Head Start Is Often A Non-Starter

Head Start is a bloated, wasteful federal program that receives $12.3 billion annually in taxpayer funding. Head Start serves 790,000 low-income children annually. Since many, if not most of the children served by Head Start are minorities,the public, the press and politicians refuse to demand that Head Start produce a quality, competent educational program for the children it serves. 

The Wall Street Journal reported that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report that revealed “serious negligence and fiscal mismanagement at Head Start.” This mismanagement, at a minimum, puts the children at risk and it also fails to ensure the children receive a quality education. 

The GAO report noted that the oversight of interim-managed Head Start programs was minimal at best and non-existent often. Interim managed programs are programs that lose their federal grants due to poor performance. 

Understand, to lose a federal grant requires major deficiencies. You can be a poorly run Head Start program and never lose your grants. The sad part about Head Start is that it suffers from the racism of low expectations. 

Suburban communities would never accept a poor performing equivalent to Head Start in their schools. Since Head Start serves many minorities and employs many minorities, subpar performances are often accepted and given huge amounts of taxpayer dollars. 

When Republicans attempt to improve Head Start, the Democrats will scream that it is “racism.” When the children at Head Start are underserved by their leaders, sadly, the Democrats look the other way. 

All Americans should demand that funding for Head Start be cut back until reforms are put in place to improve the education that Head Start is providing for our most neediest children.