News
NHSA SURVEY: 77 PERCENT OF HEAD START PROGRAMS ARE “AT BREAKING POINT,” UNABLE TO ABSORB NEW CUTS AND HUNDREDS OF NEW RULES Click here to read our March 19, 2008 news release: Underfunded and overburdened Head Start programs across America are in crisis today, with more than three out of four (77 percent) reporting that they are "at or near the breaking point" and unable to absorb a Fiscal Year (FY) 2008 budget cut and hundreds of new unfunded mandates imposed in the 2007 Head Start Reauthorization Act, according to a survey released today by the National Head Start Association (NHSA) ...
NHSA: PRESIDENT'S BUDGET DOES NOT FIX HEAD START'S "BILLION BROKEN PROMISES" FUNDING CRISIS Click here to read our February 4, 2008 news release: "The President's proposed budget for Head Start to be made public today comes in $923 million short of covering the effective cut in the program since Fiscal Year (FY) 2002, according to a statement issued today by the National Head Start Association, the organization representing children, family, educators and others involved in America's first and most successful comprehensive early-childhood education program. To make matters worse, the new White House budget plan would do nothing to close the additional and substantial gap created in December 2007 when Head Start was reauthorized with hundreds of new costly regulations and then suffered a cut of more than $10 million during the Fiscal Year 2008 appropriations process." …
"FATHER OF HEAD START" COMMENTS ON HEAD START BUDGET CRISIS Click here to read our January 28, 2008 news release: "The National Head Start Association (NHSA) released the following statement provided by Dr. Edward Zigler, who is often called "the father of Head Start." Dr. Zigler is Sterling Professor of Psychology, Emeritus, and Director Emeritus of The Edward Zigler Center in Child Development and Social Policy at Yale University:" ...
BILLION BROKEN PROMISES: EXPERTS WARN "CRIPPLING CRISIS" LOOMS FOR HEAD START DUE TO CUT IN APPROPRIATIONS, HUNDREDS OF NEW UNFUNDED REQUIREMENTS Click here to read our January 24, 2008 news release: "The White House and Congress put Head Start -- the nation's first and most successful comprehensive early childhood education program -- on a path to crisis in December 2007 after first reauthorizing the program with hundreds of costly new requirements and then failing to appropriate the funds needed to pay for current program operations, much less the expensive new rules and regulations. Funding for Head Start was cut in the same appropriations bill that included more than 1,300 controversial earmarks for unrelated programs and projects totalling an estimated $20 billion." ...
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NHSA COMMENDS PRESIDENT, CONGRESS FOR BIPARTISAN COOPERATION IN PASSING HEAD START REAUTHORIZATION: Click here to read our December 12, 2007 news release: "The National Head Start Association (NHSA), the voice of Head Start grantees, applauds President George Bush for signing the "Improving Head Start for School Readiness Act," which reauthorizes America's premier preschool program. The U.S. Congress sent the bill to the president last week after passing the reauthorization measure with strong bipartisan support. " …
NHSA HAILS U.S. HOUSE PASSAGE OF HEAD START REAUTHORIZATION: Click here to read the statement from Sarah Greene, president and CEO of the National Head Start Association: "On behalf of the National Head Start Association, the children, parents, staff and teachers of Head Start and Early Head Start programs, and the Board of Directors, we salute the members of the U.S. House of Representatives for their bipartisan support last night of the reauthorization of America's premier preschool program, Head Start." …
NHSA URGES HOUSE-SENATE CONFEREES TO PRESERVE ROLE OF PARENTS IN HEAD START:
Click here to read our November 7, 2007 news release announcing "the support of 91 members of the House Representatives and more than two-thirds of the House Education and Labor committee who signed a dear colleague letter, instructing House and Senate conferees to support parent involvement and local community control, by assuring that the authority of the Policy Council is retained in the final bill sent to the President for his approval and signature." …
NHSA URGES SENATE APPROPRIATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE TO APPROVE HEAD START BUDGET THAT WOULD AVOID MAJOR CUTS IN SERVICES: Click here to read our June 18, 2007 news release: “The National Head Start Association (NHSA) ... is urging that, when the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies meets Tuesday, it exceed the $75 million increase for Head Start approved on June 7, 2007 by the relevant House Appropriations Subcommittee. Since the adjustment approved by the House subcommittee would fail to keep pace with inflation, the resulting cuts would equal closing enrollment to 7,282 Head Start and Early Head Start slots in FY 2008, according to NHSA calculations.” ...
HOUSE HEAD START REAUTHORIZATION VOTE LAUDED BY NATIONAL HEAD START ASSOCIATION: Click here to read our May 3, 2007 news release: “The National Head Start Association, the national voice of Head Start grantees, today applauded the U.S. House of Representatives for its bipartisan approval yesterday of H.R. 1429, The Improving Head Start Act of 2007, by an overwhelming vote of 365 to 48. The U.S. House of Representatives soundly defeated an amendment that would block grant Head Start programs in eight states and permit faith-based Head Start programs to discriminate in their hiring practices. NHSA indicated that it was pleased to see that the House-passed bill terminates the further development and use of the National Reporting System — the flawed assessment tool mandated by the Bush administration.” ...
NHSA LAUDS HOUSE HEAD START REAUTHORIZATION BILL AS "MAJOR POSITIVE STEP FORWARD" : Click here to read our March 15, 2007 news release: "The Head Start reauthorization bill (HR 1429) approved Wednesday by the U.S. House of Representatives Education and Labor Committee on a strong bipartisan basis is a "major positive step forward" for Head Start in the United States, according to the National Head Start Association (NHSA), the national voice of Head Start grantees. In particular, NHSA applauded the following aspects of the House reauthorization bill: defeat of an amendment to approve block-granting of Head Start programs in eight states with no quality standards; defeat of an amendment to permit hiring discrimination on religious grounds; maintaining a strong role of shared governance for Head Start parents on policy councils; increasing income eligibility to 130 percent under certain circumstances; terminating the controversial and non-scientific National Reporting System (NRS) testing system of toddlers; increasing the set-aside for Early Head Start, Migrant and Indian Head Start programs; and a more common-sense approach to Head Start grantee re-competition." ...
30,000 HEAD START SLOTS CUT UNDER BUSH BUDGET PLAN: Click here to read our February 14, 2007 news release: "An estimated 30,599 slots for Head Start children would have to be cut out of programs nationwide if President Bush’s proposed Fiscal Year (FY) 2008 budget is approved in the wake of a FY 2007 continuing resolution that provides an extra $100 million for Head Start, according to new projection by the National Head Start Association (NHSA), the national voice of Head Start programs." ...
HEAD START BUDGET CUT SURVEY: Click here to read our February 7, 2007 news release: "Already reeling from an 11 percent effective cut in federal support that could grow to 13 percent in Fiscal Year 2008, more than half (56 percent) of Head Start programs surveyed across the United States have been forced to cut early childhood health and education services for America’s most at-risk children and families, according to a major new survey by the National Head Start Association (NHSA), the voice of Head Start programs in the U.S." ...
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SHORTCHANGING HEAD START KIDS/TEACHERS: Click here to read our October 26, 2006 news release: "The National Head Start Association (NHSA) is objecting to what it calls ‘untenable' directions from the U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Department to cut salaries, health care benefits and retirement arrangements for teachers and other staff as an alternative to necessary enrollment adjustments for Head Start grantees that have been crippled by budget cuts. NHSA also said it was an ‘insult' to Head Start grantees to suggest that they should go hat in hand to beg local businesses for more support to offset dwindling federal support." ...
NHSA URGES FULL DISCLOSURE: Click here to read the statement from Sarah Greene, president and CEO of the National Head Start Association: "Today, NHSA is calling on HHS and the Justice Department to make public the 118 missing pages (including four pages from Justice Department prosecutors) that were withheld from the response to the NHSA FOIA request. The documents released in recent days confirm that Ms. Windy Hill was referred to the Justice Department for prosecution for tens of thousands of dollars of grant fraud at Cen-Tex. The OIG uncovered what NHSA told them they would find: A host of abuses from which Windy Hill illicitly benefited, including improper bonus payments, undocumented expenses reimbursements, education tuition charges paid by the Texas program after she left Cen-Tex to join the Bush Administration, conflicts of interest in payments made to relatives, and still other financial improprieties." ...
HEAD START "DOWNWARD SPIRAL" SEEN: Click here to read the June 22, 2006 National Head Start Association news release that hundreds of Head Start programs across the United States are in the grips of "vice-like cost squeeze" today that may result in a major jump in program closures and
severe program shutdowns. To send an email or letter to Congress
supporting more funding for Head Start and an end to further cuts, click here ...
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STOPPING "SLOW-MOTION DEMISE" OF HEAD START: Click here to read the April 11, 2006 National Head Start Association news release warning that, if Congress does not act to add at least $234 million to the President's 2007 budget for Head Start, most or all of the 2,700 Head Start programs across the United States "will end up crippled and perhaps unable to recover." A minimum of 19,000 Head Start children and Early Head Start infants and toddlers are in jeopardy under this year's cuts, with thousands more of America's most at-risk children to be hurt in 2007 if adequate funding isn't enacted. Even before the outright cut in 2006 Head Start funding, Head Start programs already were losing ground in the face of modest budget increases that failed to cover health care insurance premiums, rent hikes and extremely expensive unfunded federal mandates, including new transportation rules and the controversial National Reporting System (NRS), which involves the widely criticized SAT-like testing of preschoolers...
CONGRESS CUTS 24,000 HEAD START KIDS: Click here to read a December 22, 2005 statement from National Head Start Association (NHSA) President and CEO Sarah Greene: "We are appalled to see that Congress has chosen to sacrifice what is likely to be the equivalent of 24,000 Head Start classroom slots for America’s poorest children in order to pay for tax cuts for this nation’s wealthiest individuals ... We don’t see the logic in leaving these children out in the cold this holiday season so that the wealthy can continue to receive additional tax cuts. This is the equivalent of Congress putting a lump of coal in the stockings of America's neediest children!"
Click here to read how Congress is considering a 2 percent federal spending cut that would decimate Head Start by wiping out funding equal to 35,432 classroom slots – including 500 or more in each of 23 states. NHSA is urging parents, educators and other concerned individuals to let their members of Congress know that they oppose cutting the equivalent of more than 35,000 existing Head Start slots for America’s poorest children. Please read about this issue and then take action now!
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Click here to read the September 23, 2005 statement in which the National Head Start Association (NHSA) comments on the Head Start bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, which NHSA sees as both good and bad. NHSA warns of religious discrimination amendment and disenfranchising of parents role in Head Start governance...
KATRINA AID: The National Head Start Association is working with local Head Start grantees at three central locations in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi to provide aid to thousands of Head Start families and other low-income members of deluged communities. Your donation can help NHSA make a difference in the lives of hurricane Katrina victims!
Click here to read the July 14, 2005 news release on data from the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) about the $3.4 billion 'funding gap' seen for Head Start teacher degrees under Senate bill (S. 1107) ...
See the full report here
Click here to read a June 16, 2005 news release and to see a related video from the National Head Start Association warning that legislation in Congress -- particularly a reauthorization bill now pending in the U.S. Senate -- would undermine the growing trend toward the involvement of more fathers in Head Start, which is the successful education-readiness program for America's poorest children. At risk: the 180,000 fathers and father figures who have become active in Head Start classrooms and parent councils thanks to intensive fatherhood outreach initiatives mounted by NHSA and other organizations …
Click here to hear and read about a June 9, 2005 National Head Start Association (NHSA) media briefing on the status of Head Start reauthorization on Capitol Hill. You can read the statements of NHSA President and CEO Sarah Greene, a Head Start president, a Head Start training consultant and the president of the Tennessee Head Start Association …
Click here to read the June 9, 2005 statement in which the National Head Start Association (NHSA) comments on the new Head Start Impact Study, which is actually “very positive” in terms of showing that Head Start works to promote school readiness. NHSA cautions that the study is being “twisted” by proponents of dismantling the Head Start program for America’s poorest and most at-risk children ...
Click here to read the June 9, 2005 statement in which the National Head Start Association (NHSA) comments on the new Head Start Impact Study, which is actually “very positive” in terms of showing that Head Start works to promote school readiness. NHSA cautions that the study is being “twisted” by proponents of dismantling the Head Start program for America’s poorest and most at-risk children ...
Click here to read the June 1, 2005 statement in which the National Head Start Association (NHSA) comments on the ouster of Windy Hill, the ex-associate commissioner in charge of the U.S. Head Start Bureau, who was under federal investigation for financial abuses at the Head Start center she ran in Texas before being appointed to her federal position ...
Click here to read the May 5, 2005 news release in which the National Head Start Association (NHSA) comments on the introduction of a House Republican Head Start reauthorization bill that does not contain the state block-granting provisions that generated extensive national controversy in
2003 ...
Click here to read the April 4, 2005 news release in which the National Head Start Association (NHSA) said it was "delighted" to learn of the so-far-unpublicized U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) findings showing that more than 96 percent of so-called "Head Start executive director" and Head Start program director compensation packages (salary plus all benefits) are under the HHS Administration for Children, Youth and Families' new ceiling of $162,100 ...
Check out www.IgotAheadStart.org!
March 24, 2005 - Click here to read how hundreds of Head Start grantees are being unfairly tagged as out of compliance with federal standards under a wide range of subjective and even bizarre "parking ticket" citations that include flashlights with dead batteries, toaster oven crumbs claimed to pose a fire hazard, unraked playground leaves described as a "choking hazard" and even a toddler's lunch money trumped up into a fiscal management complaint.
Click here to read the National Head Start Association's statement on GAO report is "fatally flawed" by its reliance on distorted data from the Health and Human Services department, which is intent on trashing the Head Start grantees that work each year to get one million of America's poorest children ready to learn in kindergarten and beyond ... In fact, the actual data for 2000 shows that 85 percent of Head Start grantees had no "serious" deficiencies or other problems. An even smaller number of 13 percent were found to have serious fiscal management issues, versus the 76 incorrectly cited in the GAO report on the basis of skewed HHS data.
Click here to read a February 3, 2005 news release in which the National Head Start Association (NHSA) released the first full-year of test scores from the National Reporting System (NRS) assessment of the progress of America’s poorest children served by the Head Start program and showing that the program works as intended to get America’s most at-risk four- and five-year olds ready to learn in school. NHSA took the unusual step of releasing the NRS test scores to the public, since the Health and Human Services (HHS) administrators in charge of advancing the Bush Administration proposal to dismantle the Head Start program have disseminated the information to date only in behind-the-scenes briefings for lawmakers, academics and grantees. NHSA also leaked new findings from the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey - known as "FACES."
Click here to read an October 27, 2004 news release in which the National Head Start Association (NHSA) provides new data showing how Head Start is in a bad way today after three years of "neglect and disdain." Among the many problems highlighted in the new data from NHSA: almost 9,000 slots for poor children have been trimmed from the program, the percentage of eligible children served by Head Start and Early Head Start programs has eroded to 20 percent, and half of local Head Start grantees have been forced to cut services and/or staffing during the past two years.
Click here to read a June 30, 2004 news release in which the National
Head Start Association (NHSA) says that surprise internal announcement of November 2004 resignation plans by Windy Hill, the embattled U.S. Head Start Bureau chief, should not be allowed to derail either the ongoing Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) investigation into Hill's misconduct and cover-up efforts or any subsequent investigation of Hill that would lead to criminal charges. In view of new evidence of misconduct on the part of Hill, NHSA called for her immediate suspension until the current investigation can be concluded.
Click here to read a May 27, 2004 news release containing more than a dozen key documents showing how, after taking office in early 2002, Windy Hill - the associate commissioner in charge of the Head Start Bureau - attempted to install a "rogue" board of directors at her former Head Start agency in Texas in order to kill an investigation into her own financial mismanagement and other abuses there. The news release also sets out new documentation that squarely refutes Hill's denial of her abuses first made public by NHSA on April 13, 2004
Click here to read the May 13, 2004 statement from Rep. George Miller (D-CA) citing the good news that the recent HHS salary survey shows that "the vast majority of Head Start grantees use their federal dollars wisely, and with one purpose: to give low-income children a better chance at success in school and in life."
Click here to read National Head Start Association Chairman of the Board Ron Herndon's May 13, 2004 statement about how the HHS salary survey debunks "any theory that there are widespread management problems at Head Start programs that need to be fixed."
Click here to read the details of the cover-up in which Windy Hill - the associate commissioner in charge of the U.S. Head Start Bureau - was herself found by Health and Human Services (HHS) review to be responsible for serious misconduct involving more than $150,000 in her capacity as the executive director of the Texas Head Start program that she headed immediately before taking over the top job at the federal Head Start program on January 7, 2002. The HHS review findings were confirmed in an outside audit. Despite the previously undisclosed findings of major problems with her own program, Hill is leading the "witch hunt" nationwide against Head Start grantees for infractions real or imagined. In view of the fact that she personally benefited from a "clear double standard" that resulted in a cover-up of her own misdeeds.
Click here to read the March 18, 2004, National Head Start Association release that includes the comments of Rep. George Miller, senior Democrat on the House Education and the Workforce Committee, about unpublicized data showing 89 percent of Head Start programs had no serious deficiencies in 2002, even though the Bush Administration's Health and Human Services (HHS) unpublicized report containing the new data attempts to distort it in a Medicare-like fashion in a clumsy and transparent attempt to make local programs look bad.
Click here to read the February 19, 2004, National Head Start Association statement on the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) study showing that the vast majority of states do a poor job with their pre-K programs. As NHSA notes, the report is the latest proof that the states are ill-equipped to take over the Head Start program on a block grant basis.
Click here National Head Start Association news release highlighting a new independent analysis of the top 100 salaries of executive directors of nonprofit agencies that include Head Start programs. Among other things, the analysis finds the salaries to be "about par for charities that focus on child care, according to a study of 68,000 nonprofits by Philanthropic Research Inc." To see an Excel chart of the top 100 salaries, click here.
Click here to read the National Head Start Association's December 17, 2003 news release on a national survey of 2,341 Head Start instructors. To see a PDF file of the topline survey results (including comments from Head Start teachers), click here.
Click here to read the National Head Start Association's November 25, 2003 news release on the "real Head Start salary scandal - low teacher pay" and how the "unfunded B.A. mandate" threatens to defund Head Start programs nationwide. To see a .PDF file of program director salaries for all 2,501 Head Start programs, click here.
Click here to stop the NRS testing!
Click here to read the Pax World Funds/National Head Start Association survey released on September 4, 2003 showing that more than nine out of 10 Americans support Head Start as it operates today with support flowing from the federal government to local programs. The Pax World Funds/NHSA survey also shows strong bipartisan support for the Head Start program.
Click here to read the July 25th, 2003 NHSA statement regarding the vote on House Head Start bill HR2210.
Click here to read the joint statement of July 24, 2003 from groups opposed to the rewritten House Republican bill expected to be voted on by the U.S. House of Representatives.
Click here to read about the victory by Head Start staff and parents in a lawsuit to protect their 1st Amendment free-speech rights.
Click here to read and hear how the House bill to dismantle Head Start program leaves out 750,000 Hispanic children who are eligible to receive Head Start services.
Click here to read NHSA's June 9, 2003 response to a Bush Administration report using "stale" data to attack Head Start.
Click here to read the May 27, 2003 news release with comments from the "Father of Head Start" critical of the Hill proposal to dismantle Head Start.
Click here to read the April 16, 2003 news release.
Click here to download the "Dismantling Head Start" study.
Click below to watch the Save Head Start video news release.
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