A Changing Role for Head Start?

As members of the 114th Congress settle into their new offices on Capitol Hill, talk of Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)-- AKA No Child Left Behind-- reauthorization abounds. Newly appointed Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN) has made this a top priority, and policymakers are getting right down to business. Senator Alexander has already released a draft proposal of the bill, Secretary Duncan has let the Obama administration’s agenda be known, and Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), the HELP committee’s top Democrat, echoed with her own priorities.

Both Duncan and Murray called for an increased focus on early education, namely increased access to pre-K, in the new ESEA legislation.

Approximately 28 percent of four-year-olds attended state pre-K programs in 2013, meaning enrollment has more than doubled since ESEA was last reauthorized. Federal and state programs have helped to fuel this increase, including Title I in ESEA. (Title I provides funds to local school districts to improve the education of disadvantaged students from birth through the 12th grade.)

Title I funds can currently be used for pre-K programs. In fact, they can provide early learning programs for children beginning at birth, but right now only about three percent of Title I funds are used to support children prior to kindergarten entry. Many states and localities have taken the initiative to implement or expand pre-K programs on their own; others have done so with the help of competitive federal grant programs, such as Preschool Development Grants, which are currently expanding pre-K access for high-need four-year-olds in 18 states.

As the trend to expand pre-K continues at the federal and state level, many people in the early education policy world have been considering how Head Start, the nation’s first and largest pre-K program, fits into the picture.

Head Start is also overdue for reauthorization, but Congress will be slower to move on updating it. The House education committee is starting the conversation though-- they released a white paper last week outlining broad, very general goals for Head Start reauthorization and asked for public feedback by June 1, 2015.

Head Start currently serves low-income children ages three to five, and Early Head Start (EHS) serves pregnant mothers and children from birth to age three. Even though the program has come under scrutiny in recent years, Head Start has provided essential, comprehensive services to children and their families for more than 50 years. Title I of ESEA is able to serve the same population as Head Start (low-income children from birth through elementary school entry), yet there is little coordination between the two programs.

As policymakers move forward with ESEA and Head Start reauthorization, they should acknowledge that these programs are interrelated and determine how to best serve this vulnerable population. If new ESEA legislation ultimately calls for more four-year-olds in public pre-K, how can Head Start adapt so that as many children as possible receive the services they need?

Some policymakers, including President Obama and the members of Congress in support of the Strong Start Act, have proposed that the federal government: “develop a process to convert Head Start programs from serving 4-year olds to serving 3-year olds and infants/toddlers in Early Head Start programs”. And a study conducted by researchers at University of California, Irvine and University of North Carolina could shed light on whether this is a proposal worth exploring. Dr. Jenkins and her colleagues compared school readiness of children who attended Head Start at ages three and four with children who attended Head Start at age three and state pre-K at age four.

The researchers found that children attending Head Start at age three in Tulsa, Oklahoma followed by Oklahoma's pre-K program at age four, “have stronger pre-reading outcomes at kindergarten compared with children who attend Head Start at ages 3 and 4.” This could mean that not only the quality of programs, but also the sequencing of programs, matters. Children who participate in Head Start for two consecutive years may be receiving the same or similar instruction from one year to the next, as Head Start often combines 3-and 4-year-olds into one classroom and uses the same curriculum for both years. As the researchers explain, “The [Oklahoma] pre-K program may be an opportunity for age 3 Head Start participants to receive a novel age 4-specific learning experience and avoid any redundancy in the Head Start curriculum.”

The problem is that most state-funded pre-K programs are not as high-quality as Oklahoma’s. This particular program might better prepare children for kindergarten than traditional Head Start does, but many children don’t have access to programs of this caliber. Further, these results should not imply that Head Start doesn’t have a positive impact on children. In states where public pre-K programs are not prevalent or are of low-quality, Head Start is often the best option for children from lower income families. Additionally, studies have found that Head Start has a meaningful impact on school readiness, especially for children who would otherwise be in home-based care.

Head Start will continue to play an essential role in providing pre-K, especially in serving children from low-income families. As other publicly funded pre-K programs continue to expand, though, it is likely that its role will change. For more on the Early Ed Initiative’s ideas on how to improve Head Start and better connect pre-K programs to one another and to the birth-through-third grade continuum, read our report Beyond Subprime Learning: Accelerating Progress in Early Education.