BACKGROUND

The Head Start program provides comprehensive services to young children whose families earn low incomes in order to facilitate their social, emotional, physical and cognitive development.  Services include education, health, nutrition, screening for developmental delays and a variety of family social services when needed.  Federal Head Start funds are awarded directly to over 1,600 grantees; local programs are tailored to the needs of children in different communities.  The Head Start program balances this local flexibility with rigorous national quality performance standards, involving 1,800 potential points of violation.

STATUS

Head Start was reauthorized in 2007.   The Improving Head Start for School Readiness Act of 2007 (P.L. 110-134) authorized the Head Start program through 2012 and made significant changes to the law.  Specifically, the new authorization included the following provisions:

• Increased the authorization funding  levels for the program;
• Revised the formula for allocating Head Start funds;
• Limited grantee designation periods to 5 years (at which point the grant may be re-competed if determined necessary by a newly instituted review panel);
• Expanded eligibility to allow grantees to fill up to 35 percent of their slots with children from families with income between 100 percent and 130 percent of the poverty line;
• Increased the qualifications and training requirements for Head Start staff;
• Delineated the roles and responsibilities of a grantee’s governing body and policy council; and
• Terminated further development of use of a National Reporting System.

In addition, the new authorization included a variety of provisions that aim to promote coordination among Head Start grantees and other state and local early childhood programs.

FUNDING

The federal government provides 80 percent of the yearly cost to operate a Head Start program, and the remaining 20 percent must come from a “local match” or “in-kind” contribution, which may be in the form of monetary contributions, donations of goods or services, or volunteer hours.  Federal appropriations for Head Start, included in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2010 totaled $7.234 billion. The regular appropriations bills for FY 2011 were not completed by the end of the 110th Congress. As such, Head Start is level funded at the FY 2010 appropriation amount via a continuing resolution passed by Congress.

Economic Recovery Package

In response to the weakening economy, Congress included $2.1 billion for Head Start and Early Head Start in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, to allow an additional 124,000 children to participate in the program. In FY 2010, just over 1.1 million children were served by Head Start[i].

Policy Recommendations:

NACCRRA Recommends that Congress:

• Allow CCR&Rs to be appointed to State Early Learning Councils or work closely with them to ensure that resource and referral plays a key role in working with parents to access early learning settings for their children.
• Prioritize the expansion of Head Start programs to full-day, full-year services to address the needs of working families.
• Increase funding for Early Head Start programs serving infants and toddlers.
• Increase funding to attract and retain qualified teachers in Head Start classrooms.

KEY HEAD START TALKING POINTS

• Head Start helps children from families earning low incomes enter kindergarten ready to succeed. We need to provide sufficient funding to enable children in Head Start to participate for more than one year.
• We need to continue to improve Head Start to strengthen the quality of the program. It is already a good program, but it can be even stronger.

Less than half of Head Start programs are full-day. This makes it very difficult for working families earning low incomes to participate. Additional funding needs to be provided to expand Head Start to a full-day program so that those working families are not shut out.

2009-2010 Head Start Program Information Report (PIR)
Enrollment Statistics Report - National Level
Funded Enrollment by Program Option - Children[ii]

[i] U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Head Start (2010). 2009-2010 Head Start program information report: Enrollment statistics report, national level. Retrieved February 17, 2011, from http://hses.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/pir.

[ii] US Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Head Start. (2011). 2009-2010 Head Start Program Information Report (PIR) Enrollment Statistics Report - National Level. (Internal Document).