Big changes to Head Start could upend early education

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**Tommy Sheridan** (0:23)
We truly are a program that is all across the country and has decades of research that continue to show the incredible efficacy of it, despite what some political bias and political think tanks might say.

**Chris Bentley** (0:38)
The government is looking at changes for the nation's early childhood education program, Head Start.
It's Thursday, August 6th, and this is Here & Now Anytime from NPR and WBUR. I'm Chris Bentley. Today on the show, what FDA approval for the first mRNA flu vaccine means for you. And Putin is unrelenting in Ukraine, but Russians are getting tired of war.

**Charles Maynes** (1:17)
It's of course because of the losses. It's also concerns about Ukrainian drones that are increasing and fatigue with wartime restrictions. It seems like every day there's some new law about what you can't read or can't see or can't watch.

**Chris Bentley** (1:30)
The view from Russia coming up in a few minutes. But first, major changes may be coming for the federal government's premier program for preschool and childcare. Head Start provides early education for children from low-income families and has been mostly celebrated by both major political parties since its launch in 1965
The Trump administration's Assistant Secretary for Children and Families, Alex Adams, says it's time to deregulate Head Start and give states and parents more control.

**Alex Adams** (2:02)
Yeah, some of the areas where they will have flexibility instead of the one size fits all, federal mandates on group sizes, child-to-staff ratios, workforce and education requirements, and on and on and on.

**Chris Bentley** (2:15)
There is still time for the public to weigh in on the potential changes to the program that now serves more than 700,000 kids.
Tommy Sheridan is Deputy Director of the National Head Start Association, a nonprofit that advocates for the program. He told Deborah Becker what the new changes mean.

**Tommy Sheridan** (2:33)
This is one of the largest and most substantial proposals that we've seen in quite a number of years coming to Head Start. But I think what's most important to take away from this is that, first of all, fewer rules cannot mean fewer results.
Head Start, as you noted, is one of our nation's most effective social services programs, early childhood programs, for over six decades, across multiple presidents, Republicans, Democrats, all the alike, and continues to get strong results for kids and families in every corner of the country. So I think that it's most important to acknowledge, first and foremost, that we're not going anywhere. We're staying open. We're continuing to be that provider of high quality services to children and families. And we'll look at what this proposal says. We'll evaluate it. There's an intentional process that it has to go through. And we'll look to navigate that to ensure that kids and families end up even stronger.

**Deborah Becker** (3:30)
And for those who don't know, what are some of the main things that Head Start does?

**Tommy Sheridan** (3:36)
So Head Start is really a comprehensive program in its approach.
It was designed in the 1960s with the intention of really supporting young children and their families, kind of a multi-generational program. It is for children, and then in the 1990s, it was expanded to provide infant toddler care as well and services for pregnant women. So it provides services from basically pregnancy up to age five. It is income eligible or for children or families who are experiencing homelessness in the foster care system eligible for other public benefits such as SNAP or supplemental security income, and it really provides them with a strong start, a healthy start to help them be ready for success in school and in life wherever they live across the country.

**Deborah Becker** (4:23)
Now, HHS says that this is just giving programs flexibility.
This is cutting administrative overhead. Why are folks so cautious about what these changes might mean?

**Tommy Sheridan** (4:37)
Yeah, well, let's take Head Start for the history that it has. Head Start program performance standards, which is what is being proposed to be changed in this proposal that came out earlier today and is going to be published tomorrow for public comment.
Those standards were first created in the 1970s.
Those standards really govern and provide a lot of support, a lot of clarity, a lot of best practices and ways of implementing the Head Start program. They have been changed over the years, but it has been slow to see some of those changes. I think what this administration has pointed out is that they are intentional that they would like to see some deregulation. They would like to see the authority transitioned more so into local community providers, which is something that Head Start has long had. Head Start is provided. The services that are provided by Head Start are done on really each community level. They are community-based organizations, could be local governments, could be school districts, could be non-profit organizations, and every single one of those programs has to have a policy council, meaning a council of Head Start parents that help make the decisions, inform the decisions. That has been the case since the 1960s. That has been actually in the act, the law behind Head Start, which is not changing and not even proposed to be changing in this. So yes, there's going to be some changes, and I'm really excited to spend the next 60 days working with the Head Start community, with program leaders, with staff, with experts, researchers, and most importantly, with parents, to understand how they perceive these rules and this proposal, excuse me, and how we are going to, again, make sure that at the end of the day, these fewer rules do not mean fewer results.