Students Victor Morales and Noah Simon learn how to water their small gardens from Bill Gabriel, of Leadership Wilkes-Barre, at the Luzerne County Head Start in Wilkes-Barre in February 2017.
Times Leader File Photo
President Donald Trump and his administration have done their best to paint massive deregulation of the federal Head Start pre-school and anti-poverty program —including reducing the amount of grant money that can be spent on “administration” from 15% to 5% — as win-win.
They insist the changes will put control of the program into state hands. It will free up billions that can be used to serve more children. It will provide local flexibility to meet local needs.
We certainly hope it proves to be a huge boon to pre-school services for low-income students (assuming it all goes into effect). But there is ample evidence that this is a back-door attempt to destroy a program many conservatives have hated since its inception in the 1960s under President Lyndon Johnson.
Trump successfully consolidated Head Start regional offices in an effort to lay off scores of workers. He also attempted to freeze funding and restrict eligibility based on immigration status —the former was rescinded amid backlash, and the latter was temporarily blocked by a federal judge.
And the proposed deregulation has elements that put the lie to the “more local control” claim. Local councils of parents and community members, who now have a say in decision-making, would apparently be reduced to an easily ignored advisory role. The new rules would require most children to be taught only in English. And they would mandate that children engage in 30 minutes of physical activity for every 3.5 hours of classroom instruction.
How are such federal mandates helping put control into local hands?
Other changes will dramatically water down some of Head Start’s unique features, including increasing the number of students each teacher can have in a class and eliminating required student medical screenings and home visits. It would even end the requirement that children brush their teeth after meals.
Few would argue that the Head Start regulations are fine as is. They are long and detailed, and if you talked to local administrators off the record, you would almost always get at least a hint of frustration over some of the red tape. But they are also what make the program so different, and so universally focused on helping at-risk, low-income children get the pre-school education and other services they need to break the cycle of poverty.
The deregulation could spur larger enrollment in Head Start, but it could also prompt an exodus of administrators and accelerate teacher burnout while diluting the program so completely it looks like any other pre-K program, which in turn will justify future calls to cancel funding completely.
Revising and updating regulations is fine. These proposals go too far.
We have long supported Luzerne County Head Start, and for a pretty basic reason. Reporters have frequently watched the program in action, reporting the impressive numbers of those given comprehensive help from home visits to vision and dental screenings to meals and much more. We’ve seen the commitment of staff and teachers, heard firsthand from parents about how much it helps, and enjoyed the smiles of children finding their lives unexpectedly enriched, seeing new doors open.
We doubt very much that Trump or any of those pushing this deregulation have done the same.
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