week
+our Committee launched a Web site to facilitate this project,
+and I would encourage parents, teachers, taxpayers and anyone
+else who has an interest in Head Start to check out this Web
+site and use it to share your own experiences.
+ The second problem is that an unacceptable share of Federal
+Head Start funding never reaches the disadvantaged children the
+money is meant to serve. Instead, it is being lost to financial
+abuse and mismanagement, impropriety or outright theft within
+the Head Start system. And these abuses are happening at the
+expense of children served by the many law abiding grantees
+within the Head Start system, grantees that too often are put
+in a position of being forced to defend the actions of a few
+bad apples in the program.
+ Between January of 2003 and the first months of 2005, media
+accounts in numerous U.S. cities alleged serious financial
+abuses and irregularities by those entrusted with the
+responsibility of managing Head Start funds meant to serve poor
+children. These incidents identified in these reports
+collectively involve the use of tens of millions of Federal
+Head Start funds that were intended to serve more than 10,000
+disadvantaged U.S. children. Such reports surfaced in
+Baltimore, Maryland; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Charleston, South
+Carolina; Charleston, West Virginia; Cleveland, Ohio; Columbus,
+Ohio; Honolulu, Hawaii; Jamestown, North Dakota; Kansas City,
+Missouri; Las Vegas, Nevada, Little Rock, Arkansas; Lubbock,
+Texas; Madison, Wisconsin; Norwalk, Connecticut; Rapid City,
+South Dakota; San Antonio, Texas; and Stockton, California.
+ And some reports involving financial mismanagement suggest
+that many Head Start grantees have good intentions yet lack
+strong financial controls and the skills needed to effectively
+manage complex multi million dollar not-for-profit
+organizations.
+ As much as we all support Head Start, Congress cannot
+simply turn a blind eye to this problem. Financial abuse in the
+Head Start system cheats not only children and taxpayers, but
+also the many law abiding local Head Start grantees nationwide
+who find themselves in the position of being asked to defend
+indefensible practices by other grantees.
+ A new report by the independent Government Accountability
+Office warns, the financial control system in the Federal Head
+Start Early Childhood program is flawed and failing to prevent
+these abuses. GAO has independently determined that unresolved
+financial management weaknesses among Head Start grantees are
+having a negative effect on some eligible children. It has also
+determined that the procedures of the Federal Government uses
+to collect data on grantee financial management performance
+have significant flaws as well. The GAO report recommends that
+the Federal Government take steps to allow the recompetition of
+grants awarded to Head Start grantees.
+ And I am particularly interested in hearing from our
+witnesses today on this important issue. It is my view that by
+failing to promote competition for Head Start grants, the
+Federal Government has essentially granted monopoly power to
+some Head Start operators and, as often happens with
+monopolies, the power has been abused. Removing obstacles for
+competition of Head Start grants must be a top priority for
+Congress in reauthorizing Head Start, and if we fail to
+accomplish this goal, we will fail on our most basic
+responsibility to children and taxpayers.
+ Also, some States are operating their own early childhood
+programs, programs that sometimes rival Head Start in quality.
+And I do think we need to help such States better integrate and
+coordinate these programs with Head Start to better serve the
+needs of our most disadvantaged children. When Head Start was
+first established 40 years ago, it was the only program of its
+kind, Federal or State. Now, there are many different programs
+across the country preparing children for kindergarten, and we
+need to make sure all of those children are getting the same
+quality education.
+ In the last Congress, this Committee passed a bill that
+sought to address this need. But we know many things today that
+we didn't know then, particularly with respect to the financial
+control problems that exist in the program. And with this in
+mind, I think we have a responsibility to start from square one
+and build this year's legislation from the ground up. There
+were many elements of the 2003 bill that had bipartisan
+support. Those things may provide a good foundation. And in
+those areas where there was disagreement, I am more than
+willing to look at alternative routes that can be taken to
+reach the same goal if we can show that they may be effective.
+That includes the issue of coordination with State programs
+which generated the most disagreement 2 years ago.
+ I am committed to passing the bill that promotes
+competition, strengthens academics, and restores fairness for
+children taxpayers and honest grantees. And I think we can
+produce a bill that does these things and does it in a
+bipartisan fashion. As the Head Start reauthorization process
+moves forward, this will be my goal.
+ [The prepared statement of Chairman Boehner follows:]
+
+Statement of Hon. John A. Boehner, Chairman, Committee on Education and
+ the Workforce
+
+ High quality early childhood education is essential to closing the
+achievement gap that exists in our country between disadvantaged
+children and their more affluent peers. President Bush urged Americans
+to unite to eliminate this gap when he took office in 2001. Congress
+has responded by enacting two major overhauls of education law-the No
+Child Left Behind Act, and the special education bill signed by the
+President last December. Today our Committee embarks on another phase
+of this process: strengthening the Head Start early childhood program.
+ Head Start's mission is to prepare disadvantaged children for
+kindergarten. This Committee has strongly supported Head Start in this
+mission over the years, particularly during the past decade. Federal
+funding for Head Start has nearly doubled since Republicans assumed
+control of the House in 1995, increasing from $3.6 billion annually in
+fiscal year 1996 to nearly $7 billion this year.
+ I support Head Start. It's an important program that is entrusted
+with a vitally important mission. I believe the vast majority of those
+involved with Head Start are honest individuals who are dedicated to
+making sure the poorest of our nation's children have a chance to
+succeed in life. I believe we need to listen to these people, and
+support them, and support the children they serve. I know Chairman
+Castle agrees. I think the President agrees. And I don't think there's
+a single member of this Committee who disagrees.
+ I also want to state that neither I, nor President Bush, nor
+Chairman Castle, have called for turning Head Start into a so-called
+``block grant'' to the states or ``dismantling'' Head Start. As I said
+two years ago-as a conservative Republican, I know a block grant when I
+see one. And trust me-what President Bush has proposed for Head Start
+is no block grant.
+ There are, however, two critical problems in Head Start that I
+believe Congress has to address.
+ One problem is the school readiness gap that continues to exist
+between some Head Start children and their peers when they reach
+kindergarten. There's no question most Head Start children are better
+off in the program than they would have been without it; that is not in
+dispute. But there's evidence some Head Start centers could be doing an
+even better job of providing preschoolers with the academic foundation
+they need to succeed in school. A summary of research released in June
+2003 by the Department of Health and Human Services showed that while
+children in Head Start are learning, they are still more than 25
+percentile points behind the national average on key learning
+indicators. We need to listen to the people who run the best programs
+in the Head Start system, get their input on what works, and use that
+information to strengthen the weaker programs. Last week our Committee
+launched a website to facilitate this project. I encourage parents,
+teachers, taxpayers and anyone else with an interest in Head Start to
+check out this website and use it to share your experiences.
+ The second problem is that an unacceptable share of federal Head
+Start funding never reaches the disadvantaged children the money is
+meant to serve. Instead it is being lost to financial abuse,
+mismanagement, impropriety, or outright theft within the Head Start
+system. These abuses are happening at the expense of children served by
+the many law-abiding grantees within the Head Start system-grantees
+that too often are put in the position of being forced to defend the
+actions of the ``bad apples'' in the program.
+ Between January 2003 and the first months of 2005, media accounts
+in numerous U.S. cities alleged serious financial abuses and
+irregularities by those entrusted with the responsibility of managing
+Head Start funds meant to serve poor children. The incidents identified
+in these reports collectively involve the use of tens of millions in
+federal Head Start funds that were intended to serve more than 10,000
+disadvantaged U.S. children. Such reports surfaced in Baltimore,
+Maryland; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Charleston, South Carolina;
+Charleston, West Virginia; Cleveland, Ohio; Columbus, Ohio; Honolulu,
+Hawaii; Jamestown, North Dakota; Kansas City, Missouri; Las Vegas,
+Nevada; Little Rock, Arkansas; Lubbock, Texas; Madison, Wisconsin;
+Norwalk, Connecticut; Rapid City, South Dakota; San Antonio, Texas; and
+Stockton, California. Some reports involving financial mismanagement
+suggest that many Head Start grantees have good intentions, yet lack
+strong fiscal controls and the skills needed to effectively manage
+complex, multi-million dollar non-profit organizations.
+ As much as we all support Head Start, Congress simply cannot turn a
+blind eye to this problem. Financial abuse in the Head Start system
+cheats not only children and taxpayers, but also the many law-abiding
+local Head Start grantees nationwide who find themselves in the
+position of being asked to defend indefensible practices by other
+grantees.
+ A new report by the independent Government Accountability Office
+(GAO) warns the financial control system in the federal Head Start
+early childhood program is flawed and failing to prevent these abuses.
+GAO has independently determined that unresolved financial management
+weaknesses among Head Start grantees are having a negative impact on
+some eligible children. It has also determined that the procedures the
+federal government uses to collect data on grantee financial management
+performance have significant flaws.
+ The GAO report recommends that the federal government take steps to
+allow the ``recompetition'' of grants awarded to Head Start grantees.
+I'm particularly interested in hearing from our witnesses today on this
+issue. It's my view that by failing to promote competition for Head
+Start grants, the federal government has essentially granted monopoly
+power to some Head Start operators-and as often happens with
+monopolies, that power has been abused.
+ Removing obstacles to competition for Head Start grants must be a
+top priority for Congress in reauthorizing Head Start. If we fail to
+accomplish this goal, we will fail in our most basic responsibility to
+children and taxpayers.
+ Also, some states are operating their own early childhood programs,
+programs that sometimes rival Head Start in quality. I do think we need
+to help such states better integrate and coordinate these programs with
+Head Start, to better serve the needs of our most disadvantaged
+children. When Head Start was first established 40 years ago, it was
+the only program of its kind--federal or state. Now there are many
+different programs across the country preparing children for
+kindergarten, and we need to make sure all of those children are
+getting the same quality education.
+ In the last Congress, this Committee passed a bill that sought to
+address this need. But we know many things today we didn't know then,
+particularly with respect to the financial control problems that exist
+in Head Start. With this in mind, I think we have a responsibility to
+start from square one, and build this year's legislation from the
+ground up. There were many elements in the 2003 bill that had
+bipartisan support. Those things may provide a good foundation. And in
+those areas where there was disagreement, I'm more than willing to look
+at alternative routes that can be taken to reach the same goal, if they
+might be effective. That includes the issue of coordination with state
+programs, which generated the most disagreement two years ago.
+ I'm committed to passing a bill that promotes competition,
+strengthens academics, and restores fairness for children, taxpayers,
+and honest grantees. I think we can produce a bill that does these
+things, and does it in a bipartisan fashion. As the Head Start
+reauthorization process moves forward, this will be my goal.
+ I would now yield to the senior Democratic member of our committee,
+Mr. Miller, for any opening statement he may have.
+ ______
+
+ Chairman Boehner. I would like to yield to my friend and
+the Ranking Democrat on our Committee, Mr. Miller.
+
+ STATEMENT OF HON. GEORGE MILLER, RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON
+ EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE
+
+ Mr. Miller. Thank you Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the
+majority for holding this hearing and for GAO's work on fiscal
+accountability. Strengthening accountability and a shining
+bright star in any program is an important process. Head Start
+is this country's premiere early education program for low
+income children. It has helped millions achieve more in school
+and in life. We owe it to America's children and families
+living in some of this country's most difficult situations to
+provide them with the best programs possible. Making sure a
+program is working efficiently and effectively is one of
+Congress's most important jobs and it is particularly important
+in a program like Head Start, which research shows has strong
+effects on the cognitive and social development and almost
+closes the achievement gap by the time these kids finish
+kindergarten.
+ So I welcome this opportunity today and hope that we can
+proceed in a constructive manner to do what is best for the
+children. I have recently been disappointed at some of my
+colleagues sensationalistic approach to today's topic, whether
+it is Head Start or millions of dollars in fraud and waste in
+higher education or billions of dollars by Halliburton,
+fraudulent behavior cannot be tolerated. But sensationalism
+only serves to heighten the rhetoric and distract people from
+the real reforms that need to be undertaken.
+ Instead of resorting to gotcha attacks and rehashing risky
+ideas from 2 years ago I hope that we can use this hearing to
+start working together to strengthen Head Start. Head Start has
+some extremely rigorous standards and procedures that are the
+basis for its delivery of comprehensive services. It also has
+one of the most demanding monitoring programs. According to
+HHS, there are 1,797 program requirements covering areas of
+early childhood development, health services, family and
+community partnerships and program design and management. All
+1,800 get assessed in some manner in the triennial prism review
+by HHS. In addition to the prism review, grantees also submit
+monthly financial records to their governing board to submit
+audits to the ACF annually, and to report on program
+performance to ACF annually and resubmit their budgets and
+renew their grants to ACF annually.
+ I want to thank GAO for their work and their
+recommendations. It is helpful to see that most programs are
+being effectively managed and how we need better to target our
+efforts on programs that are struggling. It seems clear that
+Head Start has the most of the proper tools for strong
+accountability, but they need to be better implemented. So I
+look forward to hearing from all of the witnesses today and
+listening to their recommendation. Head Start children and
+families deserve the very best we can give them, and I hope
+that we can work together today throughout the reauthorization
+to make sure that is exactly what is true.
+ I am encouraged, Mr. Chairman, by your remarks that you are
+prepared to discard some of those ideas from last year and work
+together on a bipartisan solution for Head Start. That is very
+encouraging. That is the manner in which we have made
+continuous improvement in this program over the many years of
+its existence. That is why it continues to be the premiere
+program for the comprehensive development and education of
+these children in these most difficult situations. And again, I
+want to thank you for holding this hearing and look forward to
+hearing from the witnesses.
+ Chairman Boehner. Thank you, Mr. Miller. The record will
+show I haven't discarded anything.
+ Mr. Miller. I thought you said that there were some bad
+ideas you were getting rid of.
+ Chairman Boehner. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from
+Delaware, the Chairman of the Education Reform Subcommittee,
+Mr. Castle.
+
+ STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL N. CASTLE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
+ CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF DELAWARE
+
+ Mr. Castle. Thank you, Chairman Boehner. And good afternoon
+ladies and gentlemen. I read the report a little bit
+differently, perhaps, than Mr. Miller did in terms of some of
+the problems here and I think they are fairly significant. But
+I am pleased we are having the hearing and I am pleased that we
+will learn more today. And I think we should approach this
+constructively to try to deal with the issues of Head Start. I
+happen to believe very strongly in Head Start, which is one of
+the reasons I am frustrated by the problems that I have learned
+about. I think it is a lifetime benefit. There is some
+discussion about that, but I think it is a lifetime benefit
+that it provides to the children who go through it and to their
+families. And I think this hearing is important to make sure
+that we are off on a solid footing as far as this year is
+concerned.
+ Approximately 2 years ago, I think it was a little bit less
+than 2 years really, we began to hear deeply concerning press
+reports of financial mismanagement in some Head Start programs
+across the country. Unfortunately we have heard of everything
+from embezzlement to the leasing of luxury vehicles with Head
+Start funds. I was particularly upset to hear of a director who
+chose to divert funds from Head Start children in order to
+operate a restaurant. As Chairman Boehner and I heard more and
+more stories like these, we decided to launch a study into
+these instances, specifically, why were they happening. We
+wanted to know if children were being shortchanged, if these
+were isolated incidents; if HHS has the tools necessary to
+catch them and how can we fix it? The impetus for asking the
+Department of Health and Human Services and the Government
+Accountability Office, GAO, to examine the procedures
+surrounding program management is simple, to ensure Federal
+dollars are going to the children participating in the Head
+Start program and not to fund lavish perks and blatant abuses.
+ I am not only shocked at the number of reports that have
+filtered out from across the country, but the mere fact that
+they are happening. While it is true that these incidences
+represent a limited number of Head Start programs, I truly
+believe that one is too many. I commend the thousands of Head
+Start programs who do not sway from their goals of providing
+necessary services to the children and families in their
+programs. The fact remains, however, that there is a problem
+and the children at faulty programs do deserve better. I don't
+believe that my job is to point fingers or blame, but I do
+believe strongly that we have a responsibility to prevent any
+future abuses. It is in the interest of the more than 900,000
+low income children across the country that we identify areas
+where we can make sound change in order to strengthen the
+overall program.
+ The GAO report, however, is quite clear that there are
+deficiencies in the manner HHS has monitored the program
+throughout the years. You will hear testimony from the GAO
+today that despite the numerous processes in place to monitor
+financial management, HHS has not utilized this information to
+assess overall program risks. Moreover, of the grantees
+reviewed by HHS in 2000, 76 percent were out of compliance with
+financial management standards, and 53 percent of the same
+grantees remained out of compliance at their next review.
+Disturbing stories presented about Head Start grantees and
+knowledge of the flaws at HHS allow us to move forward in a
+productive manner. The GAO report identifies key areas of
+reform and Assistant Secretary Horn will testify as to changes
+made at HHS to address management abuses.
+ I am encouraged by the GAO's recommendations and do believe
+they will assist in this effort. I also look forward to
+learning what this Committee can do through the reauthorization
+process to complement what has and will be instituted. We have
+been deliberative up to this point making sure that we are
+identifying why this has happened. And I fully intend on
+continuing to monitor the program to ensure that there are not
+future abuses.
+ Head Start is a program that is supposed to help our
+disadvantaged students by giving them the edge they need to
+come to school ready to learn. It is not supposed to be a
+program that benefits the executive directors by loading their
+pockets and satisfying their whims. The reality is some bad
+actors are shedding a bad light on the good programs that exist
+nationwide. And for the benefit of the program and all who take
+part in it, it is important to institute reform to ensure Head
+Start can continue to serve all needy children the way it is
+supposed to. It is unfortunate that it has come to this point,
+but I am hopeful this will be a catalyst for all of us to work
+together on critical reforms to restore the public's faith in
+Head Start programs nationwide and to create a strong program
+for years to come. And I yield back.
+ [The prepared statement of Mr. Castle follows:]
+
+Statement of Hon. Michael N. Castle, a Representative in Congress from
+ the State of Delaware
+
+ Good Afternoon. I am pleased to welcome all of today's witnesses,
+and look forward to hearing your testimony. I would also like to thank
+the Chairman for his leadership. I believe strongly in the Head Start
+program, and the lifetime benefits it provides to children and their
+families. This hearing is an important step in making sure this program
+maintains solid footing.
+ Approximately two-years ago we began to hear deeply concerning
+press reports of financial mismanagement in some Head Start programs
+across the country. Unfortunately, we have heard of everything from
+embezzlement to the leasing of luxury vehicles with Head Start funds. I
+was particularly upset to hear of a director who chose to divert funds
+from Head Start children in order to operate a restaurant. As Chairman
+Boehner and myself heard more and more stories like these we decided to
+launch a study into these instances. Specifically, why they were
+happening. We wanted to know if children were being short changed, if
+these were isolated incidents, if HHS has the tools necessary to catch
+them, and how can we fix it. The impetus for asking the Department of
+Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Government Accountability
+Office (GAO) to examine the procedures surrounding program management
+is simple--to ensure federal dollars are going to the children
+participating in the Head Start program, and not to fund lavish perks
+and blatant abuses.
+ I am not only shocked at the number of reports that have filtered
+out from across the country, but the mere fact that they are happening.
+While it is true that these incidences represent a small number of Head
+Start programs, I truly believe that one is too many. I commend the
+thousands of Head Start programs who do not sway from their goals of
+providing necessary services to the children and families in their
+programs. The fact remains, however, that there is a problem and the
+children at faulty programs deserve better.
+ I don't believe that my job is to point fingers or blame, but do
+believe strongly that we have a responsibility to prevent any future
+abuses. It is in the interest of the more than 900,000 low-income
+children across the country that we identify areas where we can make
+sound change in order to strengthen the overall program. The GAO
+report, however, is quite clear that there are deficiencies in the
+manner HHS has monitored the program throughout the years. You will
+hear testimony from the GAO today that despite the numerous processes
+in place to monitor financial management, HHS has not utilized this
+information to assess overall program risk. Moreover, of the grantees
+reviewed by HHS in 2000, 76 percent were out of compliance with
+financial management standards and 53 percent of the same grantees
+remained out of compliance at their next review.
+ The disturbing stories presented about Head Start grantees, and
+knowledge of the flaws at HHS allow us to move forward in a productive
+manner. The GAO report identifies key areas of reform, and Assistant
+Secretary Horn will testify as to changes made at HHS to address
+management abuses. I am encouraged by the GAO's recommendations, and do
+believe they will assist in this effort. I also look forward to
+learning what this Committee can do through the reauthorization process
+to compliment what has, and will, be instituted. We have been
+deliberative up to this point in making sure that we are identifying
+why this has happened, and I fully intend on continuing to monitor the
+program to ensure there are not future abuses.
+ Head Start is a program that is supposed to help our disadvantaged
+students by giving them the edge they need to come to school ready to
+learn; it is not supposed to be a program that benefits the executive
+directors by loading their pockets and satisfying their whims. The
+reality is some crooked actors are shedding a bad light on the good
+programs that exist nationwide and for the benefit of the program and
+all who take part in it, it is important to institute reform to ensure
+Head Start can continue to serve all needy children the way it is
+supposed to. It's unfortunate that it has come to this point, but I am
+hopeful this will be a catalyst for all of us to work together on
+critical reforms to restore the public's faith in Head Start programs
+nationwide and to create a strong program for years to come.
+ ______
+
+ Chairman Boehner. The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from
+California, Ms. Woolsey.
+
+STATEMENT OF HON. LYNN C. WOOLSEY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
+ FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
+
+ Ms. Woolsey. Thank you Mr. Chairman. I hope that today is
+the beginning of a process that will end up with a Head Start
+law with high standards, strong accountability, and more
+resources, so that the children who most need help to succeed
+in life get that help when they most need it. There is no more
+critical program for our Nation's children than Head Start,
+because there are no years more critical to their development
+than their early years. I am sure we all agree that the vast
+majority of Head Start programs provide comprehensive high
+quality services that help children make academic and social
+gains to close the achievement gap before they enter
+kindergarten.
+ We were able to work last Congress on Title I to improve
+Head Start's accountability provisions to ensure high
+performance by Head Start programs. Of course, accountability
+in the law must be implemented in practice. And so I am pleased
+that we are considering this GAO report that calls for improved
+accountability through changes to the law and efforts by the
+Department of Health and Human Services to identify poorly
+performing programs so that we can help them improve, and for
+those that cannot or will not improve, force them out, as a
+last resort. Because any waste or fraud in Head Start is
+unacceptable, I believe that the GAO report will provide with
+us an opportunity to work together to make the Head Start
+improvements that we need.
+ But it is important that we understand that this report
+does not say--and I have to say this louder than loud--that
+fraud and abuse are widespread in Head Start programs, because
+it just is not true. There are incidents, yes. But often a Head
+Start program simply needs more oversight and technical
+assistance to help it do what it is trying do in the first
+place, comply with detailed financial management requirements.
+Most importantly, Mr. Chairman, we must not allow the report to
+distract us from the fact that if we truly are concerned about
+getting Head Start dollars to children, we also must look at
+this President's and this Congress's minimal increases in
+support for the Head Start program.
+ Those increases have barely kept pace with inflation, if
+that, which means that for Head Start programs, programs that
+should be getting more resources so that they can serve more
+children in the first place, the only way not to cut children
+from the roles is to decrease the quality of services. But
+again, Mr. Chairman, I hope we will be able to work in a very
+bipartisan way to reauthorize Head Start and to learn from the
+challenges that we met in the 108th Congress, and I look
+forward to the panel's discussion today. Thank you, Mr.
+Chairman.
+ Chairman Boehner. We have a distinguished panel with us
+today. It is my pleasure to introduce them. Our first witness
+today will be Dr. Marnie S. Shaul. Dr. Shaul is the director on
+the Education, Workforce and Income Security Team at the
+Government Accountability Office. She is responsible for the
+studies that GAO undertakes for the Congress on early childhood
+programs and elementary and secondary education programs. Dr.
+Shaul has had a varied career that includes research, teaching
+project management and policy development. And prior to the
+Federal Government, she worked for the State of Ohio on
+community and business development issues at the Kettering
+Foundation. She holds a Ph.D. in economics from the Ohio State
+University.
+ Then we will hear from the Honorable Wade F. Horn. Dr. Horn
+is the Assistant Secretary for the Administration For Children
+and Families At the Department of Health and Human Services.
+Prior to being appointed to the Assistant Secretary, Dr. Horn
+was president of the National Fatherhood Initiative, whose
+mission is to increase the number of children growing up with
+involved committed and responsible fathers. During the first
+Bush administration, Mr. Horn served as the Commissioner For
+Children, Youth and Families and chief of the Children's Bureau
+At the Department of Health and Human Services and as a
+Presidential appointee to the National Commission on Children
+from 1990 to 1993. From 1993 to 2001 Dr. Horn served as an
+adjunct faculty member at Georgetown University's public policy
+institute and an affiliate scholar with the Hudson institute.
+ Then we will hear from Ms. Pamela Henry. Ms. Henry is a
+proud parent of 4 adopted children, all with special needs, all
+of whom participate in the Head Start program. She is a
+licensed nail technician and an active member of her community
+in Las Vegas, Nevada. She is the president of Foster Parents of
+Southern Nevada, a local affiliate for the National Foster
+Parents Association, and president of the West Neighborhood
+Care Centers.
+ As a Head Start parent, Ms. Henry served as a center
+representative for the Head Start Policy Council of the
+Economic Opportunity Board during the 2001/02 school year and
+as vice chair and community representative for Foster Parents
+from 2002 to 2004. Over the last several years, Ms. Henry
+served as policy council chair. She credits Head Start with the
+parenting and leadership skills she has developed during her
+tenure on the policy council.
+ And last we will hear from Olivia Golden. Dr. Golden is a
+senior fellow at the urban institute and from 2001 to 2004 she
+served as the director of the Child and Family Services Agency
+of the District of Columbia. During the Clinton administration,
+she served in two positions within the U.S. Department of
+Health and Human Services, first as Commissioner for Children,
+Youth and Families, and then as Assistant Secretary for
+children and families.
+ In these roles she was responsible for over 60 Federal
+programs, including Head Start and early Head Start. Dr. Golden
+also held previous positions at the Childrens Defense Fund, the
+Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and the
+Office of Human Services in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
+ I am sure someone has explained to you how the lights work
+many times. We would like to keep all of your comments to 5
+minutes and then Members will ask questions. And with that, Dr.
+Shaul we are glad you are here. You may begin.
+
+ STATEMENT OF MARNIE S. SHAUL, DIRECTOR, EDUCATION ISSUES,
+ EDUCATION, WORKFORCE AND INCOME SECURITY, U.S. GOVERNMENT
+ ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE, WASHINGTON, DC
+
+ Ms. Shaul. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman and Members of
+the Committee, I appreciate the opportunity to present the
+findings of the report we did for this Committee on financial
+oversight of the Head Start program by the Department of Health
+and Human Services. As you pointed out, Head Start has provided
+services to low income children for 40 years and at about $6.8
+billion is the largest Federal investment in early childhood
+education and care. So it is important that program management
+insures that children receive the services they deserve. My
+remarks today focus on three issues: First, risk assessment,
+the extent to which the administration for children and
+families, the part of the department responsible for Head
+Start, connects information to make an assessment of financial
+risks. Second, information quality, the quality of the
+information in ACF's processes. And third, correcting financial
+problems, the effectiveness of ACF's approaches in insuring
+that grantees with financial weaknesses correct their problems.
+Let me turn first to risk assessment. ACF does not bring the
+information it collects together to comprehensively assess the
+financial risks the program faces. Now, we have a chart over
+here and all those different bubbles represent different
+processes that are already in existence at the Agency.
+ Ms. McCollum. Dr. Shaul, do you have a copy of that chart?
+ Ms. Shaul. It is in your testimony statements. Both charts
+are in the statement. So although there are all these
+individual processes and they are collected by the different
+offices, that chart is in your statement over there. Those are
+the offices. The information is not integrated. And instead,
+Head Start sometimes relies on more of an ad hoc approach, ad
+hoc responses. For example, it responds to calls made to
+regional offices about grantee problems or to questions from
+the Congress. This type of response is useful but it cannot
+substitute for a comprehensive approach to determining where
+Head Start faces the highest risk. Second, regarding
+information quality, we found problems with ACF's process, and
+again, I am talking about the ones that are in that chart. For
+example, different onsite review times have had inconsistent
+findings about the status of the same grantee.
+ Another example. The information provided in ACF's annual
+surveys is not verified, and some critical information such as
+enrollment has been inaccurately reported by grantees. Third,
+with respect to correcting financial problems, we found that
+ACF is not fully effective in insuring that grantees correct
+their financial problems. As was mentioned, in 2000, 76 percent
+of the grantees ACF reviewed onsite were out of compliance with
+one or more financial management standards. And since then,
+when ACF did a follow-up visit, more than half of these
+grantees still were not compliant with financial management
+standards. A small percent of Head Start grantees have a level
+of noncompliance that ACF determines deficient, a status that
+brings corrective action beyond self-certification. However, we
+found that ACF regional offices did not use common criteria to
+determine deficiency. In our review of 20 grantee files that
+contained similar financial problems and where we would have
+expected similar results, half were deemed deficient and half
+were not.
+ Finally, when ACF finds that a grantee has very serious and
+continuing problems that may impair services to children, its
+corrective action may be limited. Over the past decade, a
+relatively small percentage of grantees relinquished their
+grants or were terminated. ACF generally agreed with GAO's
+recommendations to strengthen the tools it uses for financial
+management. However ACF disagreed with GAO's interpretation of
+its authority to recompete grants. ACF said that it must give
+current grantees priority at renewal time which effectively
+eliminates its opportunity to replace grantees. We believe that
+when grantees reapply for their grant, ACF has an opportunity
+to change grantees, if a grantee fails to fulfill program and
+financial requirements. For that reason, we suggested that the
+Congress might want to consider clarifying the circumstances
+under which ACF can recompete a Head Start grant.
+ Mr. Chairman, that concludes my remarks. I would ask my
+full statement be placed in the record and I would be pleased
+to answer questions. Thank you.
+ [The prepared statement of Dr. Shaul follows:]
+
+ Statement of Marnie S. Shaul, Ph.D., Director, Education Issues,
+ Education, Workforce and Income Security, U.S. Government
+ Accountability Office, Washington, DC
+
+ Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:
+ I am pleased to be here today to discuss our recent report on
+oversight of the Head Start program by the Department of Health and
+Human Services (HHS) to ensure that federal funds are used to achieve
+Head Start's goals. Head Start is the federal government's single
+largest investment in early childhood education and care for low-income
+children. HHS's Administration for Children and Families (ACF) manages
+Head Start and relies on hundreds of different grantees throughout the
+country to provide services to more than 900,000 children and their
+families. Head Start funding increased three-fold in real terms during
+the 1990s. Currently, ACF disburses about $6.8 billion annually to Head
+Start grantees. As you can imagine, managing a program of this size,
+with this many grantees and beneficiaries, can present many challenges.
+ The reauthorization of Head Start presents an opportunity to
+discuss some of these management challenges. Although Head Start is a
+popular program and millions of low income children have benefited from
+the program over the past 40 years, it is important to ensure that all
+grantees are held accountable for achieving program results and
+properly managing their federal funds.
+ My testimony today will focus on how well ACF manages the financial
+risks associated with the Head Start program. Specifically, I will
+discuss (1) ACF's processes to assess financial risks, (2) how those
+processes can be improved to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the
+information ACF collects on its Head Start grantees, and (3) the
+effectiveness of the approaches ACF uses to make sure Head Start
+grantees address any financial management weaknesses in a timely
+manner.
+ My written statement is drawn from our recent report on Head Start
+risk management, which was completed for the Committee in accordance
+with generally accepted government auditing standards.\1\
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ \1\ GAO, Head Start, Comprehensive Approach to Identifying and
+Addressing Risks Could Help Prevent Grantee Financial Management
+Weaknesses, GAO-05-176 (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 28, 2005).
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ In summary:
+ ACF does not have a comprehensive risk assessment process
+it can use to collect information on how well grantees are performing
+and managing their federal grant funds. Such an assessment should be
+able to provide ACF with the information it needs to target its
+oversight activities, reduce the risks inherent in managing a large
+federal grant program, and help prevent grantees from failing
+financially, through earlier intervention. While ACF has many processes
+it uses to collect information on its grantees, these efforts are
+conducted by different organizations within ACF, and ACF does not have
+a process in place to systematically bring the information together in
+one place to do an assessment of how well the program is operating.
+ When we looked more closely at ACF's oversight processes,
+we identified flaws that limit the quality, accuracy, and reliability
+of the information ACF collects on its grantees. For example, ACF does
+not have a quality assurance process that could validate the findings
+of the reviews it conducts of its grantees at least every 3 years; it
+does not verify the accuracy of the data it asks its grantees to submit
+on key performance indicators each year; and it does not reconcile a
+grantee's actual withdrawals with its reported expenditures until all
+of the funds have been spent. These flaws limit the information ACF has
+on Head Start grantee's financial status and operations and, as a
+result, many program specialists in ACF regional offices that we
+visited told us they most frequently learn that a grantee is having
+trouble through a call from a parent or teacher reporting a problem.
+Program specialists said that such calls were a routine part of their
+day-to-day monitoring activities. Over-reliance on this approach to
+identifying problems can result in missed opportunities to help
+grantees address management challenges before they become problems. As
+a result, unchecked problems may worsen. Although infrequent, there
+have been cases in which grantees have furloughed employees or
+temporarily closed centers--thereby disrupting services to children and
+their families--because they spent their grant funds too quickly and
+did not adequately manage their grants to ensure that there would be
+funds available throughout the school year.
+ When ACF identified grantees with financial management
+problems, we found that it took limited actions to ensure that grantees
+quickly corrected their problems and made lasting changes to their
+programs so the problems would not surface again. This is a concern
+because ACF's data show that more than 76 percent of Head Start
+programs that were reviewed in 2000 were out of compliance with
+financial management standards, and more than half of these grantees
+were still out of compliance during their next review. When we looked
+at the approach ACF takes to ensure that grantees correct their
+problems, we found that ACF most frequently relies on grantees to self-
+certify that they have corrected their problems without ever visiting
+the grantees for verification. One of the more aggressive approaches
+ACF can take to address long-standing problems is to require the
+grantee to develop and implement a quality improvement plan, but first
+ACF must declare the grantee ``deficient''--a term it uses to identify
+grantees with severe problems. Yet, we noted inconsistencies in the
+process used by the ACF regional offices to determine the severity of
+the problem. As a result, one grantee could be deemed deficient while
+another, with similar problems, would not. We also found that ACF makes
+limited use of its authority to terminate its relationship with poorly
+performing grantees. ACF does not seek competition for a grant until
+after the current grantee has exhausted all its appeals or it has
+convinced a poorly performing grantee to voluntarily relinquish its
+grant. The process to remove a grantee that fails to perform up to
+standards is protracted, and that grantee can continue to receive funds
+long after financial management weaknesses have been identified. In the
+meantime, the community has no other option for Head Start services and
+low-income children may not receive the quality or intensity of
+services that they need.
+ We made a number of recommendations in our report and ACF agreed to
+implement many of them. Implementing these recommendations will go a
+long way towards ensuring that those responsible for overseeing the
+Head Start program and its 1,680 grantees have the information they
+need to target oversight resources effectively and reduce the program's
+risks. More importantly, however, these improvements should help ACF
+prevent grantee financial management weaknesses before the problems
+become too severe. We also recommended that ACF make greater use of its
+authority to seek competition by taking steps to seek qualified
+applicants where the current grantee fails to meet program
+requirements. While such a step should be taken after carefully
+considering all available options, competition would help to ensure
+that children are no longer served by poorly performing grantees.
+Ultimately, enforcing all the program's requirements--especially
+financial management requirements--strengthens the federal commitment
+to poor children and their families by effectively managing scarce
+federal resources and making sure as many eligible families as possible
+can participate in the program.
+Background
+ Begun in 1965 as part of the Johnson Administration's War on
+Poverty, Head Start offers poor children and their families a range of
+services, including preschool education, family support, health
+screenings, dental care, and assistance in accessing medical services.
+The program may either provide the services directly or facilitate
+access to existing services. Eligibility for Head Start is generally
+limited to children who are below the age of school entry and from
+families with incomes below the federal poverty level or receiving cash
+assistance from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. To
+accomplish Head Start's goals for these poor children and families, the
+Congress last year provided $6.8 billion in federal funds, which HHS
+awards directly to nearly 1,700 grantees nationwide. As funding for
+this longstanding program has grown, so has the risk associated with
+any mismanagement of program funds.
+ While effective oversight of federal funds is always a guiding
+principle in managing the various federal government programs,
+accounting scandals in the private sector in 2001-2002 reinforced the
+need for organizations to have stronger financial oversight. Since that
+time, both public sector and private sector organizations--including
+many not-for-profit organizations--are paying closer attention to
+managing the risks in their operations. Indeed, the Office of
+Management and Budget (OMB) recently revised its guidance for federal
+agencies' financial managers to better integrate and coordinate their
+risk assessments and other management activities.
+ The primary goal in managing any federal program is to provide
+reasonable assurance that the program is operating as intended and is
+achieving expected outcomes. A key step in the process of providing
+this assurance is conducting a risk assessment. A risk assessment is a
+comprehensive review and analysis of program operations, especially the
+management of federal funds, to identify risks and to measure the
+potential or actual impact of those risks on program operations. The
+potential for such risks exist in all federal grant programs; for
+example, the diversion of funds to other purposes, inefficient use of
+funds, failure to contribute the grantee's share of funds, or other
+problems that reduce the effectiveness with which financial resources
+are brought to bear on achieving program goals. When a federal program
+relies heavily on grantees to provide services, as the Head Start
+program does, the risk assessment process can become more complex.
+Processes must be developed to assess the operations of every grantee
+to ensure that each complies with program rules and to measure whether
+each achieves expected results.
+ The federal government makes Head Start grants directly to nearly
+1,700 local organizations, including community action agencies, school
+systems, for-profit and nonprofit organizations, other government
+agencies, and tribal governments or associations. Many of these
+grantees operate other federal, state, or local programs in addition to
+the Head Start program. Many of these Head Start grantees also provide
+services by subcontracting with other organizations, known as delegate
+agencies. In 2003, there were about 800 delegates providing services in
+the Head Start program. Some grantees had multiple delegate agencies
+while others had none. The various layers of grantees, the
+administrative complexity of the program, and the interrelationship
+between programs operated by the same grantee add to the challenges of
+overseeing the Head Start program.
+ ACF uses a number of processes to collect information on grantee
+performance and financial management. Table 1 summarizes ACF key
+processes for monitoring Head Start grantees.
+
+[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0472.001
+
+ Various offices within ACF have roles in developing and
+implementing processes to monitor grantee performance and financial
+management. (See fig. 1). The Head Start Bureau develops program
+policies and designs the program-specific oversight processes to
+collect information on grantee performance. Staff from the ten regional
+offices implement the policies developed by the other offices within
+ACF, ensure that all grantees are in compliance with program rules, and
+frequently develop additional policies to aid in their oversight
+responsibilities.
+
+[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0472.002
+
+ACF Lacks a Comprehensive Strategy to Assess Head Start Risks
+ ACF uses many processes to collect information on grantee
+performance and financial management but does not bring together this
+information to comprehensively assess the program's risks or identify
+areas where it might need new or improved processes to collect
+information. Staff in ACF regional offices maintain day-to-day contact
+with the Head Start grantees and monitor the operations of those
+grantees throughout the country. Many of those regional office staff
+told us that they most frequently learn if a grantee is having a
+problem through a call from a parent or a teacher. The staff in the
+regional offices said these calls are a routine part of their day-to-
+day monitoring activities. Over-reliance on this approach can result in
+missed opportunities to help grantees address management challenges
+before they become problems. Greater linkages among the various
+programs offices and oversight activities could produce a more
+comprehensive approach to assessing program risks and help prevent
+financial management weaknesses in Head Start grantees. (See fig. 2).
+
+[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0472.003
+
+ In our review of ACF's management of the Head Start program, we
+noted a number of on-going activities that were not well-integrated and
+did not present a comprehensive view of the program's risks. For
+example, Head Start's 2004 Management Initiative targeted risks that
+were identified in recent GAO reports, news articles, and congressional
+inquiries. The Initiative targeted well-known problems such as
+underenrollment, overenrollment of children from families that did not
+meet income eligibility requirements, and excessive executive
+compensation at some Head Start programs. However, efforts to address
+broader concerns about program governance--the skills and knowledge of
+local Head Start governing boards to effectively manage their
+programs--were notably absent from the Initiative.
+ In another example of an ACF oversight process that is too limited
+in scope, we reported that before 2004 ACF had not collected
+information it could use to estimate the extent of improper payments
+made by grantees or the Head Start Bureau. But when ACF began to
+collect this information, the agency focused on just one type of
+improper payments to grantees--payments made to grantees that enrolled
+too many children from families that did not meet the program's income
+eligibility requirements. These improper payments pose a program risk
+because eligible children may not have access to services. While this
+effort is an important step in systematically assessing risks, the
+study overlooked many other possible forms of improper payments, such
+as those made to contractors, to grantees that are significantly
+underenrolled, or for unallowable program activities.
+ Finally, we noted in our report that ACF relies on its regional
+offices to assess their own operations for gaps that might pose risks
+to all ACF programs, including Head Start. Such gaps might include
+failure to follow ACF grant management policies or to maintain files on
+property acquired or renovated with Head Start funds. Self-assessments
+can be an important tool, but ACF had not recently conducted an
+independent compliance review to ensure that its own grant policies are
+enforced and that the federal government's financial interests are
+protected.
+
+Processes ACF Uses to Collect and Analyze Information on Grantees are
+ Flawed
+ We found that the main processes ACF uses to collect information on
+its grantees' financial management--on-site reviews, annual grantee
+surveys, and analyses of financial reports and audits--have flaws that
+limit the value of the information collected. The on-site review
+process, mandated by the Head Start Act and often known as PRISM--the
+name of the review protocol--is ACF's main tool to assess whether
+grantees are in compliance with statutory and regulatory requirements.
+While the Head Start Bureau has made progress in improving its on-site
+reviews, we found that problems remain. We found that the Bureau has no
+process to ensure that the teams of reviewers follow the Bureau's
+guidance. This is a concern because there is evidence that some PRISM
+reviewers might not follow the guidance for the on-site reviews. For
+example, comparisons of simultaneous on-site reviews of the same
+grantees by two different teams--a PRISM review team and an improper
+payments study team--revealed significant discrepancies. Notably, 21 of
+the 50 grantees in the improper payments study were cited for enrolling
+too many children that did not meet the income eligibility guidelines,
+but the PRISM review teams cited only 3 of those same grantees for
+failing to comply with income eligibility criteria.
+ The effectiveness of on-site reviews to systematically identify
+grantees with financial management weaknesses depends on some assurance
+that the on-site review is implemented as designed and that the
+reviewers have the necessary skills to assess grantees' compliance with
+Head Start performance standards. The review teams are lead by staff
+from ACF's regional offices and include a number of reviewers under
+contract with Head Start. Many of these contractors are employees of
+Head Start programs throughout the country. While this level of
+experience should indicate a familiarity with Head Start program
+requirements, ACF does not check reviewer credentials or test their
+knowledge of the rules before they are sent to conduct reviews. ACF
+seeks feedback, on a voluntary basis, on the contractors' performance
+but ACF's Director of Regional Operations expressed reluctance to
+solicit feedback on the team leaders' performance.
+ ACF also uses an annual survey of its grantees to collect
+information on the status of their programs to measure results, but ACF
+does not verify the information collected. We reported last year that
+important information, such as enrollment in many Head Start programs,
+is often reported inaccurately. Also, our analysis raises concerns
+about the reliability of the survey data. ACF relies on 700 checks of
+internal consistency to ensure that data are reported accurately. Many
+ACF officials said that the checks make it difficult for grantees to
+provide inaccurate information. However, our own review of the internal
+consistency of the data found problems; as long as grantees complete
+the survey consistently, the data--whether accurate or not--would pass
+the tests. While ACF officials said they would be able to address the
+problems we identified in our analysis, because the data are used
+widely by policymakers and the public to assess the program's results,
+until ACF takes steps to ensure the accuracy of the database we urge
+caution in using data from the survey to monitor Head Start grantees.
+ All Head Start grantees report on the status of their funds through
+periodic financial reporting and annual audits of their financial
+statements. We found that ACF made limited use of the information
+collected through these two processes to analyze Head Start grantees'
+financial status. For example, ACF does not routinely reconcile a
+grantee's withdrawals with its reported expenditures until after the
+funds have all been spent. It is therefore difficult for ACF to
+identify grantees that might be drawing down excess funds at the
+beginning of the grant period and risking shortfalls at the end of the
+period. Regarding audits, all grantees must obtain an annual audit of
+their financial statements and compliance with selected federal laws
+and regulations. These audits are conducted under a framework mandated
+by the Single Audit Act. While these audits may not be as comprehensive
+as an on-site program review, they are designed to ensure that federal
+grantees' financial statements are accurate, that they have adequate
+checks and balances in place to protect federal funds, and that they
+are in compliance with key regulations. However, ACF officials cited
+limitations in the scope and timing of the audits for failing to use
+them more systematically in their day-to-day oversight activities. In
+focusing on the limitations of these audits, ACF officials may overlook
+some valuable information on grantees' financial management practices.
+
+ACF Does Not Ensure that Grantees Effectively Resolve Financial
+ Management Problems
+ One way to assess the effectiveness of the approaches ACF uses to
+address grantees' financial management weaknesses is to examine whether
+grantees resolve their problems and then stay in compliance. ACF's data
+from its on-site reviews from 2000-2003 show that many grantees that
+were cited for failing to comply with financial management requirements
+in one review still had problems in their next review.\2\ Our analysis
+of the data shows that more than half of the grantees cited for failure
+to comply with financial management-related rules were out of
+compliance again with one or more financial management standards during
+their next review. (See fig. 3).
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ \2\ The data base for on-site reviews, PRISM, contains both
+grantees and grantees with any delegate agencies reviewed. The data
+presented in this section contains both types of entities. When we
+analyzed the grantees separately, we obtained the same results about
+percentages of grantees that were non-compliant and had recurrent
+problems in their next review.
+
+[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0472.004
+
+ Moreover, the number of areas of financial management in which
+grantees were noncompliant did not decrease with subsequent reviews. As
+figure 4 shows, of the 70 grantees cited in 2000 for problems in all
+three major areas of financial management--fiscal management, program
+governance, and record keeping/reporting--69 still had one or more
+problems in each area at the next review.
+ The repeat problems could be a result of failure to correct the
+problems in the first place--something that might have been identified
+with a follow up review--or an initial correction that did not take
+hold. One senior official in a regional office said that many Head
+Start grantees will fix a problem identified in the PRISM report in the
+short term but fail to make lasting changes to their financial
+management systems. For example, a grantee might try to meet financial
+reporting deadlines for a few months after being cited by a PRISM
+review team for missing deadlines, but if the grantee did not implement
+a system to ensure that these reports are consistently on time, the
+improved performance may not be sustained
+
+[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0472.005
+
+ When grantee problems are identified through on-site reviews or
+audits, ACF often relies largely on grantees' self-certification that
+they have corrected problems rather than imposing special conditions or
+conducting a site visit. While self-certification may be appropriate in
+cases when minor problems can be corrected quickly, the analysis in
+figure 4 suggests that many grantees with problems are not getting the
+help they need to correct their problems and make lasting improvements
+in their financial management capabilities. We reviewed the files of 34
+grantees with financial management problems identified by ACF during
+its on-site reviews. In 18 cases, ACF determined that the grantees'
+problems were not severe enough to be deemed deficient--a term ACF uses
+to identify grantees with severe problems. Of those 18 grantees ACF
+required 16 to submit letters certifying that they had corrected the
+problems and no further action was pursued. In the other 2 cases, ACF
+returned to the review the grantees and found that they had not
+corrected their problems. It was not clear from our file review how ACF
+prioritized these 2 grantees for follow-up, but in revisiting these
+grantees ACF took an aggressive step to ensure compliance. Because the
+two grantees had not corrected their problems, as required by law, ACF
+deemed them deficient and required them to develop a quality
+improvement plan.
+ ACF also relies primarily on self-certification to resolve problems
+identified in grantees annual audits. In each of the 30 audits we
+tracked from the date the auditor completed a report identifying
+financial weaknesses until the regional office judged the audit
+findings resolved, that judgment was based on a letter from the grantee
+rather than a site visit or other follow-up. Regional staff said they
+relied on subsequent audits to ensure that such findings are resolved,
+but we found it frequently takes up to 2 years from the point an audit
+identifies a problem until the regional office receives the next audit,
+during which the grantee continues to receive federal funds. While the
+results of our review in four regional offices may not represent the
+range of actions taken by all ACF regional offices nationwide, we
+interviewed managers in other regional offices who generally described
+similar procedures.
+ To the extent that grantees have recurring financial management
+problems, more aggressive approaches might be appropriate. ACF has the
+authority to impose special award conditions--such as requiring
+grantees to seek approval for every withdrawal of grant funds--but ACF
+rarely imposes these conditions. ACF can also make a follow-on visit to
+ensure that the grantee has implemented corrective actions and is in
+compliance with the program's rules. The Head Start Act requires ACF to
+conduct follow-on visits when it determines that a grantee has such
+severe problems that it deems the grantee deficient; ACF can also
+return to grantees with less severe problems, but we found ACF rarely
+does so. We could not discern an objective rationale for when ACF
+regional offices decide that a grantee is deficient and when they do
+not. For example, reports based on the on-site reviews for 20 of the
+grantees we reviewed showed similar problems in the quantity of
+violations and the severity of the problems cited, but the regional
+offices deemed only 10 of the grantees deficient. Regional office staff
+and their managers in the offices we visited said they meet to discuss
+any problems identified during the on-site review to determine whether
+to deem the grantee deficient, but they said they treat each case
+differently and largely base their determinations on their previous
+experiences with the grantee.
+ The most aggressive approach ACF can take to ensure that a
+community is served by a Head Start grantee with sound financial
+management is to seek a new grantee if the current grantee cannot
+perform as expected. However, we found that ACF rarely terminates its
+relationships with poorly-performing grantees. Instead, ACF said that,
+in lieu of terminating a poorly performing grantee, it will try to
+convince such a grantee to voluntarily relinquish its right to its
+grant. When ACF does undertake the protracted process of terminating
+its relationship with a grantee, the grantee will continue to receive
+funding even if it appeals ACF's decision--regardless of the appeal's
+merits. Under ACF's current regulations, it must also fund a grantee's
+legal costs until the grantee has exhausted its appeals before HHS'
+Departmental Appeals Board. According to an Administrative Judge on the
+Appeals Board, no other HHS grant program except Head Start allows
+grantees to continue receiving funding throughout the appeals process.
+ When ACF decides to award a grant, the Head Start Act requires that
+ACF give priority to grantees already operating a Head Start program in
+the community. This aspect of the law provides important continuity for
+Head Start services in a community. It also provides important
+stability for grantees. However, the act allows the Secretary to deny
+priority to any grantee the Secretary finds fails to meet the program's
+performance or financial management requirements. Denial of priority
+status to current Head Start grantees would open up the possibility of
+competition for the grant among other qualified applicants. ACF could
+seek a new grantee that can demonstrate the ability to manage federal
+funds responsibly, in accordance with program rules, and that can
+provide high-quality Head Start services to eligible children in the
+community. Obviously, denying priority status to a grantee that has
+been a part of a community for years, has educated multiple generations
+of children from that community, and has employed a number of staff
+from the community is a major step that should be taken after carefully
+considering all available options. But, denial of priority status is a
+step that ACF should take if a grantee fails to make the necessary
+changes to effectively manage its program. Ultimately, enforcing all
+the program's requirements--especially financial management
+requirements--is really about strengthening our commitment to future
+generations of children, seeking better ways of managing scarce federal
+resources, and making sure that we reach as many eligible families as
+possible.
+ We made 8 recommendations in our report to improve the overall
+management of the Head Start program, strengthen the tools ACF uses to
+collect useful information on its grantees, and improve ACF's analysis
+of the information it collects. Specifically we recommended that the
+Assistant Secretary for Children and Families:
+ Produce a comprehensive risk assessment of the Head Start
+program and update it periodically. Such an assessment should:
+ Consider plans to collect data on and estimate the extent
+of improper payments made for unallowable activities, payments to
+grantees that are significantly underenrolled, or other unauthorized
+activities,
+ Aim to improve the processes ACF currently uses to
+collect and analyze information on program risks; for example, ACF
+should:
+ Train and/or certify its on-site reviewers to ensure
+ they have the skills and knowledge necessary to perform their
+ responsibilities,
+ Develop an objective approach for regional office
+ management to use in assessing the severity of the problems
+ identified during on-site reviews and for finding grantees
+ deficient or not, and
+ Implement a quality assurance process to ensure that
+ the framework for conducting on-site reviews is implemented as
+ designed, including holding ACF's regional management
+ accountable for following this framework and for the quality of
+ the reviews.
+ Verify key data from the annual survey of grantees to
+enhance the usefulness of this data in overseeing its grantees and
+managing the program, and
+ Seek ways to make greater use of the data it collects on
+the status and use of federal funds through a periodic reconciliation
+of grantees' reported expenditures with their withdrawals.
+ Take steps to obtain competition for a grant if ACF has
+determined that the current grantee fails to meet program, financial
+management, or other requirements. Such a competition could be held
+without giving priority to the current grantee.
+ ACF agreed to implement most of our recommendations. However, ACF
+expressed concerns about our last recommendation, suggesting that it
+did not have the authority to seek competition from other qualified
+applicants for grant funds in communities that are currently served by
+poorly performing grantees without first terminating its relationship
+with such grantees. Seeking other qualified applicants under these
+circumstances would strengthen the linkages between a program's
+performance--including financial management--and its funding. Congress
+may wish to seek other qualified applicants and clarify the extent of
+ACF's authority to deny priority status to grantees it determines fail
+to meet program, financial management, and other requirements.
+ Mr. Chairman, that concludes my prepared statement. At this time, I
+would be happy to take any questions you or other Committee Members may
+have.
+
+ ______
+
+ Chairman Boehner. Mr. Horn.
+
+ STATEMENT OF HON. WADE F. HORN, PH.D., ASSISTANT SECRETARY,
+ ADMINISTRATION FOR CHILDREN AND FAMILIES, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
+ HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, WASHINGTON, DC
+
+ Mr. Horn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the
+Committee. I am very pleased to have this opportunity to appear
+before you today to discuss the recent report of the Government
+Accountability Office Head Start. The President is committed to
+strengthening Head Start and has made accountability a guiding
+principle of our work. And I can assure you that we have--we
+take GAO's findings very seriously. For nearly 2 years, we have
+been actively and aggressively engaged in addressing many of
+the weaknesses cited in this report. Other suggestions in the
+report will help us plan and implement additional strategies
+for enhancing the quality and credibility of our oversight of
+the Head Start program in order to ensure that all Head Start
+children receive the Head Start they deserve. The Head Start
+program is now in its 40th year and is a nearly $7 billion a
+year program serving more than 900,000 low income children and
+families, through a network of 1,600 local grantees.
+ Head Start children are served in nearly 50,000 classrooms
+located within more than 20,000 centers, which are located in
+more than 3,000 counties nationwide. Head Start is, in short,
+the program that has wide ranging presence and influence. It
+ought to be absolutely the best early childhood education
+program we can design. As stewards of this program, we are
+committed to making that goal a reality. I will focus my
+testimony today on our ongoing efforts as well as some of our
+planned initiatives to improve program oversight and
+stewardship.
+ As discussed in the GAO report, we have several ongoing
+procedures to examine program compliance and to measure
+results. Key among these is the mandated triennial onsite
+monitoring of local programs. Monitoring is one of our best
+opportunities ensure that every Head Start program is
+accountable to all applicable statutes and regulations. In the
+last several months, inconsistent with many of the GAO's
+observations and recommendations, we have implemented several
+efforts to improve our oversight of local Head Start programs.
+First, we have established for the first time minimum
+qualifications for all reviewers in the area they are
+reviewing. Establishing these minimum qualifications helps
+insure that all individuals on a monitoring review team have
+the knowledge, skills and experience necessary to be part of a
+quality review.
+ Second, December of last year and February of this year, we
+provided intensive multi-day training for more than 1,000
+reviewers in the areas of fiscal program management and early
+childhood development. Additional training will be conducted
+later this year for reviewers in the fields of health and
+nutrition services, mental health services and family and
+community partnerships.
+ Third, we will soon be implementing a quality assurance
+initiative in which specially trained reviewers will lead teams
+to conduct reviews of a sample of recently monitored grantees.
+We believe this effort will substantially address GAO's concern
+about consistency among reviewers and across ACF regional
+offices.
+ Fourth, we have been conducting in-depth analysis of all
+triennial and first year monitoring reports to improve report
+quality, comprehensiveness, accuracy and uniformity within and
+across the regional offices.
+ Fifth, ACF substantially revised the fiscal checklists used
+during all fiscal reviews to incorporate a risk-based
+assessment approach. This will allow us to identify fiscal
+issues which may suggest underlying fiscal problems.
+ Sixth, ACF is requiring the program review instrument for
+systems monitoring, or PRISM review teams to closely examine
+several special areas that were not as carefully or
+consistently considered in the past, including transportation
+services, condition in Federal interest and facilities,
+salaries and staff compensation, maintenance of full enrollment
+and income eligibility.
+ And finally, this year, ACF began emphasizing to grantees
+that conducting quality comprehensive program self assessments
+are critical to insuring the delivery of high quality services
+to children and families. I hope this information has provided
+a clear picture of our continued and more aggressive commitment
+to improving program oversight and monitoring. We also look
+forward to working with the Congress in the upcoming discussion
+of Head Start reauthorization to explore statutory changes that
+can enhance the secretary's flexibility to replace poorly
+performing grantees.
+ In conclusion, I want to assure this Committee that the
+President, the Department, and the Administration on Children
+and Families are committed to strengthening the quality of Head
+Start. We acknowledge that we can and must do better. I feel
+confident that working together we will achieve that goal.
+Thank you, and I would be pleased to answer any questions.
+ [The prepared statement of Mr. Horn follows:]
+
+Statement of Hon. Wade F. Horn, Assistant Secretary, Administration for
+ Children and Families, U. S. Department of Health and Human Services,
+ Washington, DC
+
+ Chairman Boehner and members of the Committee, I am pleased to have
+this opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the recent
+report of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) on ``Head Start:
+Comprehensive Approach to Identifying and Addressing Risks Could Help
+Prevent Grantee Financial Management Weaknesses''. The President is
+committed to strengthening the quality of Head Start to improve the
+school readiness of low-income preschool children and has made
+accountability a guiding principle of our work. Within this context, I
+can assure you that we take GAO's findings very seriously and for
+nearly two years we have been actively and aggressively engaged in
+addressing the weaknesses cited in the report.
+ The Head Start program is now in its 40th year. It is a nearly $7
+billion program, serving more than 900,000 low-income children and
+families through a network of 1,600 local grantees. There are 212,000
+staff employed in Head Start programs and more than 1.3 million persons
+volunteer in local programs. Head Start children are served in nearly
+50,000 classrooms located within more than 20,000 centers, which are
+located in more than 3,000 counties nation-wide. Head Start is, in
+short, a program that has wide ranging presence and influence. It ought
+to be absolutely the best early childhood education program we can
+design. As stewards of this program, we are committed to making that
+goal a reality.
+ I will focus my testimony today on our ongoing efforts, as well as
+some of our planned efforts, to improve program oversight and
+stewardship. Several of GAO's findings mirror weaknesses we previously
+identified and are actively working to resolve. Other suggestions in
+the report will help us plan and implement additional strategies for
+enhancing the quality and the credibility of the Head Start monitoring
+system in order to ensure that all Head Start children receive the head
+start they deserve.
+
+Head Start Monitoring
+ As discussed in the GAO report, we have several ongoing procedures
+to examine program compliance and to measure results. Key among these
+is the mandated, triennial, on-site monitoring of local programs. Under
+the Head Start Act, each grantee must be monitored at the end of the
+first year of operation and intensely at least once every three years
+thereafter. These reviews are conducted by consultants with
+professional expertise in their assigned area, under the direction of a
+federal team leader. Most teams are composed of approximately six to
+eight reviewers; additional reviewers may be assigned to review larger
+or more complex programs.
+ Written reports containing findings from these reviews are provided
+to each grantee and corrective action must be implemented by the
+grantee. Programs identified as deficient must correct all deficiencies
+within a prescribed period of time or we must seek to terminate the
+grantee's authority to operate that Head Start program.
+ In fiscal year 2004, the Administration for Children and Families
+(ACF) conducted triennial reviews of 570 programs. Eighty-nine of these
+programs were identified as deficient. Each was issued a report by ACF
+mandating correction of their deficiencies within a specified time
+period, not to exceed one year. Any of these 89 grantees that do not
+correct their deficiencies must have their grant terminated. In fiscal
+year 2004, ACF replaced 20 grantees with unresolved fiscal and quality
+issues.
+ Monitoring is one of our best opportunities to measure the quality
+of Head Start programs. As federal stewards, we must use our monitoring
+procedures to assure we are holding every Head Start program
+accountable to all applicable statutes and regulations.
+ In the last several months, and consistent with many of the GAO's
+observations and recommendations, ACF has implemented several efforts
+to improve our monitoring.
+ First, we have established for the first time minimum
+qualifications for all reviewers in the area they are reviewing. For
+example, a reviewer wanting to do fiscal reviews must have a minimum of
+a bachelor's degree with at least 12 credits in accounting, with a
+preference for a degree in accounting. Establishing these minimum
+qualifications helps assure that all individuals on a monitoring review
+team have the knowledge, skills and experience necessary to be part of
+a quality review. Reviewers not meeting these qualifications can no
+longer participate in Head Start reviews. Qualified individuals must be
+annually certified and meet our minimum requirements. Additional
+individuals will be recruited, trained, mentored, and added to the
+reviewer pool.
+ Second, we have implemented a formal assessment process in which
+the federal team leaders and reviewers assess the performance of their
+team members. These assessments are conducted after every review.
+Assessment scores and comments are tracked for individuals over
+multiple reviews. Reviewers with identified patterns of ``poor
+performance'' are removed from the Head Start reviewer pool.
+ Third, in February and December 2004 we provided intensive, multi-
+day training for more than one thousand reviewers in the areas of
+fiscal, program management, and early childhood development. We also
+have provided and are continuing to provide professional development
+for federal team leaders and federal grants staff. Training for team
+members provides a very clear understanding of the nature of their
+responsibilities as part of a monitoring team, and the important roles
+they play in helping to assure a quality Head Start experience for
+every child and family.
+ Additional training will be conducted later this year for reviewers
+in the fields of health and nutrition services, disabilities services,
+mental health services, and family and community partnerships. We feel
+confident that these three changes will go a long way in helping us
+assure that only qualified, skilled reviewers perform the vital role of
+evaluating the comprehensiveness, local management, and quality of our
+Head Start programs.
+ Soon we will implement a quality assurance initiative in which
+specially trained reviewers will lead teams to conduct re-reviews of a
+sample of recently monitored grantees. We believe this effort will
+substantially address GAO's concern about consistency among reviewers
+and across ACF regional offices. The re-review teams will go on-site to
+grantees that have been monitored within the previous few months. A
+second, complete monitoring review will take place and the results will
+be evaluated by the Head Start Bureau. This will allow us to make
+better-informed professional judgments about the reliability of our
+current monitoring teams, including individual reviewers and federal
+team leaders. We believe this approach also will allow us to achieve
+more complete, more accurate, and more consistent monitoring outcomes.
+ In addition, we are conducting in-depth analyses of all triennial
+and first year monitoring reports. The results of these analyses are
+provided to regional administrators for regional quality assurance and
+staff training. The Head Start Bureau has created a two-part strategy
+to improve report quality, comprehensiveness, accuracy and uniformity
+within and across regions. First, draft deficiency reports are analyzed
+and reviewed for accuracy by the Head Start Bureau prior to release to
+grantees, with the results and recommendations of these analyses sent
+to the regional administrators. In the second part of this strategy the
+Head Start Bureau has established standards for all other letters and
+reports related to grantee monitoring.
+ Additionally, ACF is continuing our emphasis on improving each
+grantee's fiscal viability. For example, the Fiscal Checklist, now used
+by all fiscal reviewers, was substantially revised in fiscal year 2005
+to use a ``risk-based'' assessment approach in alignment with GAO's
+recommendation. The Fiscal Checklist includes a set of very specific,
+prioritized indicators, or ``red flags'', designed to identify fiscal
+issues which may suggest underlying fiscal problems. These indicators
+focus on those areas or irregularities which are most likely to have
+the greatest adverse impact on the fiscal accountability of the
+grantee. Grantees whose indicators suggest current or possible future
+problems will be subject to a more detailed review of their fiscal
+systems and records to determine if there are indeed problems that
+impact the grantee's fiscal operations and management.
+ Further, ACF is requiring the Program Review Instrument for Systems
+Monitoring (PRISM) review teams to closely examine several specific
+areas that were not as carefully or consistently considered in the
+past. These include transportation services, condition and federal
+interest in facilities, salaries and staff compensation, maintenance of
+full enrollment, and income eligibility.
+ Also, in fiscal year 2005, ACF is emphasizing the conduct of
+required grantee self-assessments. Grantees have been reminded that
+conducting quality, comprehensive program self-assessments are critical
+to ensuring the delivery of high-quality services to children and
+families. Grantees must conduct accurate, comprehensive self-
+assessments building on information from the triennial federal
+monitoring review to further program improvement, regularly identify
+issues, correct problems, and improve services.
+
+GAO Recommendations
+ I hope this information has provided a clear picture of our
+continued and more aggressive commitment to improving program
+monitoring. This is a goal we have undertaken in earnest over the past
+year. The GAO report synthesized many of the concerns we have had
+regarding program weaknesses. This report affirms that we are on the
+right track in strengthening our oversight and accountability efforts.
+ While my initial remarks today have provided some insight into our
+responses to the GAO recommendations, I would like to take this
+opportunity to briefly and specifically walk through each of the
+recommendations in their report and our response.
+ I. (a) ACF should develop a strategy to produce a comprehensive
+risk assessment of the Head Start program which would provide
+reasonable assurance that a Head Start grantee's finances are
+reasonably sound and that program objectives are being met.
+ We fully support the recommendation to develop a ``comprehensive
+risk assessment'' of the Head Start program. We are looking to both the
+HHS Office of Inspector General's Risk Assessment Protocol as well as
+tools used by GAO that have been adopted by other agencies in ACF in
+our efforts to develop this comprehensive risk assessment.
+ Over the next few months, we will continue developing an approach
+that will allow us to identify, early on, grantees that have issues
+that could suggest potential fiscal or programmatic problems. Beginning
+with the indicators in the fiscal checklist, we will identify the
+factors we should use in determining a grantee's fiscal and
+programmatic accountability. We then will identify the data source or
+sources we will use to consistently collect information about each of
+the factors. Finally, we will determine the relative risks associated
+with each of these factors and develop a rating system that tells us
+when a grantee is at risk of heading down a path to larger fiscal or
+programmatic problems. We believe that such a system will enable us to
+identify at risk grantees while there is still time to work with them
+and implement appropriate change.
+ 1. (b) ACF should collect data on improper payments made by Head
+Start grantees.
+ ACF will assure that grantees are held accountable for improper
+payments made with Head Start grant funds. For example, this year
+monitoring teams will be looking more carefully and more systematically
+at the way grantees expend all of their Head Start funds. Also, we are
+continuing our strong focus on improper payments begun last year by
+visiting 50 randomly chosen grantees to review grantees' enrollment
+files and determine whether they are serving only children who are
+eligible for Head Start.
+ As an additional strategy for examining improper payments, we have
+begun rigorously enforcing the new requirement enacted by Congress to
+cap the compensation of Head Start staff. We will move to disallow
+costs expended by a Head Start grantee when they are in violation of
+this cap. Further, we will continue our efforts to assure all grantees
+are serving the full number of children for which they have been funded
+by holding grantees accountable for upholding all terms and conditions
+of their grant award. Grantees failing to do so will see their funding
+levels reduced.
+ II. ACF should train and certify all PRISM reviewers.
+ As I discussed earlier, over the last several months, we provided
+PRISM training to federal team leaders and to fiscal, program design
+and management, and early childhood consultants. ACF has and will
+continue to schedule additional training events for consultants in
+other areas of expertise to ensure that all reviewers have appropriate
+training. ACF agrees with GAO that reviewer training needs to be
+provided regularly and designed to assure reviewers have the knowledge
+and appropriate understanding of their roles in assisting ACF in
+determining the management and quality of our Head Start programs.
+ III. ACF should develop an approach to assess the results of PRISM
+reviews and ensure consistency among Regional Offices.
+ ACF's Head Start Bureau is continuing an effort begun last year in
+which all monitoring reports to be issued by the regional offices are
+reviewed and critiqued, providing feedback to the regions about the
+quality, comprehensiveness and accuracy of these reports and related
+letters to grantees. We also are analysing data from monitoring
+findings and discussing areas of inconsistency within and across our
+regional offices. When regional data indicate inconsistencies in the
+number and types of problems found in Head Start grantees, we are
+working more closely with those regional offices to uncover the reasons
+for the inconsistencies and be certain they do not reoccur.
+ As mentioned earlier, in fiscal year 2005, ACF will be implementing
+a quality assurance system in which a selected number of programs will
+be ``re-reviewed'' a few months after their regularly scheduled PRISM
+review. This is another method that will help us achieve greater
+consistency across regions and among reviewers. Further, ACF is
+supportive of legislative change that can provide the Administration
+increased flexibility to use the best team leaders available for a
+particular review by not requiring every team leader to be a federal
+employee.
+ We want to acknowledge our agreement with the GAO, that for too
+many years we have relied too heavily on a grantee's self-certification
+that serious non-compliances have been corrected. There may be some
+situations in which such certifications are sufficient; however,
+reliance on this practice for ensuring grantee corrective action must
+be dramatically reduced. Therefore, ACF is significantly increasing the
+use of on-site visits to verify corrective actions. These site visits
+will focus on whether the grantee has made systemic, sustainable
+changes to reduce the possibility of repeating problems in the future.
+This approach also will help regional offices more consistently assess
+a grantee's success in correcting identified problems in both the short
+and the long term.
+ IV. (a) ACF should implement a quality assurance system to assure
+on-site reviews are being conducted as intended to provide ACF with
+objective and accurate data about grantees.
+ As noted above, in fiscal year 2005, ACF will be implementing a
+quality assurance system designed to enhance consistency and quality
+among both regional offices and reviewers. Specially trained review
+teams made up of some of the best reviewers in the country will visit
+grantees that have been monitored within the last few months. A
+complete monitoring review will take place; the results of which will
+be shared with the responsible ACF regional office. This process will
+allow us to make more informed, professional judgments about the
+reliability of our current monitoring teams; including individual
+reviewers and federal team leaders. We believe this approach will help
+enhance the process of achieving more complete, more accurate, and more
+consistent monitoring outcomes.
+ 4. (b) ACF should assure the accuracy of its data collection forms.
+ ACF and others rely upon the annual Program Information Report
+(PIR) and other data. We will, therefore, continue to explore ways to
+increase the accuracy of the PIR and other data sources. We will, for
+example, initiate an effort this year in which we will visit randomly
+selected Head Start programs to conduct a validation study of the data
+reported on the PIR. We also initiated procedures to assure that the
+information grantees report on their required salary comparability
+studies is accurate and current. In addition, Head Start staff
+currently is working with ACF information technology staff to develop a
+single, integrated database that will contain all the current Head
+Start data sources. This integrated database will allow us to take a
+comprehensive approach to examining the management, fiscal and
+programmatic status of Head Start grantees.
+ V. ACF should make greater use of information currently available
+to regional offices to more quickly identify potential risks.
+ ACF will make more complete use of all data sources available to us
+to assure we are able to identify risks as quickly as possible. Central
+and regional offices will jointly develop specific protocols to assure
+that we are making full and timely use of the fiscal and other data
+available.
+ VI. ACF should recompete Head Start grants when the current
+recipient has not met its obligations in the areas of program or
+financial management.
+ ACF is looking forward to working with the Congress in the upcoming
+discussions on Head Start reauthorization to explore changes to the Act
+that can enhance the Secretary's flexibility to replace poorly
+performing grantees. Without such statutory changes, we do not believe
+we can implement GAO's proposed recommendation in this area. It is our
+position that, because of current statutory language there can be
+lengthy delays before we can replace the grantee in charge of Head
+Start operations in that community.
+ More specifically, we would like to work with this Committee to
+amend language in the current Head Start Act which provides current
+grantees with priority consideration for funding and which requires
+grantees to be given a hearing before being replaced, no matter how
+poor their operations and performance may be. We believe the current
+system makes it unnecessarily time consuming and difficult to remove
+grantees which are not responsibly delivering comprehensive, quality
+services. Like GAO, we are particularly dismayed by the increasing
+number of grantees with recurring problems that fail to correct or only
+temporarily correct areas of non-compliance and deficiencies. We look
+forward to working with Congress to give HHS the ability to quickly
+remove poor performing grantees so that we are providing the best
+quality services possible to Head Start children.
+
+Additional Program Improvement Efforts
+ I would like to close my remarks by sharing with this Committee
+several other efforts the Administration is engaged in designed to
+improve grantee quality and accountability. Foremost among these is
+working with this Committee and this Congress to pass a Head Start
+reauthorization bill which will send a clear message that all Head
+Start grantees are expected, at all times, to deliver high quality
+services to every enrolled child and family.
+ First, we would like the Congress to help us increase the
+involvement of selected states in Head Start as we move to increase
+coordination between Head Start, state pre-K programs, and child care
+services. Second, we would like the Congress to provide the Secretary
+with greater discretion to use funds appropriated for Head Start in the
+most effective manner possible by enacting changes to the current
+statutory set-aside for training and technical assistance. Third, we
+would like the statute to more clearly state the expectation that all
+children should leave Head Start prepared for school and that the
+standards for school readiness are being met. Fourth, we would like
+increased flexibility in the make-up of our monitoring teams so that we
+always can send out the most qualified individuals for the job. And
+fifth, we would like to work with Congress to ensure that the statute
+allows us to deal with poorly performing grantees fairly but
+expeditiously.
+ In addition to these proposed statutory changes, I would like to
+close by sharing information about one other training and technical
+assistance project which, although not directly related to monitoring,
+plays an important role in assuring grantees are providing high quality
+services to the communities they serve. We are in the second year of a
+new training and technical assistance (T/TA) system that we believe
+will help improve grantee quality and, by so doing, address some of the
+underlying issues raised by GAO. We have, for the first time, hired T/
+TA specialists who are assigned to work on a regular basis with
+individual grantees. These specialists will help grantees identify T/TA
+needs and appropriate ways of meeting these needs. They will visit
+their assigned grantees several times a year to focus on improving
+grantees. The local specialists are supported by a team of content
+experts in each regional office to provide guidance to grantees and to
+support the local specialists in their technical assistance work within
+programs.
+
+Conclusion
+ In conclusion, I can assure this Committee that the President, the
+Department and ACF are committed to strengthening the quality of Head
+Start. In keeping with the findings of this GAO report-we can do
+better. The Administration for Children and Families will continue to
+improve program oversight to ensure program quality and effectiveness.
+At the same time, we look forward to working with you to make
+appropriate changes to Head Start's legislation that will hold all
+grantees accountable for all requirements and for providing quality
+service. I feel confident that together we will achieve these goals.
+ Thank you. I would be happy to answer any questions.
+ ______
+
+ Chairman Boehner. Ms. Henry. Welcome. You may begin.
+
+
+ STATEMENT OF PAMELA HENRY, JR., HEAD START PARENT, LAS VEGAS,
+ NV
+
+ Ms. Henry. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chairman Boehner,
+Representative Miller, and Members of the Committee. My name is
+Pamela Ann Henry Jr., and I am honored for this opportunity to
+share my experience as a parent and former chair of the Head
+Start and early Head Start policy Council for the Economic
+Opportunity Board, Clark County. EOB is the Head Start grantee
+in Las Vegas, Nevada.
+ I may not have a Ph.D. or be a high ranking government
+official, but I can tell you firsthand the importance of Head
+Start to a parent and what is happening, and in some cases, not
+happening in my Head Start program. I am a foster/adoptive
+parent that cares for children with special needs between the
+ages of birth and 5 years of age. Since 2001, my husband and I
+have been affiliated with the Head Start and Early Head Start
+program as active parents, and I, with the policy council as a
+center representative and later chair for the EOB in Clark
+County.
+ Policy counsels are required by Head Start regulations to
+assist with program governance that include parents, community
+representatives and liaisons from the executive board. The
+topic of today's hearing is a recent report by the Government
+Accountability Office, or the GAO, which found Federal
+oversights to be inadequate to swiftly identify and correct
+financial mismanagement of Head Start grantees. I have just
+three messages for the Committee today. No. 1, too much time
+can go by from the time problems start to the time they are
+fixed. Many times they go unrecognized. But even worse, there
+is no incentive to fix problems quickly because grantees are
+not held accountable for correcting these problems.
+ Number 2, the Federal Government shouldn't let bad grantees
+continue to operate bad programs. Like the three-strikes-you-
+are-out policy, at a certain point enough should be enough.
+ No. 3, policy counsels and other governing boards at the
+local levels should matter. Often times these boards are not
+given a real opportunity to be involved, but they should be. I
+will elaborate briefly on each of these points. The GAO report
+was requested by Congress after reports of misuse of Head Start
+funds were printed in newspapers around the country.
+Unfortunately the grantee over the center where my children
+attend Head Start is one such case. I know most Head Start
+programs are good, so why focus on a few bad ones? There may be
+many others who don't have these problems, but even if just one
+program has problems, they should be fixed.
+ The EOB Community Action Partnership is the largest private
+non-profit social service organization in Nevada. EOB has nine
+service divisions that administer 40 programs intended to
+assist 55,000 area residents each year. EOB receives over $12
+million annually to prepare 1,700 children, including mine for
+kindergarten. In 2003 and 2004, EOB was cited as a high risk
+grantee by the Head Start Bureau. Yet, as I learned later, the
+board had been deemed a deficient grantee in several important
+areas for many years.
+ For example, EOB had been cited repeatedly for inaccurate
+accounting practices, yet no corrective action seemed to be
+initiated by the Federal Government or the Agency itself.
+ In 2003 I was involved with the annual review process
+conducted by the Region IX staff. I accompanied the EOB
+executive director and other agency administrators. EOB was
+instructed to develop a corrective action plan after its review
+identified multiple deficiencies. The policy council was
+initially involved in the drafting of the corrective action
+plan, but in the end, the senior managers and other agencies
+approved a different plan without our input. The policy council
+expressed concern both to the executive active team and the HHS
+Region IX staff, but our concerns were dismissed. This was very
+discouraging. As policy council chair, I emerged a stronger
+leader and advocate for the Head Start and gained the
+confidence to stand my ground and fight a fight for what I felt
+was right for the eligible children enrolled and their
+families.
+ And then at the local level, many Head Start boards are
+agreeing to actions taken by administrators. There is no
+independent review or checks and balances--no accountability
+for the administrators because in most cases, there is no
+responsibility assumed by the executive board.
+ A dysfunctional senior management and grantee board at EOB
+triggered multiple concerns that I shared with the Region IX
+representative. While in the position as PC chair, the program
+had been deemed high risk due to several noncompliance matters.
+But one of the most important factors is what the GAO has
+stated in their recent report, mismanagement of program funds,
+along with continuous deficiencies.
+ By the end of my third year, there had been several reviews
+and audits. With the right accountability in place,
+mismanagement of funds could have been avoided. However, those
+involved were never held responsible for their misconduct for
+such funds. The EOB never felt as though the grant was
+threatened, or that they could do anything that would lead to
+the termination of their funding. In such cases, an
+organization other than EOB should have been given millions of
+dollars taken for granted by this grantee.
+ The GAO report recommends that poorly performing grantees
+should come compete against other entities for their grant. In
+the case of EOB, another organization might have been more
+qualified to manage the Head Start program. I am done. Thank
+you. I am sorry.
+ [The prepared statement of Ms. Henry follows:]
+
+ Statement of Pamela Henry, Jr., Head Start Parent, Las Vegas, NV
+
+ Good Afternoon Chairman Boehner, Representative Miller, and Members
+of the Committee. My name is Pamela Henry, and I am honored for this
+opportunity to share my experience as a parent and former Chair of the
+Head Start Policy Council of the Economic Opportunity Board (EOB). EOB
+is the Head Start grantee in Las Vegas, Nevada.
+ I may not have a Ph.D., or be a high-ranking government official,
+but I can tell you first hand the importance of Head Start to a parent
+and what is happening--and in some cases not happening--in my Head
+Start program.
+ I am a foster/adoptive parent that cares for children with special
+needs between the ages of birth and 5 years. Since 2001, my husband and
+I have been affiliated with the Head Start & Early Head Start Program
+as active parents and I, with the Policy Council as a Center
+Representative and later Chair, for EOB in Clark County. Policy
+Councils are required by Head Start regulations to assist with program
+governance and include parents, community representatives, and a
+liaison from the Executive Board.
+ The topic of today's hearing is a recent report by the Government
+Accountability Office--or GAO--which found federal oversight to be
+inadequate to swiftly identify and correct financial mismanagement by
+Head Start grantees.
+ I have just three messages for the Committee today:
+ I. Too much time can go by from the time problems start to the time
+they are fixed. Many times, they go unrecognized. But even worse,
+there's no incentive to fix problems quickly because grantees are not
+held accountable for correcting these problems.
+ II. The federal government shouldn't let bad grantees continue to
+operate bad programs. Like the three strikes you're out policy, at a
+certain point, enough should be enough.
+ III. Policy Councils and other governing boards at the local level
+should matter. Often times these boards are NOT given a real
+opportunity to be involved, but they should be.
+ I will elaborate briefly on each of these points.
+ The GAO report was requested by Congress after reports of misuse of
+Head Start funds were printed in newspapers around the country.
+Unfortunately, the grantee over the center where my children attend
+Head Start, is one such case.
+ I know most Head Start programs are good. So why focus on a few bad
+ones? There may be many, many others who don't have these problems, but
+even if just one program has problems, they should be fixed!
+ The EOB Community Action Partnership is the largest private, non-
+profit social service organization in Nevada. EOB has nine (9) service
+divisions and administers forty (40) programs intended to assist 55,000
+area residents each year. EOB receives over $12 million dollars
+annually to prepare 1,700 children, including mine, for kindergarten.
+In 2003-4, the EOB was cited as a high-risk grantee by the Head Start
+Bureau. Yet, as I later learned, the Board had been deemed a deficient
+grantee in several important areas for many years. For example, the EOB
+had been cited repeatedly for inadequate accounting practices yet no
+corrective action seemed to be initiated by the federal government or
+the agency itself.
+ In August 2003, I was involved in the triennial review process
+conducted by the Regional IX staff. I accompanied the EOB executive
+director and other agency administrators. EOB was instructed to develop
+a corrective action plan after its review identified multiple
+deficiencies. The Policy Council was initially involved in drafting the
+corrective action plan but in the end, the senior managers of the
+agency approved a different plan without our input. The Policy Council
+expressed concern to both the Executive Team and HHS Region IX staff
+but our concerns were dismissed. This was very discouraging.
+ As Policy Council Chair, I emerged a stronger leader and advocate
+for Head Start and gained the confidence to stand my ground and fight a
+fight for what I felt was right for the eligible children enrolled and
+their families. At the local level, many Head Start boards are agreeing
+to all actions taken by the administrators--there is not independent
+review or checks and balances. No accountability for the administrators
+because in most cases there's no responsibility assumed by the
+Executive Board.
+ A dysfunctional Senior Management and the Grantee Board at EOB
+triggered multiple concerns that I shared with the Region IX
+Representative. While in the position as PC Chair the program had been
+deemed as high-risk due several non-compliance matters, but one of the
+most important factors is what the GAO has stated in their recent
+report, mismanagement of program funds, along with continuous
+deficiencies.
+ By the end of my third year there had been several reviews and
+audits. With the right accountability in place, the mismanagement of
+the funds could have been avoided. However, those involved were never
+held responsible for the misconduct of such funds. Unfortunately, the
+EOB never felt as though their grant was threatened or that they could
+do anything that would lead to the termination of their funding. In
+such cases, an organization other than EOB should have been given the
+millions of dollars taken for granted by this grantee.
+ The GAO report recommends that poorly performing grantees should
+compete against other entities for their grants. In the case of EOB
+another organization might have been more qualified to manage the Head
+Start program.
+ Members of the Policy Council had little confidence that an
+adequate corrective action plan was put into place or that Region IX
+administrators would return to EOB to ensure that changes we
+successfully implemented. Under the current system, grantees must self-
+certify that deficiencies have been corrected and the federal
+government takes the grantee at their word. Yet, according to the GAO
+report, and consistent with the experience at EOB, problems cited
+continued to be problems for multiple review cycles.
+ If Regional manager's performance was tied to the improvement and
+performance of the programs for which they were responsible, many Head
+Start programs would improve. The Regional IX manager's job apparently
+was not judged by the success or failure of the grantees under his or
+her control and so there was no incentive to improve the situation.
+Furthermore, it seems many Regional managers believe it is more trouble
+to go through the grantee termination process than to just recommend a
+grant be re-funded, even when the manager knows it's not in the best
+interest of Head Start.
+ Regional managers should be held accountable for bringing a program
+back into compliance and help support grantees in that process or be
+liable for letting a program be deemed deficient over and over again.
+We must remember that this is for the children and low-income families,
+and as our current President says, ``no child shall be left behind!''
+ ______
+
+ Chairman Boehner. That is all right. Thank you, Ms. Henry.
+I know it is rather daunting to have to show up and speak
+before all of us and those people behind you, but you did a
+very nice job.
+ Dr. Golden.
+
+
+ STATEMENT OF OLIVIA GOLDEN, Ph.D., SENIOR FELLOW, URBAN
+ INSTITUTE, WASHINGTON, DC
+
+ Dr. Golden. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Congressman
+Miller and Members of the Committee. I am honored to appear
+before you today. My perspective on Head Start and on tough and
+effective management has been shaped by experiences as a
+researcher and a practitioner at the Federal, State and local
+levels, as you heard in the Chairman's introduction. I spent 8
+years at HHS, including 3 as Assistant Secretary for Children
+and Families. And in 1993, I was a member of the Bipartisan
+Advisory Committee on Head Start quality and expansion,
+including members from both parties, staff to this Committee.
+ The advisory committee's unanimous final report provided a
+rigorous blueprint for quality, including strengthening Federal
+oversight. As a result of reforms put in place by HHS and the
+Congress, beginning with the advisory committee, the 1994 Head
+Start Reauthorization and the 1996 publication of tough and
+research-based performance standards, Head Start has the most
+rigorous standards and the most intensive monitoring of any
+human services program that I am aware of. This emphasis on the
+accountability paid off in clear results during the late
+1990's. As the GAO report indicates, a historically
+unprecedented 144 grantees were terminated or relinquished
+their grants between 1993 and 2001. GAOs report provides useful
+next steps for Federal oversight that build on these earlier
+reforms. But before turning to my suggestions for implementing
+GAO's recommendations, I would like to highlight two themes
+from the research which my written testimony provides more
+detail on. First, Head Start serves extremely vulnerable
+children and families who experience multiple and complex
+problems. You just heard about children with special needs.
+ Second, Head Start programs make a positive difference for
+these very disadvantaged children and their family. Research
+demonstrates both Head Start's positive results in terms of
+children's learning and the generally high quality of local
+programs. To me, these themes underline the importance of
+accountability in Head Start. Federal oversight must live up to
+the crucial importance of Head Start's mission.
+ Let me turn now to the five suggestions for strong Federal
+oversight that are detailed in my written testimony. These
+suggestions draw on my experience raising the bar on
+accountability during the 1990's, both lessons about what works
+and lessons about what is persistently difficult. The central
+theme is that holding Head Start programs to high standards,
+including closing those that can't meet the standards, can be
+done with strong focused and hands on Federal oversight.
+ Lesson one, the foundation for strong Federal oversight and
+results for children is the tough, rigorous and research-based
+requirements of the Head Start performance statistics. As a
+result of the Advisory Committee's recommendations and the 1994
+reauthorization, we thoroughly revamped and strengthened the
+performance standards in 1996 bringing them into line with the
+latest research. So many of the vigorous fiscal standards that
+GAO is now looking at are in place now because of this reform.
+Rigorous standards are especially important because emerging
+research that strong implementation of the standards is linked
+to better results for children.
+ Lesson two, terminating grantees and aggressively
+negotiating relinquishments are important steps for HHS to take
+when a grantee cannot successfully resolve its problems. Hands
+on leadership is key. Stronger authority for HHS to terminate
+grantees who can't meet standards was in the 1994
+reauthorization and the 1996 regulations. As GAO indicated in
+its 1998 report, HHS moved quickly and aggressively to use this
+new authority. My own experience was that personal and hands-on
+involvement helped make it happen. In one example, I flew to
+Denver to speak with parents and board members about the
+gravity of our monitoring findings so they could make a more
+informed choice about whether to relinquish the grant.
+ Lesson three, continuity for successful grantees is just as
+important as turnover for unsuccessful grantees. Because for a
+Head Start program to do a truly excellent job of linking
+children to services in a community takes time, consistency and
+relationships among partners developed and sustained over many
+years. This means that strong technical assistance to keep
+successful programs on track is a critical partner to strong
+monitoring. It also means that recompetition of Head Start
+grants should be limited to unsuccessful programs.
+ Two more lessons. The Federal oversight strategy needs to
+integrate fiscal accountability and program accountability at
+every stage. And Assistant Secretary Horn spoke to that in
+speaking of training. And finally, the oversight strategy must
+include a focus on Federal staff in both central office and the
+regions, including training and professional development.
+ In conclusion, for 40 years, the Head Start program has
+played a critical role for the Nation's most impoverished and
+vulnerable children, continuing to evolve and innovate in
+response to family needs. For Head Start to continue its
+success requires an equally strong innovative and vigorous
+Federal oversight role. I want to thank the Committee for your
+commitment over many years and I look forward to any questions
+that you may have.
+ [The prepared statement of Dr. Golden follows:]
+
+ Statement of Olivia A. Golden, Ph.D., Senior Fellow, Urban Institute,
+ Washington, DC
+
+ Mr. Chairman, Congressman Miller, and members of the committee, my
+name is Olivia Golden, and I am currently Senior Fellow and Director of
+the Assessing the New Federalism project (a multi-year, nationwide
+study of low-income children and families) at the Urban Institute, a
+nonprofit, nonpartisan research institute in Washington, D.C.\1\ I am
+honored by the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the
+Head Start program, effective strategies for federal monitoring, and
+the content and recommendations of the GAO's recent report regarding a
+Comprehensive Approach to Identifying and Addressing Risks.
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ \1\ The views expressed in this testimony are those of the author
+and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, its
+employees, or its funders.
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ My perspective on Head Start, on programs that serve low-income
+children and families, and on tough and effective management to support
+accountability has been shaped by my experiences as a researcher and a
+practitioner at the federal, state and local levels. Immediately before
+coming to the Urban Institute, I directed the District of Columbia's
+Child and Family Services Agency. Before that, I spent eight years at
+the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, as Commissioner for
+the Administration on Children, Youth, and Families and then as
+Assistant Secretary for Children and Families. During those eight
+years, I was a member or chair of three expert committees charting the
+future of Head Start. In 1993, I was a member of the bipartisan
+Advisory Committee on Head Start Quality and Expansion, which included
+both majority and minority staff to this Committee as well as staff
+from both parties to three other House and Senate committees. The
+Advisory Committee's unanimous Final Report provided extensive
+recommendations, including a rigorous blueprint for monitoring program
+and fiscal quality and strengthening federal oversight capacity. In
+1994, I chaired the Advisory Committee on Services for Families with
+Infants and Toddlers, which created the overall design for Early Head
+Start. And in 1999, I chaired the Advisory Committee on Head Start
+Research and Evaluation, which provided an overall framework for the
+design of the Head Start impact study. We are all eagerly awaiting the
+first report from that study.
+ In my testimony today, I will focus primarily on effective
+strategies for building the strongest possible federal oversight role
+to support high-quality, fiscally accountable, programmatically
+successful, and well-managed Head Start programs across the country. As
+a result of reforms put in place by HHS and the Congress--beginning
+with the bipartisan 1993 Head Start Advisory Committee, the 1994 Head
+Start reauthorization, and the 1996 publication of tough, research-
+based performance standards and continuing across two administrations--
+Head Start has the most rigorous standards and the most intensive
+monitoring of any human services program that I am aware of. This
+emphasis on accountability by HHS and the Congress paid off in clear
+quality control results during the late 1990's: for example, as the GAO
+report indicates, 144 grantees were terminated or relinquished their
+grants between 1993 and 2001, a historically unprecedented number.
+ GAO's report provides useful next steps for the federal oversight
+role that build on these earlier reforms. The report does not, however,
+provide a clear picture of the number or proportion of Head Start
+programs with serious fiscal problems, because it shows the percentage
+of programs with even one monitoring finding, rather than grouping
+programs by frequency or severity of findings. Based on the Head Start
+Bureau's annual monitoring reports, about 15 percent of grantees have
+serious problems, including both programmatic and fiscal problems.
+Whatever the current numbers, any serious failures in fiscal
+accountability need to be forcefully addressed.
+ The GAO report contributes to this effort by identifying gaps in
+federal oversight--in particular, how the federal implementation of
+monitoring doesn't live up to the rigorous design--and by providing
+practical recommendations for improvement. The implementation
+challenges highlighted in the report -'' such as effective use of early
+warning information, consistent decision-making across central office
+and the regions, and closing ineffective programs on a prompt timetable
+yet with appropriate due process--are not limited to any one
+Administration or even to one program. In my own experiences both with
+Head Start monitoring and with designing and implementing monitoring
+systems for other programs and at other levels of government, these
+same challenges have arisen. For that reason, I believe that the GAO's
+practical recommendations for next steps are particularly useful and
+that thoughtful implementation of these recommendations, with some
+additional suggestions and modifications that I suggest below, should
+help Head Start programs live up to the very highest levels of
+accountability.
+
+Why Accountability Matters: The Research Context and the Role of Head
+ Start
+ Before turning to these specific suggestions about monitoring, I
+would like to highlight briefly two broader themes from the research.
+To me, these themes ``- (1) that Head Start serves extraordinarily
+vulnerable children and families and (2) that it makes a positive
+difference for them ``- underline the whole reason accountability is so
+important. In a program with such a critical mission, and such a
+history of success for the most vulnerable children in good times and
+bad, we must ensure that federal oversight lives up to the importance
+of the mission, both demanding and supporting strong programs.
+ First, Head Start serves extremely vulnerable children and
+families, who experience considerable disadvantage and often multiple
+and complex problems. Children enrolled in Head Start may suffer from
+various health conditions and disabilities, live in families that have
+difficulty finding and keeping stable housing, and experience violence
+in their families and neighborhoods. For these children, improved
+learning and cognitive development require extremely high-quality
+services that follow the comprehensive model laid out in the Head Start
+performance standards.
+ For example, a survey of a nationally representative sample of Head
+Start families in 2000 found that 25 percent of parents were moderately
+or severely depressed, more than 20 percent of parents had witnessed
+violent crime, and parents reported that almost 10 percent of their
+children had witnessed domestic violence in the last year. According to
+the researchers, ``preliminary findings suggest that Head Start may
+play a role in protecting children from the negative outcomes
+associated with family risk factors, including maternal depression,
+exposure to violence, alcohol use, and involvement in the criminal
+justice system.'' \2\
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ \2\ Administration for Children and Families, Office of Planning,
+Research, and Evaluation. April 2003. Executive Summary for Head Start
+FACES 2000: A Whole-Child Perspective on Program Performance, p. 8.
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ Second, Head Start programs overall make a positive difference for
+these very disadvantaged young children and their families. Both past
+and recent research, such as the rigorous, random assignment evaluation
+of Early Head Start, demonstrate Head Start's positive results for
+children and the generally high quality of its programs when observed
+and compared with other early childhood programs. For example,
+ A rigorous, randomized assignment evaluation of Early
+Head Start found that compared to a control group, 3-year-olds who had
+attended Early Head Start had higher average scores and a smaller
+percentage at-risk in language development, higher average scores and a
+smaller percentage at-risk on tests of cognitive development, and
+better home environments and parenting practices (for example, more
+reading to young children).\3\
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ \3\ Administration for Children and Families. June 2002. Making a
+Difference in the Lives of Infants and Toddlers and Their Families: The
+Impacts of Early Head Start. Executive Summary, pp. 3-4.
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ Studies of Head Start using a variety of methods (for
+example, comparing siblings who have been in Head Start with those who
+have not) also show positive results for children. Soon, the results of
+the random assignment study of Head Start--designed by the committee I
+chaired in 1999 -'' will be released. This study should provide more
+up-to-date information about the effects of Head Start for today's
+children, compared with being in other programs or at home.
+ When researchers score Head Start classrooms across the
+country using standard indicators, they generally find them good and
+quite consistent in quality. A recent study that observed classrooms in
+six state pre-k programs found that the overall quality of these
+classrooms was lower than in similar observational studies of Head
+Start.\4\
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ \4\ Donna Bryant, Dick Clifford, Diane Early, and Loyd Little.
+2005. ``Who Are the Pre-K Teachers? What Are Pre-K Classrooms Like?''
+Early Developments 9(1): 15-19. Published by the FPG Child Development
+Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ Low-income children are less likely than higher-income
+children to get the benefits of high quality pre-school or child care
+settings. This disparity would be far greater without Head Start,
+especially for the poorest children. Research conducted through the
+Assessing the New Federalism project at the Urban Institute has found
+that low-income 3- and 4-year-olds are less likely to be in center-
+based care (including preschool) than higher-income children. Because
+of the research evidence suggesting that quality center-based care can
+help children prepare for school, the researchers conclude that this
+``disparity''.may represent a missed opportunity to assist low-income
+children in becoming school-ready.'' \5\
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ \5\ Jeff Capizzano and Gina Adams, 2003. ``Children in Low-Income
+Families Are Less Likely to Be in Center-Based Child Care.'' Snapshots
+of America's Families III, No. 16. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute,
+p. 2.
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+The Accountability Agenda: Lessons from Experience
+ The reforms in Head Start quality and accountability that were
+driven by the bipartisan Advisory Committee of 1993 and the Head Start
+reauthorizations of 1994 and 1998 provide a very rich source of lessons
+about strong federal oversight -- both what works and what issues are
+perennially difficult and need to be revisited often. The central theme
+is that holding Head Start programs to high standards, including
+closing those that can't meet the standards, can be done. It takes
+strong, focused, and hands-on federal oversight that includes both
+monitoring and technical assistance.
+ The reforms grew out of the widespread concern that after several
+years of expanding the number of children served in Head Start without
+corresponding investment in program quality or in the training and
+development of federal staff, the quality of local Head Start programs,
+while generally good, had become uneven. The charge of the 1993
+Advisory Committee--whose members in addition to Congressional staff
+from both parties and both houses included experts with experience in
+academia, the federal government, state and local early childhood
+programs, and the broader health and education worlds -'' was to
+provide recommendations for both improvement and expansion that would
+reaffirm Head Start's vision of excellence for every child. The
+extensive and specific recommendations in the unanimous report covered
+every area of quality improvement, from local programs to federal
+staff. Many of the recommendations were incorporated into the 1994
+Congressional reauthorization of Head Start, and others were
+implemented by HHS without requiring legislative authority.
+ Five specific lessons from this experience seem to me particularly
+important as Congress and the Administration consider implementing the
+GAO's recommendations:
+ 1. The foundation for strong federal oversight--and of results for
+children--is the tough, rigorous, and research-based requirements of
+the Head Start performance standards.
+ The Advisory Committee recommended and the 1994 Head Start
+Reauthorization required a major overhaul of the Head Start regulations
+that define what is expected of local programs (regulations that are
+known as the Head Start Performance Standards) to raise the bar for the
+quality of both service delivery and management. The final regulations,
+published in 1996, thoroughly revamped and strengthened the performance
+standards across many dimensions. For example, they:
+ raised standards for program management, including fiscal
+accountability and governance;
+ brought standards for service delivery into line with the
+latest research; and
+ created new standards which had not existed before for
+the quality of services to infants and toddlers.
+ Thus, many of the rigorous fiscal, board governance, and reporting
+standards discussed in the GAO report are in place now because of this
+important revision of the performance standards. For example, as part
+of their fiscal and governance standards Head Start programs are
+expected to ensure that their governing board and the parent policy
+council approve funding applications and review the annual audit.
+ Rigorous standards are important not only because they hold
+programs accountable and form the basis of a coherent monitoring
+strategy but also because emerging research suggests a link between
+strong implementation of the standards and positive results for
+children. As part of the Early Head Start evaluation mentioned above,
+researchers assessed program implementation of key elements of the
+performance standards during in-depth site visits. They found evidence
+that ``full implementation [of the performance standards] contributes
+to a stronger pattern of impacts.'' \6\
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ \6\ Administration for Children and Families (June 2002), p.6.
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ 2. Terminating grantees and aggressively negotiating
+relinquishments are appropriate, important, and realistic steps for HHS
+to take when a grantee cannot successfully resolve its problems and
+meet fiscal and program standards. Hands-on leadership is key to using
+this authority effectively.
+ Stronger authority for HHS to terminate grantees who cannot meet
+standards was recommended by the 1993 Advisory Board and included in
+the 1994 Head Start Reauthorization. As a result, the 1996 revision of
+the performance standards provided a framework and a tight time limit
+``- no more than one year--for grantees with serious problems (called
+``deficiencies'') to solve those problems or face termination. As GAO
+indicated in its 1998 report assessing HHS oversight soon after the
+regulations, the agency moved quickly and aggressively to use this new
+authority, with 90 grantees terminated or voluntarily relinquishing
+their grants by the time of the 1998 report. The GAO report also noted
+the experience of HHS officials that the termination authority helps
+them negotiate voluntary relinquishments, which can be the quickest and
+smoothest path to a transition.
+ While I was at HHS, I found that hands-on involvement from agency
+leadership was very helpful in reinforcing the new expectations. In one
+example, I flew to Denver to speak with parents and Board members about
+the gravity of our monitoring findings, so they could make a more
+informed choice about whether the grantee should relinquish the grant
+in order to achieve better services for children. In that example, the
+grantee relinquished the grant, and a transitional grantee ensured that
+services to children continued uninterrupted while the grant was
+recompeted.
+ GAO recommends in its report an additional approach, besides
+termination and relinquishment, to ensure the replacement of grantees
+who cannot successfully serve children. The comments provided by the
+Administration on Children and Families express serious legal concerns
+about this approach, which involves changes in the recompetition of
+Head Start grants. I am not qualified to comment on the legal issues,
+but I would note that the existing approaches, termination and
+voluntary relinquishment, exercised with strong leadership and under a
+tight timetable, have in my view proved effective at raising the bar on
+program quality and compliance.
+ 3. The goal of the federal oversight strategy is good results for
+children. To achieve this goal, continuity for successful grantees is
+just as important as turnover for unsuccessful grantees. This means
+that strong technical assistance--high-quality, well-tailored to
+grantee needs, and available promptly on request--is a critical partner
+to strong monitoring in the federal oversight strategy. It also means
+that recompetition of Head Start grants should be limited to
+unsuccessful programs.
+ A very important lesson from the deliberations of the Advisory
+Committee, reinforced for me by my own research and practice
+experience, is the value to children and families of continuity over
+time in a quality Head Start program. The Advisory Committee found that
+an effective Head Start program needs to be a central community
+institution for poor families: it has to link services that vulnerable
+children need in order to learn, such as health care, mental health
+services (for example, when young children have experienced family or
+neighborhood violence), and help for parents who may be young,
+overwhelmed, and struggling to support their children. For a Head Start
+program to do a truly excellent job at linking children to needed
+services takes time, patience, and a consistent set of players in a
+community, sometimes over many years. As a result, just as constant
+staff turnover can jeopardize quality services for children, turnover
+in a program can set back quality for many years, as new players get to
+know each other and readjust their priorities. In my own research, not
+specifically focused on Head Start but on communities around the
+country that created successful partnerships to serve both parent and
+child in poor families, I found that longstanding relationships among
+people involved in the work over many years were an important
+ingredient of success.
+ Continuity also matters because the lives of poor children,
+families, and communities are unstable in so many ways that the Head
+Start program may be the one critical source of stability. From my
+experience in child welfare, where I directed an agency that serves
+abused and neglected children, I became convinced that a high quality
+Head Start or Early Head Start program can be a source of consistent
+stable relationships for babies, toddlers, and preschoolers who are
+moving around from home to foster care and back as a result of abuse or
+neglect. Given what the research tells us about the importance of
+consistent relationships to cognitive development in early childhood,
+this role is crucial.
+ Therefore, it is just as important to a successful federal
+oversight strategy to make sure strong programs continue to succeed as
+it is to make sure failing programs are replaced. As the Advisory
+Committee made clear in its very first recommendation regarding federal
+oversight, this means placing a priority on responsive, up-to-the-
+minute, technical assistance capacity easily available to local
+programs and closely linked to program and management priorities. When
+programs have strong capacity and a strong track record in serving
+children, the federal oversight responsibility must include making sure
+that a small problem doesn't grow until it threatens a program's
+continued success. And as new issues emerge across the country, the
+technical assistance system must be able to respond flexibly and
+effectively.
+ At HHS, when we revamped and invested in technical assistance in
+response to the Advisory Committee report, we learned to consider
+technical assistance early in every one of our initiatives. For
+example, in implementing the current GAO report, HHS might consider
+whether the early risk assessment strategy would have its greatest
+impact paired with rapid-response technical assistance, so a program
+could get help as soon as the risk assessment set off alarms. While I
+was at HHS, we used a variation on this strategy in the field of child
+welfare, seeking to make sure that when we implemented more rigorous
+child welfare reviews, technical assistance to address newly identified
+problems would be rapidly available.
+ 4. The federal oversight strategy needs to integrate fiscal
+accountability with program accountability at every level and stage -
+in staff training, in the design of monitoring, and in additional
+elements of the strategy such as the comprehensive risk assessment or
+the analysis of improper payments proposed by GAO. Focusing on fiscal
+accountability without also emphasizing program accountability and
+results for children can lead, in the words of GAO's 1998 report on
+Head Start monitoring to ``hold [ing] local Head Start programs
+accountable only for complying with regulations - not for demonstrating
+progress in achieving program purposes.'' \7\ Looking at the two kinds
+of accountability together, on the other hand, can lead to successful
+solutions that help programs serve children better and more
+efficiently. Local programs providing Head Start services, like all
+publicly funded human services programs serving children with complex
+needs, often face questions about how to meet child and family needs
+and yet stay within fiscal reporting and accounting requirements. For
+example, when Head Start programs collaborate with other local programs
+- such as a mental health clinic that can help children who have
+experienced violence in the home - they often face questions about what
+services they should pay for from the Head Start grant and what
+services should come out of the other agency's funding stream.
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ \7\ U.S. General Accounting Office. 1998. Head Start: Challenges in
+Monitoring Program Quality and Demonstrating Results, p. 3.
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ For these and many other questions that come up regarding fiscal
+accountability, it is important to find solutions that support program
+creativity and innovation as well as fiscal accountability. The worst
+outcome is to have different program and fiscal experts or monitoring
+reviewers provide conflicting advice. Conflicting responses create the
+kind of unfairness that GAO cites, where different programs get
+different treatment, and they also chill innovation, because many
+programs won't want to risk innovation without knowing how reviewers
+will judge it. The best outcome is for fiscal and program experts to
+work together to develop solutions to the real problems programs face.
+ Integrated training for fiscal and program reviewers is also likely
+to reduce the inconsistencies reported by GAO in assessing program
+findings and deficiencies. Among the many reasons that people interpret
+regulations differently, one is the different focus of ``compliance-
+oriented'' fiscal reviewers and ``results-oriented'' program reviewers.
+For this reason, it is especially helpful to address potential
+conflicts explicitly in advance.
+ 5. Finally, a key step in implementing the GAO recommendations will
+be a focus on federal staff in both central office and the regions:
+their training and professional development, staffing levels, and
+administrative support (such as travel resources), as well as
+strategies to make federal decision-making more consistent. These are
+difficult issues that have not been solved yet, either in Head Start or
+in most other monitoring programs, but there are promising examples to
+draw on.
+ While I was at HHS, we tried a number of approaches to these
+dilemmas - investing in federal staff despite very tight administrative
+budgets and promoting consistent decision-making - but there is much
+left to be done. One promising approach that we implemented might offer
+lessons for today's strategies, because it aimed both to use federal
+dollars more efficiently and to achieve program goals, including Head
+Start accountability. Specifically, we chose to divide the ten regions
+into five pairs, each with one larger ``hub'' region and one smaller
+region, and to design some of the Head Start monitoring strategies
+across the two paired regions. We used this approach to allocate
+resources more efficiently and to ensure that if we thought it
+appropriate, the monitoring team leader for a particular review could
+be from the region that did not directly oversee the grantee. This
+allowed the selection of a team leader who was familiar with the
+geographic area but not involved with the individual grantee.
+ In summary, a well-designed system of federal oversight for Head
+Start must
+ set the bar high, through rigorous and research-based
+standards;
+ ensure through aggressive and hands-on management that
+unsuccessful programs are promptly replaced;
+ ensure prompt and high-quality technical assistance, to
+promote continuity and steady improvement for successful programs;
+ integrate an emphasis on management with an emphasis on
+results for children, in order to support creativity, innovation, and
+fiscal responsibility; and
+ use multiple approaches to strengthen federal staff
+capacity.
+ For more than forty years, the Head Start program has played a
+critical role for the nation's most impoverished and vulnerable
+children, continuing to evolve and innovate to respond to increasingly
+complex family needs. For Head Start to continue this success into the
+future requires an equally strong, innovative, and vigorous federal
+oversight role. I appreciate the Committee's commitment to ensuring the
+continued strength of this federal role, so that Head Start can build
+on its record of making a difference to America's poorest young
+children and their families. Thank you for the opportunity to offer
+suggestions for further improvements, and I look forward to any
+questions you may have.
+ ______
+
+ Chairman Boehner. Let me thank all the witnesses for coming
+today, and your excellent testimony. The Members of this
+Committee understand pretty clearly the importance of early
+childhood development especially for low income children. And
+without this help, their chances of success in school is very,
+very limited.
+ Congress has made a big investment in Head Start over the
+years. And as we said earlier, a lot of grantees are doing a
+lot of very good work. But Dr. Horn and Dr. Golden, you have
+both been around this process for a long time. There are some
+operators out there who have done a pathetic job for a very
+long time. You probably know who they are better than I do. I
+hear about it from members. They come up to me. They have been
+fighting the problem at home for a long time, and nothing ever
+happens. Why is it it is so difficult to change grantees when
+it is obvious to virtually everyone that there is a significant
+problem? Dr. Horn, you are in the hot seat right now because
+this is your job. So I will let you begin.
+ Mr. Horn. Well, first of all, let me say from the outset
+that I believe that most Head Start programs are operating
+well, that most people who work in Head Start get up every day,
+go to work and try to do the best they can to further
+development of children who come from an economically
+disadvantaged background. So I also believe that Head Start is
+the embodiment of a very important ideal. That ideal is that
+now children should be disadvantaged by the circumstances of
+their birth in their overall education.
+ So I don't believe that trying to improve the oversight of
+the Head Start program ought to be equated as some have tried
+to equate it with an antipathy toward the program in general. I
+think it is a good program and a program that deserves our
+support. But there are problems. Some of those problems are
+internal within my agency. And some of them statutory. And to
+answer your question about replacing grantees, there is a
+problem statutorily and I know the GAO and we have a different
+opinion upon this and it may be useful for the Congress to
+settle this, because frankly we would like the opinion of the
+GAO to prevail. Would that we had more authority than we
+believe the statute provides. And here is the problem. There
+are two sections in the statute. The first is section
+641(b)(2).
+ And this section says, in part, that the secretary shall
+give priority to the designation of Head Start agencies to any
+local public or private non profit or for profit agency which
+is receiving funds under any Head Start program. Unless the
+secretary determines that it is, you know--and then it has some
+exceptions. The problem is, you have to cross reference that
+with section 646(a)(3) in the statute, which says in part that
+financial assistance under the subchapter shall not be
+terminated or reduced or an application for refunding shall not
+be denied to a grantee unless the recipient has been afforded
+reasonable notice and opportunity for a full and fair hearing.
+ Now, if you look at the requirements for notice and so
+forth, and you add them up, the minimum amount of time to
+actually defund a grantee who does not voluntary relinquish is
+240 days and that is assuming the hearing before the
+departmental appeals board occurs in 1 day.
+ Chairman Boehner. But the fact, is Mr. Wade, or Mr. Horn,
+that if you look at the period from May 1998 to 2001, the--to
+terminate a grantee, here is an example. It took 1,236 days. I
+have got another one here, another example occurred between
+February 1, 2001 and May, 03, 800 days from the start of the
+review to the date of the termination. Now why would it take
+the agency 24 long to make this determination?
+ Mr. Horn. Well, part of it has to do--we have no control
+over how long the hearing is before the appeals board. And that
+hearing can drag on for months. There are cases where it has
+dragged on for over a year. Just the hearing. And we can't
+order the DAB to come up with a decision in a shorter period of
+time. But it seems to us--I am agreeing with you. We ought to
+be able to move quicker toward termination of a grantee.
+ Chairman Boehner. All right. Dr. Golden.
+ Dr. Golden. I guess what I would highlight is that when I
+started people said to me just this, that it is too hard. And
+it turned out that in most cases it wasn't too hard. That is
+how we were able to accomplish that termination and
+relinquishment of so many grantees. And it is what we learned I
+think about what makes it possible is that you have to have--
+you have to have high quality fact gathering. You have to have
+hands-on involvement. I think that this helps to have not only
+the high standards of Head Start, those are key, but the clear
+vision about how those standards relate to the result, because
+what I found when I went and talked to parents is that parent
+boards of a grantee might initially have wanted to fight your
+conclusion that it was deficient, but once you talk to them
+about how what was going on was say the kind of fiscal problem
+that we heard from Ms. Henry and that the teachers in the
+classroom who they had such affection for really were terrific
+and were going to be able to stay, once you did that you could
+often get a relinquishment.
+ And I don't know the legal specifics of the issue that
+Assistant Secretary Horn is raising enough to know if there are
+additional things Congress could do. But the message that I
+want to leave you with is that there is a great deal you can do
+with the existing authority when you are focused on being able
+to prevent a lot of problems with technical assistance and then
+address the rest.
+ And I think the one big picture context piece I would put
+on it is that we know something about the quality of Head Start
+programs compared to the quality of other programs nationally,
+because researchers go out and look. And we know in Head Start
+not only is quality good, but it is unusually consistent
+compared to, say, State pre-K or child care, so that the
+overall, this elaborate and high standards monitoring process
+is delivering at the same time that the Committee is clearly
+absolutely right and the GAO is right, you can't have--you have
+to address the individual cases that aren't being met.
+ Chairman Boehner. Well, I appreciate your comments and your
+testimony about all the changes that were made in the 1990's.
+But here is a June 1998 study from the GAO. Challenges in
+monitoring program quality and demonstrating results. And this
+isn't new. And the two of you know that this isn't new. That is
+the part that is agitating me because--
+ Dr. Golden. The 1998. I think that is right. The 1998 study
+was very helpful to us. It highlighted how aggressively we have
+moved on terminations, but it expressed the concern--and
+relinquishments--it expressed the concern that the research
+base wasn't as strong and so that is the next step which I
+think is really key to work on.
+ Chairman Boehner. Let me ask one more question. And excuse
+me for going a little bit over. But as Mr. Miller pointed out
+in his opening statement, there are 1,796 little boxes that
+every Head Start grantee has to check off. And I have watched
+some of this occur as I have gone to Head Start centers. And
+sometimes, between what we are asking the Head Start centers to
+do in terms of--they are diligent about wanting to check those
+boxes off and the different offices that are reviewing various
+parts of the program, is there ever an opportunity, one, to
+look at the overall program itself that the grantee in terms of
+fiscal management, quality, results? That is one question.
+ And second, are we creating an environment with 1,796 boxes
+to check off that we are distracting the local grantee from
+actually accomplishing results for low income children who need
+the help?
+ I will let you start, Dr. Golden.
+ Dr. Golden. OK. I think that is a great question because I
+think the key issue for the Committee and for anyone managing
+the program is that on the one hand, we know from the research,
+we have studied how programs that do a good job at the
+standards do for results for kids compared to programs that do
+a less good job, and so we know that high standards really
+matter and that carrying out the high standards really matters.
+ At the same time, I think you are absolutely right that you
+want to be looking at those standards in a way that is focused
+on results not a way that is picky about details. And so one of
+the things that I think is important about the way the
+regulations now talk about deficiencies is that those are meant
+to be not just about counting up the boxes, but if you are
+going to go into this really serious program improvement
+process you have to step back and you have to say this is
+serious. This is something that is getting in the way of the
+program's success. So my own view would be that high standards
+really matter, and we know that from the research; that in
+enforcing those high standards you have to keep your eye on the
+big picture, do a lot of training and technical assistance, and
+that as the Committee moves forward, that is one of the reasons
+that I recommended thinking about fiscal and program issues
+together in carrying out GAO's recommendations because you are
+absolutely right. You don't want to be pulling people in
+multiple directions. You want them kept focused on the big
+picture.
+ Chairman Boehner. Dr. Horn.
+ Mr. Horn. I think one of the strengths of the Head Start
+program is its focus on local control and the ability of local
+programs to design a program that meets local community needs;
+and there is a tension between preserving that local control
+and that local flexibility and the degree of Federal oversight
+that we want.
+ I think that there are two things that the Federal
+Government ought to do when it comes to oversight of the local
+programs while preserving the ability of the local programs to
+be flexible to meet local community needs:
+ First, we ought to make sure, at a minimum, that money that
+you here in Congress appropriate for Head Start is used for
+Head Start purposes, No. 1, and is being used to the maximum
+extent possible to deliver quality services to kids, not to
+provide outrageous salaries to some executives.
+ The second thing we ought to do, and I agree with Dr.
+Golden, is to focus on results. If all of our monitoring is
+focused on process and we lose sight of results, then the
+monitoring isn't really very useful. We need to find a way to
+ensure that as we are monitoring these programs, that at the
+end of the day what we really care about is not whether certain
+processes and procedures were followed to the T, but the kids
+are actually developing well as a consequence of those
+programs.
+ Chairman Boehner. The gentleman recognizes the gentleman
+from California, the Ranking Democrat, Mr. Miller.
+ Mr. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me see if I am
+hearing some of this correctly, Dr. Golden and Secretary Horn;
+we have 1,600 grantees roughly, is that correct?
+ Mr. Horn. Yes.
+ Mr. Miller. You say as a result of the high standards in
+effect, the program is delivering what we expect it to do on
+behalf of these children. And I think, Mr. Horn, in a different
+way you arrived at the same conclusion. Overall, the program is
+in fact delivering the kinds of services that we in the
+Congress and other people expect from the Head Start program;
+is that a fair assessment?
+ Mr. Horn. I think most programs are doing a good job.
+ Mr. Miller. And I think that would be probably our
+experience. There are obviously some cases when it goes wrong,
+it seems to go wrong in a rather dramatic and even criminal
+fashion. But when I look at the GAO report, it seems to me that
+there is a lot of failure to comply with these regulations or
+with what would be good fiscal management in some cases, or in
+some cases there is programmatic failure to comply; you are not
+doing right by the children.
+ But it seems--what I see in this report is you are cited,
+so to speak; you are told that this is the deficiency and you
+are told to correct it, and then there is this heavy reliance
+on self-certification. And it would seem that the average
+grantee could think that these people are never coming back,
+because not only may it take a long time to relinquish one, it
+looks like it is a long time before you get back to find out if
+in fact it was corrected, or, even as you go into the next
+cycle, you find out--the very same problem sitting there
+staring you in the face.
+ Is that a fair assumption of what GAO is telling us?
+ Ms. Shaul. Yes.
+ Mr. Miller. Pretty sloppy layman's language.
+ Ms. Shaul. There were a variety of noncompliances, from
+grantees that might have only one, all the way through to
+grantees who are deficient. I think when you have a grantee
+with a very low number of noncompliances, probably on their
+self-certification, could be affected, because it is a fairly
+small issue. But when you begin looking at grantees who have
+multiple citations of noncompliance, or who are deemed
+deficient, of course that wouldn't be appropriate. Deficient
+grantees can't self-certify. They have to have a quality
+improvement plan.
+ Mr. Miller. What part of the universe are those people
+where this is serious?
+ Ms. Shaul. In the 2000 data we reviewed, of all the
+grantees about 13 percent were deficient grantees. And in that
+group that we said had at least one noncompliance, it was 17
+percent of that group.
+ Mr. Miller. This is a theory. This is a manageable
+caseload. If you want to provide technical assistance, if you
+want to provide follow-up, if you want to make sure these
+things are corrected and people are coming into compliance,
+this is I think manageable, Secretary Horn, is it not?
+ Mr. Horn. Yeah, I do. However, I don't think it is
+manageable with the old practices and procedures that we had in
+place. And that is one of the reasons we have restructured the
+way that we deliver training and technical assistance to local
+Head Start grantees. In the past, there was sort of an
+overreliance, in my judgment, on going to conferences and being
+trained at conferences. There is a certain efficiency at
+training at conferences, but not an effective way of changing
+behavior.
+ What we are interested in doing with the new training and
+technical assistance network is to do much more training and
+technical assistance onsite at the local Head Start program,
+and not just with in-services, but with experts that come in
+and provide mentoring and guided practice and come back again
+and again to make sure that appropriate changes have taken
+place.
+ Mr. Miller. That extends to compliance and with program
+regulations?
+ Mr. Horn. I agree completely that we have relied too much
+in the past on self-certifications, and we issued guidance
+recently to all the regional offices that said we are no longer
+going to allow self-certification--certainly not for deficient
+grantees--but, rather, they are going to have to travel to the
+local programs to make sure they are fixed.
+ Mr. Miller. In terms of flexibility, you talked about what
+happened in 93 with terminations and relinquishments. Those
+were two: You either terminate in an adversarial process or you
+show them the wisdom of their ways and you get a
+relinquishment.
+ And there is also this question as to whether or not you
+can deprioritize a grantee, which would then allow competition.
+Is that a cumbersome process?
+ Dr. Golden. I think you have heard that there is some
+disagreement between GAO and the Assistant Secretary about what
+is legally possible under the current statute, which I am not
+expert on. We didn't need to go to that strategy, but used the
+other strategies that involved termination.
+ Mr. Miller. Dr. Shaul, when I read your discussion on page
+16 of the denial of the priority--and you make the point, which
+I think is an important one, that denying the priority status
+to a grantee who has been part of the community for years and
+has educated multiple generations, this is a serious decision.
+And one of the things we like in this community is having some
+continuity. We don't want to change a grantee or vendor every
+year. I don't think that is helpful. But it seems to me you are
+suggesting that can be done without a lot of hassle. If you
+find that they have consistent nonperformance you can
+deprioritize them, or the Secretary can.
+ Ms. Shaul. Our understanding of the law, Congressman, is
+that if the Secretary says that a program is failing program or
+financial standards, that that program does not continue to
+have priority, and therefore the agency could recompete.
+ Mr. Horn. If that is the case, I would love the Congress to
+clarify it, because our lawyers says that is not the case.
+ Mr. Miller. Have you tried to do it?
+ Mr. Horn. Our lawyers tell us that the statute requires
+that you cannot deny--you cannot either terminate funding or
+deny a funding application until the grantee has had an
+opportunity for a full and fair appeal, if they choose to
+appeal, which is the reason why we too try to move to voluntary
+relinquishments. The average number of relinquishments and
+terminations under the Clinton administration was 16 per year
+and under the Bush administration is 13 per year. We are not
+talking about a huge difference. But we do rely upon voluntary
+relinquishments, as the Clinton administration, precisely
+because it is very difficult for us to move to termination,
+given the statutory requirement that we cannot in fact deny
+refunding to a grantee until the appeals process has played its
+course.
+ Mr. Miller. If I could have Dr. Shaul respond on that
+point. When I read this, it sounds like this is all doable.
+Your attorneys have the same caveat?
+ Ms. Shaul. Our attorneys looked at one case where there was
+a decision made that allowed the agency to select a grantee
+who--to deny priority to a grantee that applied to take on an
+expansion grant. And we used that as the basis for saying if
+they could deny it in that case because one of the delegate
+agencies was deficient, that that would--we thought that that
+would apply in other circumstances as well. That is the case we
+cite in our report.
+ Mr. Miller. Mr. Chairman, I have had a number of problems
+in my area, more on the programmatic side than on fiscal side.
+And I don't know, it seems to me if you ride them pretty hard,
+you could get the changes; whether it is in people running the
+program, seems to me you could bring these programs into shape.
+And the ones that are in the newspaper with the travel and the
+purchases and the credit cards, I don't know why somebody
+didn't just call the cops. This behavior went way out of
+bounds. This isn't about compliance, this is about criminal
+intent. And I don't know why the board--I don't know if we can
+bring judgment into play here, but somebody failed to pick up
+the phone and call the district attorney and say someone is
+absconding with the funds. This is beyond this at the moment,
+but there is another failure going on here.
+ Mr. Castle. [Presiding] Thank you, Mr. Miller. I yield
+myself 5 minutes for questioning.
+ I would like to follow up on that line. How those things
+happened and were never detected I don't know, regardless of
+whether they should have happened or not. But let me try to get
+a bigger picture, because I am having trouble with this hearing
+because I did spend some time reading the report and marking
+up--my staff did as well. I think this was a pretty damning
+report and I didn't look at this as having a lot of positives.
+ And I am pleased, Secretary Horn, things are happening as a
+result of it, but what happened before didn't make me real
+happy. Maybe I am wrong. Everybody is sort of making nicer than
+what I would have, based on what I read at this hearing.
+ Dr. Shaul, if you could help me, your title is Director of
+Education, Workforce, and Income Security issues. How many of
+these types of reports have you been involved with in your
+career at GAO--not Head Start--but reports where you were
+either the head person or key person putting it together? A
+dozen, 100 or--
+ Ms. Shaul. Probably more than 50, less than 100.
+ Mr. Castle. How does this rank in terms of what you stated
+in here in a general sense? I read this and I didn't read a lot
+of positive in here. I read, to me, that we have government
+problems. We have problems with these agencies as well that
+have done the things that Mr. Miller referred to. But it seems
+to me that we are not carrying out our responsibilities, and
+maybe even at the congressional level not carrying out our
+responsibilities the way we should have here in recent years.
+Am I misreading that, or are you saying you are just pointing
+out the problems but there are a lot of good things as well?
+What is going on here?
+ Ms. Shaul. Our report, Congressman, was designed in part to
+look at the processes in place for oversight and then what
+happened when problems were found. And I think basically what
+we are saying is there are enough processes in place. In our
+chart you can see there are many, many. But we didn't believe
+that the agency really pulled the information together
+effectively so it could do a real risk assessment, so it could
+really target its resources.
+ Mr. Castle. Stop right there. In my view, that is the real
+problem. And in following up on what Mr. Boehner said, that
+questionnaire of 1800 things that they have to mark up, there
+is a heck of a lot of information flow, but are we handling the
+management of that information? Is that really at the crux of
+this problem, so that we are not doing the proper supervision
+and administration of these programs--because they complain
+about it as well-- and, you know--and maybe they are right--the
+Head Start programs?
+ Ms. Shaul. I think there are two issues. Our report wasn't
+really commenting on the overall quality of the Head Start
+program. We know it is a popular program. What we were focusing
+on was the oversight of the program by the Department could be
+improved by bringing together information in a much more
+effective fashion, and, as I said, targeting the resources.
+ Mr. Castle. Let me talk about the information again. I
+mean, one of the complaints I have heard about is that the Head
+Start agency--there are those forms, I don't know if they are
+self-inspection or what they are, they are voluminous,
+literally in the many hundreds and couple thousands, and
+information is derived from that. There is information which is
+derived from the various reviews which are done here. Is there
+a better way of approaching this?
+ Without criticizing that--and maybe I should open this up
+to Secretary Horn and Dr. Golden as well--but are there ways on
+improving this? I don't think there isn't anybody here on
+either side of the aisle that doesn't want to make Head Start
+the best program we can. We all like and admire this program as
+well. And we had trouble with this legislation last year and we
+would like to pass legislation this year, but we want to
+effectively monitor this without having these groups spending
+all their lives without having to fill out forms. And my
+impression is there is a lot of information flow without much
+coming from it which is really beneficial. And as a result, we
+don't know where the programs are. We don't seem to be able to
+terminate the programs, and there are some serious and
+incredible flaws in at least a dozen, two dozen, programs that
+seems to me that somebody should have caught. Why isn't all
+this happening? Does anybody want to help me with that?
+ Dr. Golden. I was going to comment on the more general
+information flow question, and the question is where does the
+information for monitoring go? And I do want to note, because
+there is a lot of research around Head Start, it is possible
+for us to know some things that we don't know about how the
+programs work and what is out there. One of the things we know
+is that when researchers go in and observe programs, even
+though Head Start is spread out all across the country, they
+find consistent good quality. They find very few classrooms
+that are of low quality compared to when they look at, say,
+pre-K or child care settings, which are more varied and of
+lesser quality.
+ So what I would take from that--even though I think you are
+absolutely right that there is an enormous amount of
+information and some of it doesn't get used well--that,
+clearly, gathering this information in a lot of areas is having
+an effect in terms of consistency, and that is because of the
+work the Committee has done to make sure that there is rigor.
+ The way I read the GAO report was that it provided very
+important recommendations for a particular set of programs, for
+both pulling together fiscal information for a particular set
+of programs that could build on the capacities you already
+found there and that needed to be pulled together.
+ Mr. Castle. I would like to hear from Secretary Horn as
+well. You are basically saying that that information flow, you
+think, helps give them parameters in terms of what they are
+doing, and therefore we have a consistent, reasonably high
+quality of programs at Head Start?
+ Mr. Horn. I want to agree there are high-quality programs
+at Head Start. I think most of the programs are delivering
+quality services to the kids, and that is borne out by some of
+our survey studies, particularly through the FASA survey. But I
+agree we have not made maximum use of the information that is
+available to us, and we need to do a better job.
+ We--for example, it is astounding to me as it is to you
+that we can have Head Start directors making $200,000-plus and
+not have somebody question that in a refunding application and
+to ask for the comparability study which is required by our
+regulations to show that that salary is in line with other
+executive directors in similar situated nonprofits in that
+community.
+ The fact that the Head Start programs are required to
+provide us every 6 months with a history of their drawdowns and
+expenditures, not in detail, and that those are not being
+reconciled on a regular basis in the regional offices; we need
+to do a better job, because if you start to see over time a
+grantee which is--whose expenditures are going up at a
+precipitous level or who are drawing down too early in their
+grant period, that should be a red flag to us to go out to the
+program and ask what is going on.
+ I think most programs get themselves in trouble not because
+they wake up and say, gee, what can I do that is illegal or
+fraudulent today; I think a lot of programs get themselves in
+trouble because they don't know better. They find themselves in
+a situation where they have overspent their grants and don't
+know how to deal with it. And we have to do a better job
+working with the local Head Start programs and making sure they
+don't get into those kinds of trouble.
+ The best system in the world is not going to be able to
+detect immediately every instance in which someone submits
+fraudulent data to us, but we can do a better job with the
+information we have available to us, and we are committed to
+doing so.
+ Ms. Shaul. If I could just add one thing to support this.
+One of the noncompliance areas has to do with program
+governance, and that is really the place where the day-to-day
+oversight of the agency occurs, not through the Federal
+oversight, which is a more systematic and systemic kind of
+approach.
+ Mr. Castle. You mean a local board of directors is running
+that?
+ Ms. Shaul. The importance of the local board of directors.
+We all know in other venues, the importance of boards in
+providing some oversight. So the local boards are extremely
+important.
+ Mr. Castle. Maybe we can make Sarbanes-Oxley applicable to
+them. That would take care of that problem. That is a joke.
+ I recognize Mr. Kildee for 5 minutes.
+ Mr. Kildee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the
+hearing today.
+ I know you are concerned about prolonged appeals and you
+listen to your attorneys. I can understand that. But I can
+recall Secretary Shalala probably didn't listen to her
+attorneys. I remember in 1 year she got rid of 100 grantees
+under the same law. Maybe she had different attorneys. But I
+would think that you might want to change your attorneys. I
+have done that a few times, too.
+ Either these grantees relinquished their funds or she
+pushed them out. A little more aggressive action for those who
+aren't really functioning well might be warranted. You might
+look into that and consult your attorneys.
+ Dr. Golden, it is good to have you before this Committee. I
+have memories of your testimony before this Committee from
+years past. Should good programs be required to recompete? And,
+if not, how should we determine which ones should recompete?
+ Dr. Golden. Thank you for asking that, Congressman, because
+one of the points I made in my testimony is that we need to be
+able to have turnover when programs don't succeed; but when
+programs are good, we need to have continuity. And the
+different several sources of evidence I think suggests that
+that is what works for children.
+ That bipartisan advisory committee I mentioned did some
+looking into what it takes to build community connections to
+serve children well, and they concluded you needed continuity.
+My own research has suggested the same thing. And when I was in
+the district working on child welfare and working with kids, as
+you heard from Ms. Henry, kids who have been abused and
+neglected and have lots of instability in their lives, having
+that Head Start program as a source of stability was really
+important. It was a place you could build continuity. My own
+view would be that good programs should not be recompeted. You
+should not be adding a source of instability.
+ In terms of which programs, I guess my own view is that the
+structure we had around deficiencies where you are looking at
+programs that seriously can achieve the goals of the program
+and can't fix it is a pretty good framework. We may need to
+fine-tune that in some way. But right now, what we have at the
+Federal level is the ability to say once we pull together the
+information, this is a program that has a serious problem, we
+are going to give them a very short amount of time to fix it;
+and, if not, they are not doing a service to children.
+ Mr. Kildee. I appreciate your response, Dr. Golden.
+ It has been proposed that the Head Start program be block
+granted. Some don't like to use that term, but we all know it
+is a block grant. I have been in Congress 29 years and I can
+smell a block grant a mile away. So it is a block grant. Would
+this help or hurt Head Start, especially in the area of
+accountability?
+ Dr. Golden. Let me not use the word ``block grants,'' and
+that sounds as though it is under dispute, and talk about what
+I think the research says about what works for kids. I think
+that the research on early childhood says that high standards,
+like the high Federal performance standards and consistent
+enforcement, consistent quality, are what is key. And I think
+we know from a variety of sources that the way you get
+consistent quality is through the Federal monitoring and
+enforcement.
+ So some of the kinds of research that I turn to to draw
+that conclusion, the reviews of the quality of Head Start
+programs through observation compared to--for example, there is
+a recent study that compares that to observation of State early
+childhood programs and finds the Head Start programs higher
+quality. When you look at State capacity to do monitoring or
+quality enforcement in child care and pre-K, what you find is
+enormous inconsistency; and, in child care, a very great
+difficulty with having high standards to start with.
+ I learned some more about this with the research I am doing
+now at the Urban Institute where we are looking at State
+programs, programs for low-income children more broadly. One of
+the things you see is that when there is devolution, when
+States are asked to take responsibility for programs for low-
+income kids, State budgets are so hit hard by the recession, by
+the ups and downs, that they get hit by the State budget crunch
+at the very same moment that there are more poor children that
+need help, so it doesn't work as a way to get consistent high
+standards.
+ I think what I would say is what it takes to deliver on the
+goals of Head Start, on the school readiness, on the learning,
+on the results, is consistent, high standards, the Federal
+performance standards in force through an effective Federal
+monitoring structure.
+ Mr. Kildee. Thank you very much.
+ Chairman Boehner. [Presiding] The Chair recognizes the
+gentleman from Minnesota, Mr. Kline.
+ Mr. Kline. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and you all for being
+here today.
+ I would like to pick up on the notion that Mr. Miller
+raised earlier when he was asking about the universe and the
+scope. We see--we have the anecdotal evidence here clearly that
+there has been abuse. We have the stories of directors making
+$200,000-plus salaries. And I am looking at the report, Dr.
+Shaul, and there is a number in here on page 2 in the summary.
+I would like you to think I got past the summary, but let me
+refer to the summary. It says this is a concern because ACF's
+data shows that more than 76 percent of Head Start programs
+that were reviewed in 2000 were out of compliance with
+financial management standards.
+ And in response to Mr. Miller, when he asked about the
+universe, I think you said there was a 13 percent number and 70
+percent of 13. Could you take a minute and sort out the
+percents here, to the end where how big is the problem?
+ Ms. Shaul. In terms of serious problems, Congressman, those
+would be grantees who are deemed deficient in the 2000 year
+sample that we looked at of all those grantees that we reviewed
+that year, 13 percent of those grantees were deficient. Now, if
+I move to the pool that we said had at least one noncompliance,
+the 76 percent--17 percent of that group, since it is a smaller
+portion of the grantees--17 percent of that group were
+deficient. Those are the most serious.
+ I would want to make one point on the record here too, is
+that we did make a recommendation that the agency look at
+developing a clear definition that both it and the grantees
+know what is deficient, since we found that there were some
+inconsistencies and deficiency determinations.
+ Now, to go back to your question about how serious. When we
+came to that 76 percent, we looked at one noncompliance in any
+one of three areas which we considered important to financial
+management. And so there was a wide range of problems at
+grantees, from grantees who might have had only one
+noncompliance to grantees who might have had dozens of
+noncompliances. So there is a big range from the first grantee
+who is cited with the noncompliance all the way through to
+grantees who were deficient.
+ Mr. Kline. Could you help me a little more and sort of--and
+to get out of the sort of deficient one point, many points and
+so forth, could we look at the Head Start program that grantees
+out there, how many--what percentage of the total universe of
+Head Start grantees are in your judgment--and I am certainly
+willing to take subjective here--are in trouble; just don't--
+absolutely do not know what they are doing and therefore are in
+major noncompliance or perhaps occasionally on purpose
+noncompliant? Of all those programs out there, how many should
+we be worried about?
+ Ms. Shaul. Congressman, our review is limited to the
+financial aspect. If you are asking for the program as a whole
+in any given year, HHS reports something around 15 percent or
+fewer of its grantees are deemed deficient.
+ Mr. Kline. And financially, when you cut through the 13 or
+16 of 76, what is that number?
+ Ms. Shaul. The number would be slightly lower, because HHS
+makes its determination about deficiencies looking across the
+program standards, not just the financial ones.
+ Mr. Kline. That does help me understand the scope. And I am
+getting ready to yield back, but I am going to express my
+concerns. We have a 1998 report and a 2005 report indicating
+that there are difficulties. And so I think, Mr. Secretary, you
+can see where there is some frustration on our part that we
+don't seem to be making the progress that we ought to be.
+ Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
+ Chairman Boehner. Chair recognizes the gentlelady from
+California, Ms. Woolsey.
+ Ms. Woolsey. I have three comments and two questions.
+ The comments. First of all, when we are talking about
+appeals and hearings, I would like to remind everybody in this
+room that this is still America and we do have a process for
+appealing for what we don't think is right. Second, I would
+like to say where there is a will, there is a way. And I think
+that this report has laid this out for us. We can, if we want,
+take this report and make it punitive to the Head Start
+directors and the Head Start program in general, or we can use
+it to learn and to help and to prevent future problems. And
+that depends on what this Congress wants to do with the report.
+Third, don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Most of
+the programs are doing a good job, and every single person up
+there has said that. So the idea that we would recompete every
+year with every program would be absolutely wasteful and
+inefficient; it would punish the good programs for the problems
+of just a few. And I don't think we should be writing law based
+on a few bad apples. There will always be a few bad apples. Let
+us prevent those bad apples from being part of our programs.
+ Mr. Horn, you mentioned salaries at least three times, so
+that must be a problem you see with Head Start programs. And
+from what I can tell, there are some outrageously high salaries
+and/or benefits with a few program directors, from what I can
+tell. But the average salary of a director is under $57,000 a
+year. Do you think that is excessive, one?
+ And two, given that HHS approves the budgets of these
+programs, who approved those excessive salaries?
+ Mr. Horn. Well, first of all, it is not just me who worries
+about excessive salaries. Apparently the Congress does too,
+because they put the salary cap on Head Start staff in last
+year's Labor-HHS appropriations bill. I am not against people
+making money. The real tragedy in my view is somebody making
+$150,000 as a Head Start director. It is not that they are
+making $150,000; the real tragedy is if they are still paying
+their teachers about 6 or 7 bucks an hour. When you think about
+salaries in Head Start, it is not just looking at the top
+salaries, you have to look at the salary structure.
+ Ms. Woolsey. I am asking about the $56,670.
+ Mr. Horn. I think most directors of most Head Start
+programs have salaries that are reasonable and have a
+reasonable salary structure, but that doesn't mean that we
+ought not to identify those who are paying themselves.
+ Ms. Woolsey. Why weren't they identified when the detailed
+budgets were before HHS each year?
+ Mr. Horn. Very good question. And we have issued guidance
+to our regional offices that they require and ask for and
+receive information on the salaries of not only--of the
+salaries of the directors and the top executive staff, but of
+their teachers as well; because I think it is very important
+that we take a comprehensive view every single time there is a
+refunding application that looks at the complete salary
+structure, because, as I said, it is not just looking at the
+director's salary that has me bothered. But what bothers me is
+when someone is making a high salary and paying their teachers
+6 or 7 bucks an hour.
+ Ms. Woolsey. What is the average salary of the director of
+the HHS program, or your program, of the director of the
+assessors or the fact finders? What is the average salary of
+the fact finders in your Department who are going to training
+and technical assistance?
+ Mr. Horn. I don't have that information.
+ Ms. Woolsey. I bet it is a lot higher than a lot of these.
+We should look at that. I mean apples and apples.
+ Mr. Horn. My salary is substantially below the cap that the
+U.S. Congress put on Head Start directors last year.
+ Ms. Woolsey. Well, OK.
+ Dr. Shaul, I have a question. You said something about
+there being a relatively small number of grantees that were
+seriously deficient and not closed. How many of those actually
+improved so they didn't have to close? Was there any way to
+know that?
+ Ms. Shaul. Congresswoman, we did not look at that, but I am
+sure one could tell the answer to that question by going back
+to the HHS data.
+ Ms. Woolsey. But it could be.
+ Ms. Shaul. We could certainly do that. And certainly other
+grantees who are deemed deficient, only a portion of those have
+had their grants terminated or they have been relinquished. One
+could presume that they have gotten the technical assistance
+they needed to improve.
+ Ms. Woolsey. I have one last thing to say and that is to
+Ms. Henry. Good witness down there. And what you have to know,
+don't ever be intimidated by us. You are sitting there, and you
+are the teacher and we are the students. You know way more than
+we do.
+ Chairman Boehner. The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from
+Virginia, Ms. Foxx.
+ Ms. Foxx. North Carolina.
+ Chairman Boehner. I was looking at the gentlelady from
+Virginia, Ms. Drake. But, Ms. Foxx, you are recognized.
+ Ms. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
+ Ms. Henry, I would like to thank you for being here, too
+and thank you for what you do. We appreciate you very, very
+much and thank you for what you do.
+ I would like to make a brief comment and then ask Dr. Horn
+a question. Dr. Horn, I was on the original board of the Smart
+Start program in North Carolina when it was formed about 1995.
+And that program was designed to give maximum flexibility to
+local programs in North Carolina, but it is State-funded
+primarily.
+ I have always had a little bit of experience of program
+evaluation over the years in my role as a university
+administrator and community college president, so I know a
+little bit about program evaluation. Smart Start, where we
+funded 12 programs, and then 12 more, and then 12 more, and
+then we had one or two programs that really had problems, and
+we almost could know that from the very beginning that they
+were going to have problems. We could tell that from the
+criteria that had been established, and yet we funded them
+because we were trying to do one per congressional district.
+When we abused the system to make it fit, we created problems.
+But over time, we had few people who really abused the system
+and misused funds. And part of that is because there was not a
+consistent accounting program established and there was not
+consistent evaluation of the programs done at the State level.
+And what wound up happening was there were both sins of
+omission as well as sins of commission that occurred.
+ What is wrong with the Federal Government establishing
+oversight that would establish minimum sort of requirements for
+evaluation, minimum requirements for accounting standards and
+those kinds of things? In fact, I am not very much involved
+with Smart Start anymore, but my understanding is they have
+installed a statewide accounting program so that people can--so
+apples and apples can be compared.
+ What is wrong with the Federal Government establishing a
+mechanism for gathering information and evaluating at the
+Federal level, and yet leaving capability for local control,
+which you said is a very difficult balance to strike? And has
+anybody attempted to do that?
+ Mr. Horn. Well, two things. First of all, there are
+certainly consistent ways that the Federal Government asks for
+information from the local programs. I think you are suggesting
+a step further than that, which is that the Federal Government
+should say precisely what accounting package they use and so
+forth. That is sort of left up to local grantees in the Head
+Start program. But there are consistent methods for us to ask
+for information that they have to generate for us.
+ I think the difficulty that GAO pointed out is that we
+don't always use that information to its maximum potential. But
+it is precisely on this point of consistency that we
+implemented the National Reporting System in Head Start,
+because prior to the National Reporting System, every grantee
+could determine for themselves how they were going to measure
+outcomes.
+ And as someone who has a history in program evaluation, I
+realize that as a Federal program manager, if people are
+measuring what they think is the same thing but in different
+ways, you can't compare them. Even worse, if you don't know
+they are measuring them in different ways, you compare them
+anyway, and then you have no idea whether your interpretations
+are correct.
+ So is there anything wrong with the Federal Government, in
+appropriate areas, standardizing the way people collect
+information or report information? Absolutely not.
+ Ms. Foxx. Follow-up, if I could, for Dr. Shaul and you too.
+ Did we see consistent problems or is there a thread that
+runs through? I know, again from having operated a Federal
+program one time in my life, grantees get together and share
+information, talk about what works, what doesn't work. Did you
+see regional problems where people are sharing bad information
+or how to get around the system? Are there regional issues,
+State issues? Are there just programs stuck out there all by
+themselves? Is there any kind of pattern to the problems that
+you saw?
+ Ms. Shaul. We did an analysis of which of the Federal
+standards and regulations were the ones that were most commonly
+a problem for grantees, and the ones that came up most often
+were in the program governance area, particularly things like
+the ability of the agency to generate reports that could
+provide information to its policy boards, its parents, and to
+the staff so they could know what was going on in program
+management and operation. So that was a fairly common thread.
+ Also there was an issue that came up fairly regularly about
+difficulties in establishing practices between the policy
+boards and the governing boards about how they would share
+program responsibility, which sometimes meant that agencies
+were not in touch with what the community wanted them to do.
+Those are two areas.
+ One thing I might add to the question you raised earlier,
+too, I think probably all of the Head Start programs or the
+entities within which they are housed are subject to the Single
+Audit Act, so there is that uniformity across the agencies.
+However, as Dr. Horn pointed out, that information isn't always
+used.
+ Chairman Boehner. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from
+Texas, Mr. Hinojosa.
+ Mr. Hinojosa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I also want to thank
+the panelists for your presentation and coming to visit with us
+this afternoon.
+ My first question is to Dr. Horn. Dr. Horn, in your
+testimony, you highlight some of the administration's
+recommendations for this reauthorization of Head Start.
+Specifically, you ask for more discretion to use funds in the
+most effective manner, and that sounds good.
+ I am concerned that the track record at HHS does not
+warrant increased discretion. Let me tell you why. Currently,
+13 percent of Head Start funding, which equals $897 million, is
+set aside for the Secretary of HHS to carry out a list of
+activities, including funding migrant and seasonal Head Start
+Training and Technical Assistance, quality assurance, and
+several other activities. Clearly, one of the messages we take
+away from the report that we have been discussing is that there
+is a need for Training and Technical Assistance and greater
+oversight. Furthermore, despite HHS studies showing that
+Migrant and Seasonal Head Start is reaching a measly 19 percent
+of the eligible population, and appropriations language
+directing the Secretary to develop a plan to serve more migrant
+children, the Secretary has not used his discretion to close
+the access gap for migrant children. In the 9 years I have been
+in Congress, this has been one of my biggest concerns, and I
+don't see it happening.
+ Please break down for me the $897 million in big
+categories, how it is being spent by HHS.
+ Mr. Horn. I would be pleased to present that and give that
+to you for the record. I don't have those numbers in front of
+me right now, but let me respond to the 19 percent figure.
+ When it comes to the migrant program, the denominator is
+all children zero to five. When it comes to enrollment of
+children in Head Start, the denominator is 3- and 4-year-olds.
+You are going to get a smaller percentage because your
+denominator is over 5 years, zero to five, and there are more
+kids. Whereas in the Head Start program, the denominator is 2
+years of kids, 3- and 4-year-olds. What we have to start to do
+is look at apples and apples and not apples and oranges when it
+compares to the enrollment of children in those two programs.
+ The other thing I would say is that we have made a very
+special effort in the last 3 years in this administration to
+enroll Hispanic children in the regular Head Start program. We
+distributed, as far as I know for the very first time, Spanish
+language television and radio PSAs specifically targeting
+Hispanic and Latino families to encourage them to enroll in
+Head Start. We have been working with chronically under-
+enrolled Head Start programs who--one of the reasons they are
+often under-enrolled is they aren't very effective at reaching
+out to Hispanic and Latino families. We are working with them
+to do that. We held the first-ever Hispanic Institute for Head
+Start just a month or so ago. And in fact, the result of that
+is that we now serve a greater number of Hispanic and Latino
+children in Head Start than we do any other subgroup.
+Historically, that that has not been the case. Historically,
+the largest subgroup that we serve is African American
+children. And this year is the first time that we are seeing
+the plurality of children are actually of Hispanic and Latino
+descent.
+ Mr. Hinojosa. Your response is one that is very
+bureaucratic, and I am not going to accept that because we are
+dealing with the total number from zero to five, and that the
+Head Start children are just for the 2 years, that this 19
+percent of the eligible population of those children from the
+migrant and seasonal workers is OK.
+ I have said it is not OK 9 years ago, and I don't see you
+or anyone changing the numbers in a way that we compare apples
+to apples and we get the number to at least 50 percent of the
+eligible children.
+ That you are bringing up some Spanish language and Spanish
+written material, I accept that. I have seen the improvement in
+some of the materials that are coming to our children. My
+problem, my concern, is that we don't reach 50 percent instead
+of the numbers that we have gotten for the 9 years I have been
+in Congress. If you want to compare apples to apples, do it. Do
+it so we can have something that we can really measure the
+outreach of. And I would love to see the report that gives me
+the answer to my question, how you are using the $900 million
+of that 13 percent of Head Start funding.
+ With that, Mr. Chairman, I return the balance of my time.
+ Chairman Boehner. The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from
+Virginia, Ms. Drake.
+ Mrs. Drake. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
+ First of all, I would like to thank you all for being here.
+Your testimony has raised a lot of questions in my mind. I
+think you can hear tremendous support for Head Start. We
+realize the value of it and realize the value of continuing
+very good programs. But I think after a program has been in
+place for 40 years and we hear the kind of abuses that we are
+hearing about, it is very upsetting to think that we haven't
+determined a better way to monitor this program.
+ And I would like to know from you, Mr. Horn, these cases
+that we read about in the cities that were cited, are these
+programs that you were already investigating or maybe they were
+in an appeal process? Or were they new to you when the press
+reported some of these abuses with credit cards, vehicles,
+salaries?
+ Mr. Horn. I think it is quite variable. In some cases we
+were involved, and in some cases the inspector general's office
+was involved, and in other cases we were not.
+ Mrs. Drake. When they file these reports with the 1700-and-
+some boxes with the information that you want, does somebody
+actually review that information; or are there certain
+components that they look at based on are they self-certifying,
+or are they ones you need to look more closely?
+ Mr. Horn. Are you referring to the PRISM review information
+or the program information report?
+ Mrs. Drake. You mentioned that they have to file a report,
+but there seems to be no consequences from that report.
+ Mr. Horn. Well, we have implemented a policy that says that
+except in--that the exception shall be, if there are instances
+of noncompliance, the exception shall be self-certification as
+opposed to the acceptable means of dealing with noncompliances;
+that noncompliances in the future, except for when we are
+talking about relatively noncompliances, shall be certified by
+a visit directly to the Head Start grantee.
+ I think that is going to go to a long way to ensuring that
+the kind of situation that the GAO talked about between 2000
+and 2002 doesn't occur; that we actually show that changes have
+been made.
+ Mrs. Drake. I think one of the questions I had as well is,
+are these people that are so blatantly abusing the program--and
+I think we are very angry about that, because those are
+children we aren't serving--are they providing you fraudulent
+data on those forms, or are they coming right out and telling
+you this?
+ Mr. Horn. I doubt the ones that are using the money to
+support their private restaurant business are reporting that to
+us on that form. Let me clarify one thing. It is perfectly
+possible for someone to have inadequate fiscal controls and
+still provide a quality environment in the classroom for
+children.
+ Mrs. Drake. If they are spending money on their restaurant
+or their vehicle--
+ Mr. Horn. That is not an excuse for fiscal mismanagement.
+Some are suggesting that, gee, because we have data that shows
+that classroom quality is high in most Head Start classrooms,
+that therefore that is a reflection of good fiscal management.
+Well, not necessarily. You could have very poor fiscal
+mismanagement, have someone paying themselves an exorbitant
+salary, and yet have reasonable good quality in the classroom
+itself.
+ But your point is exactly correct. The reason it is so
+important for us to do a better job of fiscal oversight is
+because every dollar wasted is a dollar that is not going to
+services for kids. That is the real tragedy here. When somebody
+is being given a Mercedes SUV as part of their compensation
+package, that is money not going to kids. And that is why we
+need to do a better job.
+ Mrs. Drake. Is it true that you have to fund the cost of
+that program's appeal?
+ Mr. Horn. Yes.
+ Mrs. Drake. Why wouldn't people appeal if it isn't a cost?
+ Mr. Chairman, I know I am running out of time. What I am
+hoping that we will do is look at what we are asking of these
+programs, what should be the process to determine they are
+doing a good job; maybe set up a way to help them if they are
+not; but ones that are doing blatant things like this, that
+they just be terminated immediately. Whether it is America or
+not, I think it is criminal.
+ Mr. Horn. One last clarification. The notion that we cannot
+move to restrict funding or terminate funding during the course
+of an appeal is somewhat unique to the Head Start program. That
+is not something that we generally do with grants from the
+Federal Government. And most grant programs from the Federal
+Government to a local program, if we believe that they are
+underperforming or engaging in--lack of internal controls and
+so forth, we can defund them immediately and then the appeals
+process is still available to them, but we don't have to
+continue to provide them with funds while the appeal is going
+on. That is what is unique about this program. And that is a
+problem--if in fact we can move directly and terminate their
+funding without a change in the statute, please let us know
+that, because we don't believe the statute allows us to do
+that.
+ Mrs. Drake. In those other programs, do you also fund their
+appeal like you do in Head Start?
+ Mr. Horn. No.
+ Mrs. Drake. Mr. Chairman, I hope those are things that we
+look at.
+ Chairman Boehner. It is clearly under advisement. The Chair
+recognizes the gentleman from Nebraska, Mr. Osborne.
+ Mr. Osborne. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank
+Members of the panel for being here today and being so patient.
+ I know this is about Head Start. I would like to make a
+somewhat broader comment. There was a White House report that
+came out a couple of years ago that indicated there are roughly
+150 different youth-serving programs under the auspices of the
+Federal Government, and there was quite a bit of concern in
+this report. Obviously, Head Start is one of those 150. But the
+report basically said that there is a little coordination
+between programs, little evaluation of programs to see if they
+are really doing what they are designed to do. In some cases,
+the statute actually prevented people from one agency talking
+with individuals in another agency who may have a similar
+program. And so there is quite a bit of frustration among
+youth-serving programs around the country. And they approached
+us and others and said, you know, we would like to see
+something where we could pull all of these programs at least
+under one umbrella, and take a look at them and make sure there
+is not duplication and make sure there is not waste, fraud and
+abuse, and make sure they are fulfilling their purpose and make
+sure there are quantifiable, measurable goals that they are
+attempting to meet.
+ And so we have introduced a Federal Youth Coordination Act.
+But just a couple of examples of these concerns would be--we
+have talked about Head Start today; but, for instance, a child
+that is in foster care has to go to four or five different
+agencies, and if you are in foster care it is pretty difficult
+to negotiate that jungle. As part of the reauthorization of the
+Elementary and Secondary Education Act a couple years ago, we
+included an amendment for mentoring for success, and there were
+two objectives to that. One was to broaden mentoring to provide
+some money. But the second was to determine what programs
+worked--you know there are all kinds of mentoring programs,
+there are school-based, faith-based, there are one-to-one,
+there are 1-to-10, over the Internet--and also to determine are
+some programs saying let us cut drug and alcohol abuse by 50
+percent? Is that true? We haven't been able to get an answer.
+The President's budget zeroed out this particular program and
+said it hasn't fulfilled its purpose. The program was what we
+have outlined and we can't get any answer as to any evaluation
+that has been done. We have been trying to. The money has been
+distributed, but what we wanted to do was to try to get a
+handle on what works.
+ So that is just sort of an editorial comment and I would
+like to proceed with a couple of questions, having gotten that
+off my chest.
+ Ms. Henry, you haven't had a lot of questions here. How
+long did the problems continue without action being taken? Is
+there a time lag? How long a delay was there?
+ Ms. Henry. For many years prior to my involvement, they
+have been happening, you know, the continuous deficiencies and
+everything that has been happening. In Nevada, it has been
+going on many years prior to my involvement.
+ Mr. Osborne. Dr. Shaul, how do you believe that competition
+will help address the problems in communities served by poorly
+serving grantees? I think you talked about competition being
+important.
+ Ms. Shaul. Currently it appears as though it has been
+difficult for the agency to replace grantees quickly. And we
+believe that many grant programs do have an annual renewal
+process. And we were not recommending recompetition at renewal
+time for every grantee. But for grantees who are not performing
+well, we believe that at renewal time, that would be a good
+opportunity to give others in the community who might be able
+to provide good services for children the opportunity to put in
+an application and compete on a level playing field with the
+current grantee and to have some determination made about which
+of the entities might be able to best serve the children in the
+community.
+ Mr. Osborne. And, Dr. Horn, this may be repetitious, and I
+had to step out and if this was asked before, please let me
+know. The study noted when Health and Human Services sent
+different review teams to the same grantee, they often came
+back with different results. And do you see any solution to
+this, or do you have any idea why this was happening?
+ Mr. Horn. In particular, the study we did had to deal with
+erroneous payments where the regular PRISM review team went to
+the local grantees, and a piece of that PRISM review is to look
+at whether children who are ineligible for the program are
+being served, and to the extent to which those erroneous
+payments are being made. And then we sent specialized people in
+to look at the same data and they came back with two different
+conclusions.
+ And that has led us in two places: First of all, better
+training for review teams, the standard review teams on this
+issue. The other thing we are implementing, which I think is
+consistent with the GAO's recommendations, is this idea of
+rereviewing a certain percentage of local programs that are
+reviewed in the course of any given year by a specialized team
+that will review them across the 10 regions. What they will
+serve is as calibrators, if you will, for the adequacy, the
+reliability, and the validity of the general review teams that
+are sent out to the local programs.
+ So we review a third of the local grantees as we normally
+do, but then we would send out these specialized review teams
+to a random sample of those grantees to rereview them to make
+sure we are applying the standards consistently across the
+various regions and across the various review teams.
+ Mr. Osborne. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
+ Mr. Castle. [Presiding] Mr. Price is recognized.
+ Mr. Price. I appreciate that, Mr. Chairman. Now is the time
+you can ask questions and really get the truth. I want to thank
+each of you for coming as well, and for testifying, and I have
+concerns, like all of the Committee Members do, about Head
+Start and not about its mission. Obviously, its mission is
+noble. One of the things that may be that when a mission is so
+noble, it may be that accountability and oversight gets less,
+because anybody that questions the program itself then is
+questioned for questioning whether or not the program itself
+ought to continue, which isn't what we are talking about at
+all.
+ But I have a very simple question, and it may be too simple
+but I don't know. And that is, when I look over the numbers
+that have been presented in the budget, I think that we are
+spending $6.8 billion, about, for a Head Start program that
+provides services to 919,000 or thereabouts children. Are those
+numbers accurate?
+ Mr. Horn. Yes.
+ Mr. Price. 6.8 billion. If my calculator is working
+correctly, that means we are spending about $7,400 per child?
+ Mr. Horn. It is a bit more, because what that calculation
+does not take into account is services that are provided to
+Head Start through other funding sources; for example, the food
+nutrition program, the child care, and also Medicaid.
+ Mr. Price. I was being conservative. So the question is are
+we getting our money's worth?
+ Dr. Golden. I don't know if I could comment on that,
+because that is a really important question and one that as a
+researcher is very dear to me. One of the things that Head
+Start has, that goes to the several earlier comments about
+evaluation, is that very few other Federal programs have very
+detailed research, sort of meeting the gold standard of
+research, meaning children in the program compared to
+comparable children outside, that helps you answer both what
+you are accomplishing and how much are you paying for it and
+how much is the benefit.
+ In early Head Start, which is the program for babies and
+toddlers, it is a bit more expensive than that, because, as you
+know, in any State or in any circumstance, high-quality care
+for very young children is more expensive because you need an
+adult to be with fewer children.
+ Dr. Golden. There we have evaluation research showing the
+effects on kids in terms of fewer of them, for example, in the
+range that would be likely to target them for special ed for
+disabilities. So we are seeing learning improvements that take
+kids out of some of these expensive later experiences.
+ We have new information, I think, about early Head Start
+bringing the kids up to about 4 years that should be--I think
+will be--out this week. And then the equivalent evaluation
+study about Head Start as a whole, there is a lag time in
+research, so I had the chance to chair the group that designed
+it when I was at HHS. But I gather that that will be out, I
+hope, within weeks, perhaps months, in any case, in time for
+this Committee to consider it. So I think one of the advantages
+of Head Start is that whereas with some programs, you would
+just have to guess or you would have to say there are lots of
+early childhood programs out there and they show a four-to-one
+return on expenditures; with Head Start there is actually some
+additional detailed information to help the Committee look at
+that.
+ Mr. Price. Dr. Horn, do you want to comment? Are we getting
+our money's worth?
+ Mr. Horn. Well, first of all, I would say that when she
+chaired the committee to design the implementation of the
+national impact study, she invited me to serve on the
+committee, so we both have an investment in that project. I
+think it is a well designed project and, for the first time,
+will allow us to serve with a national representative sample
+randomly assigned to Head Start, not Head Start, be able to
+determine what the true impact of Head Start is.
+ Mr. Price. The answer is, we don't know. Is that accurate?
+ Mr. Horn. I think the--I mean, my feeling is that we know
+some things. I think the data is strong enough for us to say,
+all things being equal, it is better for kids in economically
+disadvantaged circumstances to get a quality program such as
+Head Start than not.
+ Mr. Price. When folks in my neighborhood want their
+children who aren't Head Start eligible to go to a program that
+is similar to Head Start, the cost of that program is markedly
+less than $7,400 a year. So I would hope that, in this process
+that we are going through, Mr. Chairman, and as we try improve
+this program, we look at where the efficiencies are that can be
+derived from the program that make it so that we are driving as
+much money to the child and not wasting money along the way,
+which I fear we are doing.
+ Mr. Horn. I agree with that 1,000 percent.
+ Mr. Price. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
+ Mr. Castle. [Presiding.] Thank you, Mr. Price.
+ And I think we have reached the end. And let me just thank
+all the Members who are here and able to ask questions.
+ But I would like to particularly thank those of you who
+came from near and far to testify and answer our questions here
+today. We appreciate it a great deal, and all those who
+participated by being witnesses to all this today.
+ With that, we stand adjourned.
+ [Whereupon, at 4:15 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
+
+
+
+