Does Head Start work?
By Matt Hrodey
These are tough times for Head Start, the federally-funded preschool program for children living below the poverty line. Investigators are accusing some schools and agencies of fraud (including at least two in Wisconsin) and an intensive new study suggests its educational benefits are exaggerated.
The Head Start Impact Study, released earlier this year by the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, concludes that benefits to children entering Head Start at age four “are largely absent by first grade.” And for kids starting at age three, “there are few sustained benefits,” it says. The program, which will receive about $7.2 billion in federal funding in 2010, is designed to educate the students and improve their health and social development.
(illustration by adrian palomo)
Many Head Start critics, including two analysts from the conservative Heritage Foundation who wrote a recent op-ed in the Journal Sentinel, say the program is wasteful and ineffective. “If policymakers truly want to help the 4,000-plus Milwaukee area (Head Start) preschoolers, they should empower families to choose preschool options other than a federal program shown to have zero lasting impact,” the analysts say.
Another observer is warning that most preschools fail to produce lasting effects. Research estimates that educational benefits (over peers who didn’t attend preschool) are cut in half as children enter elementary school, according to W. Steven Barnett, co-director of the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University. Other assessments of Head Start have found its programs to be of higher quality than most private preschool programs, he writes, though it still lags far behind the best preschools.
Some of Head Starts’ benefits get downplayed in the debate: its effects on parental involvement and child health. “Head Start isn’t just about education,” says Deborah Blanks, CEO of Milwaukee’s Social Development Commission, which, along with Milwaukee Public Schools, operates the city’s Head Start centers.
Parents are involved in governing the centers where their children are students, she says. Parents’ confidence grows through their participation, she adds, and their children have better access to health care. “With many of the children coming to us, it’s often the first time they’ve seen a dentist,” she says.
Mixed bag
The study followed 5,000 children (selected in 2002) chosen at random from 23 states. Half were placed in Head Start programs. The other half (the control group) were left to fend for themselves. Despite attempts to keep the groups separate, about 15 percent of each switched sides, either enrolling in Head Start or dropping out without being removed from the study. Also, about 45 percent of kids in the control group were enrolled in another preschool or some other type of program.
The study followed the children as they entered elementary school and found the Head Start group’s math and pre-writing skills tested higher than those of the control group at the end of the preschool year – but by kindergarten and first grade, the two groups were testing about the same.
However, the study’s authors report lasting benefits for children with special needs who were enrolled in Head Start. The kids children scored higher in math at the end of first grade and “showed a reduction in inattention/hyperactivity, in problems with structured learning and in conflict with teachers,” they say. Other vulnerable children, ones from high-risk households, also scored better at the end of first grade than their counterparts in the control group.
Barnett, however, cautions against rooting around in the data too much to find additional positive results. “We should not kid ourselves. Any longer-term effects found will be unacceptably small,” he says and recommends pushing Head Start to resemble higher-quality preschool programs.
The children were chosen for the study in 2002. Data related to their school performance was collected in the following years. Blanks hopes the Head Start programs have improved since then. “We know we have to continue to be vigilant,” she says.
According to the Wisconsin Head Start Association, the state is ahead of the curve in meeting new federal requirements for the program’s teachers. About 62 percent of Head Start preschool teachers have four-year or greater college degrees in early childhood education. Congress, when it reauthorized Head Start funding in 2007, set a deadline of 2013 for half of all the country’s Head Start teachers to have such degrees.
Fraud allegations
Meanwhile, federal official continue to investigate Head Start centers for allowing children to enroll whose families don’t lie below the federal poverty level. The U.S. Government Accountability Office announced last month that undercover operations had found such fraud at two Head Start centers in Wisconsin and six in other states.
Blanks says SDC is meeting with its Head Start employees to determine if fraud was committed in their preschools.
“These kinds of incidents are isolated. Maybe an administrator loses sight of the goal,” she says, of providing preschool to children living in poverty. “Some people may think they’re helping a family or agency when they’re doing the exact opposite.”
Although GAO speculates that some low-income children on waiting lists could be denied placement at a Head Start center because of the fraud, it also says some centers could be promoting the enrollment of non-poor children to boost their enrollments. The centers receive federal grants for a certain level of enrollment. If they fall below it for too long, they can lose funding.
Head Start programs are also allowed to have up to 10 percent of children who don’t meet the income standards in the interest of diversity. But GAO reports that in its undercover operations, Head Start staffers willfully falsified income statements to enroll children whose families were too wealthy to qualify.