HEAD START LEADERS HAVE HIGH HOPES FOR NEW PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS, BUT BUDGET "DOUBLE WHAMMY" EXPECTED TO FORCE CUTS OF UP TO 14,000 CHILD SLOTS NATIONWIDE Click here to read our June 19, 2008 news release: "Faced with an effective $1 billion cut in funding since 2002, cash-strapped Head Start programs across the United States will have no choice but to seek up to 14,000 child enrollment cuts now that Congress and the Bush Administration have let down America’s most at-risk children twice in just over six months, according to local Head Start leaders across the nation and officials at the National Head Start Association (NHSA)" … Listen Now 

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 totaling an estimated $20 billion." … Listen Now 

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." …

TELL CONGRESS YOU SUPPORT HEAD START POLICY COUNCILS!: The Senate and the House have passed respective Head Start Reauthorization Bills, S. 556 and H.R. 1429. Click here to send a letter to Congress to let them know you support the language regarding policy councils in H.R. 1429, which maintains the current shared governance structure of Head Start except for the hiring and firing of the program director. Unfortunately, S. 556 includes provisions that would diminish the role of the policy council from a decision maker to that of an advisor. Tell your member of Congress to support the language in the House Bill for inclusion in the final Head Start Reauthorization Bill that maintains the current shared governance structure of Head Start, except for the hiring and firing of the program director in the bill that emerges from the House-Senate Conference Committee ...

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." ... Listen Now 

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 ... Listen Now 

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 ...

U.S. HOUSE VOTE: Click here to read the September 23, 2005 National Head Start Association statement on the U.S. House Head Start bill passed on September 22nd. While the measure contains some positive elements (including an end to the controversial NRS tests), NHSA is concerned about provisions that would permit religious discrimination in hiring, fail to provide needed funding for higher teacher qualifications, limit parental involvement and put undue limits on Head Start training and travel ...

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!

SHORTCHANGING HEAD START: A major July 2005 study by the nonprofit Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) shows that a U.S. Senate bill (S. 1107) would force Head Start programs to add or "upgrade" more than 33,000 teachers to meet requirements for more BA and AA degrees, even though no arrangements have been made by Congress to cover the resulting $3.4 billion funding gap ...

HEAD START IN THE NEWS: Don't undercut the role of parent councils in Head Start! In a major editorial, the Seattle Post Intelligencer points out: "... sharply limiting the role of any parents -- fathers and mothers -- in their children's early education is a recipe for increasing troubles, not reducing mistakes. If either liberals or conservatives mean half of what they say about wanting low-income families and kids to thrive, they will build reform around strengthening the role of parents in Head Start. In education as in family life, both dads and moms matter." ... The editorial board of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette tells Congress that is has to pay the piper for any additional Head Start teacher degree requirements that it may impose ... "Bills Could Mean Head Start Cuts" warns the headline of this Quincy Herald Whig news article about the dangerous consequences of Congress continuing to underfund Head Start ...

HEAD START WORKS!: At IGotAHeadStart.org, you can read about Head Start success stories from across the United States, including a Wall Street investment banker ... NFL superstar Deion Sanders ... a member of the U.S. House of Representatives ... a Georgetown University professor ... a children's book author ... a White House helicopter pilot ... the executive editor of a major New York newspaper ... a decorated Air Force officer who conducted 300 top-secret reconnaissance missions after 9/11 … and more!