A Chance for Every Child:
A Look at The Head Start Program
Aidel Beningson
Concordia College New York – Sara Schenirer A Chance for Every Child
The necessity of education in each child’s life is an undebatable fact. Unfortunately, there are less privileged children from low-income families who do not have an opportunity to access the school system. One of the many reasons why an individual may be suffering from poverty is a lack of education (Zastrow, 2017, pp. 116-117). Due to the abundance of poverty-stricken families in the US, our government created welfare programs to provide assistance, such as The Head Start Program. Originally, The Head Start Program was a six to eight-week curriculum designed to address the educational deficient of low-income children and to prepare them for kindergarten (Federal Safety Net, 2018). Today, the program has expanded to include medical, social, nutritional services in conjunction with educational services for low-income children that are three to six years of age (Sadker & Zittleman, 2010, p. 252).
Head Start programs ensure that low-income children are ready for school. The program offers a variety of services, which depend on the needs of that particular community. Head Start programs train and prepare vulnerable children to succeed in school by including therapists in the child’s day to day schedule to address the child’s educational needs and collaborate with the parents to stress the importance of maintaining health and wellness (Administration for Children and Families, n.d).
The Head Start welfare program was initiated President Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” campaign. In 1965, this project was launched as an eight-week summer school program (ACF, n.d). Today, 80 percent of the children that benefit from this program are between the ages three to four (ACF, n.d). Due to the lack of development that the child experienced in poverty, they saw that a few weeks would not suffice. Consequentially, in 1969, Congress authorized a year-round program and the Nixon Administration transferred to the act to The Department of Health and Human Services (Federal Safety Net, 2018). In 1994, the Head start program was expanded to include Early Head Start (EHS) program. This initiative addressed the development needs of children from birth to three years of age, the most crucial developmental period (Federal Safety Net, 2018). Both the Head Start and Early Head Start program are federally funded and are at no cost to their families.
Head Start aims to help needy children improve their social and learning skills so they can begin school with the same foundations as their more fortunate peers. Janet Currie and Duncan Thomas researched the benefits of Head Start and found an increase in the child’s IQ and a correlation to reduced grade repetition and teenage pregnancies (Currie & Thomas, 1993, p.1). When the government helps improve child education, it can act as a catalyst to decrease poverty in the United States as well (Currie & Thomas, 1993, p.1).
John Love, Ellen Kisker and Christine Ross studied a random sample of families that participated in the Early Head Start Program to evaluate the effectiveness (2005, p. 1). Their studies showed that the 3-year-old program performed better than the control group who did not participate in Head Start. This was evident when it came to sustaining attention with play objects and were more cognitive and language developed (Love, Kisker & Ross, 2005, p. 1). Similarly, another study conducted by the University of Michigan examined the effects of disadvantaged black children who participated in Project Head Start in two American cities. It was found that these Head Start participants drastically improved in their cognitive and analytical abilities (Lee, 1990, p 1).
The results of this program speak for itself when it comes to stressing the importance of education for disadvantaged children. In a study done in 1998, the effectiveness of a parenting program with Head Start mothers were examined. Nine randomly assigned Head Start centers took part in either an experimental condition in which teachers, parents, and the family service workers participated in the intervention or a control condition in which the regular Head Start program was offered. The results proved the advantages of Head Start. When compared to the control group, the mothers in the intervention group were observed at home, and they had significantly fewer condemning remarks and were more competent in their parenting. Teachers reported that intervention mothers were more involved and enthusiastic in their child’s education and that their children were more socially adept. Moreover, it was observed that the intervention children exhibited fewer conduct problems and were more compliant than control children. When these families were observed one year later, most of these results were maintained (Webster-Stratton, 1990).
The American Educational Research Association conducted a study in which there was substantial evidence that preschool programs for low-income children have long-term impacts on a child’s life, such as addressing income-related development gaps (Morris, et al., 2018, p. 1). If Head Start’s meets their goal preparing large numbers of low-income children for school, “…Then Head Start is a pioneer as one of the largest, most comprehensive programs for 3- and 4-year-old children and a signature of the mid-1960s War on Poverty.” (Morris, et al., 2018, pp. 1-2).
References
Currie, J., & Thomas, D. (1993, July). Does Head Start Make a Difference? Retrieved September 30, 2018, from National Bureau of Economic Research. doi:10.3386/w4406
Head Start and Child Care. (2018, August). Retrieved from http://www.federalsafetynet.com/ head-start-and-child-care.html
Lee, V. E., Brooks-Gunn, J., Schnur, E., & Liaw, F. (1990). Are Head Start Effects Sustained? Child Development, 61(2), 495-507. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.1990.tb02795.x
Love, J. M., Kisker, E. E., Ross, C., Raikes, H., Constantine, J., Boller, K., Brooks, J., Chazen, R., Tarullo, L., Vogel, C. (2005). The Effectiveness of Early Head Start for 3-Year-Old Children and Their Parents: Lessons for Policy and Programs. Developmental Psychology, 41(6), 885-901. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.41.6.885
Morris, P. A., Connors, M., Friedman-Krauss, A., Mccoy, D. C., Weiland, C., Feller, A., Yoshikawa, H. (2018). New Findings on Impact Variation From the Head Start Impact Study: Informing the Scale-Up of Early Childhood Programs. AERA Open, 4(2), 233285841876928. doi:10.1177/2332858418769287
Office of Head Start. Head Start Programs. (n.d.). Retrieved September 30, 2018, from https:// www.acf.hhs.gov/ohs/about/head-start
Sadker, D. M., & Zittleman, K. R. (2010). Teachers, Schools, and Society. New York: McGraw- Hill.
Webster-Stratton, C. (1998, October). Preventing conduct problems in Head Start children: Strengthening parenting competencies. Retrieved October, 2018
Zastrow, C. (2017). Introduction to Social Work and Social Welfare. Australia: Cengage Learning.