The sequester has hit Head Start with a 5.27 percent funding cut, which comes to over $400,000 annually (“Sequestration Fact Sheet,” n.d.). In the following paper, I look at how this cut will affect Americans on the macro, mezzo, and micro levels.
Macro Level
The sequester’s impact on Head Start is going to have numerous affects throughout the nation. Many schools will be forced to admit fewer students. All total, around 57,000 fewer children will be enrolled in the program, 51,000 fewer children in Head Start and 6,000 fewer children in Early Head Start (“Head Start Services,” n.d.).
These fewer slots will have a rippling effect throughout the nation. One parent whose child was cut from a Head Start program in Los Angeles claimed that she is now going to have to quit her job to take care of her child (Fernandes, 2013). Another parent, whose two disabled children have attended a Head Start program in Cincinnati, did not know if she would be able to afford an alternative preschool or daycare service. “Right now, we don't pay for Head Start because they go part-time,” she said. “We would really really have to look at our budget to see if we could put one in another place. But that would be really really hard financially for us” (Stein & Terkel, 2013).
Yet another mother, this one living in Columbus, Georgia, worried that her youngest son would be cut from Head Start. Her two older children benefited from the program, so much so that she believes that they were able to
enter the “public school system on a level playing field with their peers.” This mother will now have to spend money on a babysitter but expressed anxiety at “the possibility of leaving her youngest with someone she doesn’t know. And generating additional income to make it less painful will be close to impossible” (Stein & Terkel, 2013).
Instead of cutting slots, some Head Start schools have decided to increase class sizes. The Head Start program in Knox County, Ohio, opted to increase class sizes from 16 or 17 to 20. Still facing a budget shortfall, that program also laid off six employees (Lu, 2013). Nationally, around 18,000 staff members have either been laid off or received pay cuts (“Sequestration Fact Sheet,” n.d.).
Some Head Start schools have eliminated the transportation they formerly provided to students. The Palm Beach Country, Florida, program, “ended its bus service, forcing families for 2,300 children to find their own methods of transportation” (Stein & Terkel, 2013). The Knox County, Ohio, program also cut its transportation budget, forcing parents “to drive their children up to six miles to a bus stop rather than have their children picked up and dropped off at their house. Some of the children will now have to ride the bus as far as 20 miles” (Lue, 2013).
Still other schools have been forced to buy fewer supplies. “I don’t know how I will do it with such little money,” the Early Head Start Coordinator at Pomona Unified, California, said. She claimed that “teachers and social workers won’t be able to replenish the materials when they wear out or break” (Fernandes, 2013). The Pomona Unified Head Start also eliminated its recruitment budget. “The cuts to outreach will have a long-lasting impact, [the coordinator] said. Even though Head Start has been around for a generation, many low-income families still don’t know it exists—or where to find the programs” (Fernandes, 2013).
Mezzo Level
Colorado Head Start programs will certainly not be exempt from the cuts. Over 500 fewer children will be admitted into Colorado programs this year. The children who do remain—about 13,800—will receive 2,326 “fewer days of service” (“Colorado Fact Sheet,” n.d.). Lindsay Neil, Denver’s Director of Children’s Affairs, summarized the sequester’s effect in the Denver area: “Some programs have had to close classrooms, some programs have had to lay off teachers, some programs are shortening the length of their school day or their school year” (Mullur, 2013).
The Denver Great Kids Head Start did not want to eliminate slots for children, so instead it cut down “professional development opportunities for teachers, cut back on nutrition education and limit[ed] bilingual mental health support for children.” One of the program’s directors explained that “[t]he city’s philosophy for this year was to protect slots.” She realized that in the future they will have to “go back to preserving quality” (Toorres, 2013).
Denver’s Family Star Montessori decided to take the opposite approach. “We’ve had to turn away 13 families and continue to have to readjust our enrollment,” said a director. “It’s a hardship in order to not be able to serve these community numbers and see the children that we are really here for not being served” (Mullur, 2013).
Micro Level
Since neither I nor anybody close to me has children in Head Start, the sequester’s cuts do not directly impact me. Nonetheless, I believe that these cuts will in some way eventually affect me, as well as every American. Evidence for this claim can be found in a long-term study which found that white children who attended Head Start were more likely to complete high school, go to college, and earn high salaries as adults. The study found that black children who attended Head Start were much less likely to have criminal records when they were older (Garces, Thomas, & Currie, 2000). Because children in Head Start grow to become relatively educated and wealthy adults, they are less likely to be dependent on social welfare programs. Because they grow to become relatively law-abiding citizens, they are less likely to use up the vast resources required by the criminal justice system. So, in other words, children in Head Start grow to become adults that give back and thus benefit society at large.
Some political writers have disputed that Head Start has much if any positive impact on the lives of participants. For instance, two writers at the Heritage Foundation recently wrote that a 2010 study by the Department of Health and Human Services showed that “Head Start [has] had little to no positive effects for children who were granted access” (Burke & Muhlhausen, 2013). But if one looks at the HHS study, it becomes clear that its conclusions are far more nuanced. For instance, the children in Head Start were compared with children who for the most part attended “other non-parental care or non-Head Start child care programs selected by their parents.” For this reason, “the impact of Head Start was determined by a comparison to a mixture of alternative care settings rather than against a situation in which children were artificially prevented from obtaining child care or early education programs outside of their home” (“Head Start Impact Study Final Report,” 2010). And, of course, the claim of Head Start proponents is not that Head Start preschools outperform all competing schools. Rather, the claim is that early childhood education benefits children and that Head Start provides many low-income children with early educational opportunities that they would not have otherwise.
Conclusion
The sequester’s Head Start cuts are much further reaching than many have undoubtedly presumed. The cuts don’t just mean that fewer children will be enrolled in Head Start programs. The cuts will also adversely affect the children who remain, as well as thousands of teachers and paid helpers. And the cuts will, in the long-run, adversely affect all Americans. I do not mean to make more to this claim that the evidence warrants, but the evidence we have suggests that Head Start has positively and significantly impacted its participants in ways that have benefited society at large.
References
Burke, L. & Muhlhausen, D. (2013, January 10). Head start impact evaluation report finally released. The Heritage Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/01/head-start-impact-evaluation-report-finally-released
“Colorado Fact Sheet: Head Start Sequestration Impact.” (n.d.). National Head Start Association. Retrieved from http://my.nhsa.org/download/states/sequestercuts/Colorado%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf
Fernandes, D. (2013, August 23). How sequestration head start cuts ripple through a community. Southern California Public Radio. Retrieved from http://www.scpr.org/blogs/education/2013/08/23/14573/how-sequestration-head-start-cuts-ripple-through-a/
Garces, E., Thomas, D., & Currie, J. (2000). Longer term effects of head start. The American Economic Review, 106(4), 999-1012.
Head Start Services. (n.d.). Office of Head Start. Retrieved from http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ohs/about/head-start
“Head Start fact sheet: National sequestration impact.” (n.d.). National Head Start Association. Retrieved from http://my.nhsa.org/download/states/sequestercuts/National%20Summary%20FS.pdf
Lu, Adrienne. (2013, August 20). Head start hit with worst cuts in history. USA Today. Retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/08/19/stateline-head-start/2671309/
Mullur, H. (2013, August 19). Federal budget cuts hit Denver head start programs. Fox 31. Retrieved from http://kdvr.com/2013/08/19/federal-budget-cuts-hit-denver-head-start-programs/
Stein, S., & Terkel, A. (2013, April 4). Head start families left with no good options due to sequestration. The Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/04/head-start-sequester_n_3016488.html
Torres, Z. (2013, August 19). Federal cuts leave 500 Colorado children without Head
Start. The Denver Post. Retrieved from http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_23895058/federal-cuts-leave-500-colorado-children-without-head
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and
Families Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation. (2010). Head start impact study final report: Executive summary. Retrieved from http://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/opre/executive_summary_final.pdf
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