Head Start Hijinks From "The Old Gray Lady"

(Also, I posted over here – this may be it for the week, but we’ll see.)

Last Sunday, Douglas J. Besharov of the American Enterprise Institute (your first trouble sign right there, people) and research associate Douglas Call wrote an Op-Ed in the New York Times maligning Head Start, in which they claimed…

In 1998, Congress required the Department of Health and Human Services to conduct the first rigorous national evaluation of the program. The Clinton administration took this mandate seriously and initiated a 383-site randomized experiment involving about 4,600 children. Confirming previous research, the study found that the current program had little meaningful impact.

For example, even after spending six months in Head Start, 4-year-olds on average could identify only two more letters than children from similar backgrounds not in the program; 3-year-olds could identify one and a half more letters. More important, no gains at all were detected in more vital measures like early math learning, oral comprehension (very indicative of later reading comprehension), motivation to learn or “social competencies” like the ability to interact with peers and teachers.

Well, I did a little checking and found this story referencing the 1998 study in question, and I learned the following…

In 1998, Congress authorized the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to conduct a national study on Head Start's impact on children. HHS awarded a contract to Maryland-based Westat to conduct the research.

(Ronna Cook, associate director of the Human Services Research Group) presented preliminary results from the study, which assessed nearly 5,000 3- and 4-year olds. Data collection began in fall 2002 and followed children through the spring of their first-grade year.

Some of the findings:

Comparing skill levels of children in the study with those of the general U.S. population of 3- and 4-year-olds—including those not from low-income families—on the Woodcock-Johnson III Letter-Word Identification test showed that, after one year, the mean performance of Head Start children still was below the average level for all children. At the end of one year, however, Head Start was able to nearly cut in half the achievement gap that would be expected in the absence of a program;

Among children in the 3-year-old group, the frequency and severity of problem behavior reported by parents was lower for children in the Head Start group compared to those in the non-Head Start group;

Head Start had a small, positive effect on the extent to which parents reported reading to their children. Positive effects were found for 3-year-olds when their parents exposed them to a variety of cultural enrichment activities such as taking them to a museum or a zoo.

"We've seen positive effects in preliminary findings, but some areas need improvement," Cook said.

So basically, while Head Start is definitely not a panacea, it is not “slumping…(having) run out of poor 4-year-olds to serve” either.

And as I learned from the web site of Washington State Dem Senator Patty Murray here…

Senator Murray supports strengthening Head Start and increasing resources for pre-literacy and language skills. Murray supports ongoing professional development for Head Start teachers in language and emergent literacy. Literacy training would include specific methods to best address the needs of children whose primary language is not English, have speech and language delays, or other disabilities.

In 2003, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee unanimously agreed to a reauthorization proposal that would save Head Start from being dismantled. The Senate bill rejected an irresponsible House-passed proposal to block-grant Head Start funding to the states, where the program’s high standards could be degraded.

Under questioning from Sen. Murray as to why block granting would be the best option for Head Start, a Bush Administration witness from the Department of Education told HELP Committee members: “We really do not have rigorous studies that speak either to the impact of Head Start as currently delivered or to the impact of state programs.”

Thank God those people are FINALLY GONE!!!

And by the way, as noted here, the projected $2.1 billion in the stimulus package that just passed in the Senate would have provided about 60,000 jobs; I say “would have” because, as noted here, $1 billion of that was cut from the bill.

This is particularly galling when you realize that the $2.1 was already halved from the $4.3 billion originally requested (so Head Start funding, which, at any amount, will provide jobs and help out kids by providing better schools and curricula and allowing their parents more of an opportunity to work, ends up as a quarter of the amount originally requested).

Heckuva job, you Senate “centrists” (and speaking of education, I thought this post was illuminating – something to remember the next time you hear conservatives bashing teachers unions).

Update 2/13/09: Just to clarify according to this (h/t Eschaton), Head Start will get $1 billion and Early Head Start will get $1.1 billion.