NEW HEAD START IMPACT STUDY SHOWS “VERY PROMISING” EARLY RESULTS, POINTS TO SUCCESS OF PROGRAM BOOSTING SCHOOL READINESS OF AMERICAN’S MOST AT-RISK CHILDREN
NHSA Warns of “Politically Motivated Distortions” From Head Start Critics With Track Record of Negativity Toward the Program
WASHINGTON, D.C.///June 9, 2005///Commenting on the Head Start Impact Study released today, NHSA President and CEO Sarah Greene said:
“We are heartened to see that the first preliminary round of data from the Head Start Impact Study is positive and we look forward to reviewing future findings as the Head Start Impact Study’s data is collected through 2006. Even though the data in the first report covers only the one school year period from the fall of 2002 and spring of 2003, it shows what is very good progress proving once again that Head Start works as intended to get America’s poorest and most at-risk children ready to learn in kindergarten and later in school.
Head Start does a better job than any other national early childhood program to narrow the school readiness gap between low-income children and their more advantaged peers. These are our nation's most disadvantaged children, and they face multiple (and often very severe) barriers to learning. However, one year in Head Start cannot erase all of these barriers. Poverty has devastating effects on children and families and is one of the strongest factors in hindering academic progress. Child development and education experts believe it is `totally illogical and unrealistic' to expect any early education program to erase the school readiness gap completely.
Unfortunately, it is inevitable that those who have resolved to trash Head Start at every turn will twist this data to their ends. While this politically motivated assault on Head Start educators and children is nothing more than part of the continued attempts to dismantle the program, it should not be allowed to obscure the fact that the Impact Study is good news for Head Start.
Consider these key points in the Impact Study:
- At the end of just one year of Head Start, Head Start was able to nearly cut in half the achievement gap in children’s pre-reading skills that would be expected in the absence of these children receiving Head Start services. This is a major sign that Head Start is getting the job done.
- Many of the cognitive, social-emotional and health findings in the report show Head Start is having a positive impact for children in just one school year. The younger the children are who are exposed to Head Start, the better the results. We expect these numbers will look even better when the Impact Study has multiple years of data on which to draw comparisons.
- A higher proportion of Head Start parents read to their children more frequently than those parents of children who were not enrolled in Head Start. This reflects the important work that Head Start does not just with the children in the classroom, but the parents of those children. We see real evidence here that our focus on building stronger families is bearing fruit in more ways than getting these children ready to learn in school.
- For children in the three-year-old group, a higher proportion of parents with children in Head Start reported that their child was either in excellent or very good health as compared with those parents who did not have children enrolled in Head Start. For three- and four-year-old children enrolled in Head Start, there was a large positive effect on them receiving dental care as a much higher proportion of Head Start children received dental care than those children who did not receive Head Start services. Beyond literacy and social skills, the critical aspect of Head Start is the comprehensive range of services that get children ready for later schooling. As we have said time and time again, a child who can’t see a blackboard, is unable to concentrate on learning in the absence of mental health intervention, or who is just too hungry to learn is not going to do well in school. Head Start addresses those problems by providing a comprehensive range of services that would be sacrificed if the sole focus of the program is literacy as some would like to see.
We look forward to seeing the upcoming two-year data in this ongoing Head Start Impact Study, and we are confident these findings will be even more promising. So far, the preliminary data is consistent with prior research findings. We fully expect that the future data collected from the Head Start Impact Study will be consistent with the Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) data in showing that these children make substantial gains in specific academic areas during kindergarten and that they end up close to national academic norms by the end of their kindergarten year.
Even though this study's findings at this time just covers one year of Head Start, NHSA is extremely proud of these results given the fact that nearly 50 percent of the children just receive part-day or part-year Head Start services. Nearly 100 percent of Head Start teachers have at least a Child Development Associates degree, 65 percent have at least an Associates degree and 34 percent have at least their Bachelors degree. Competence and ongoing training for teachers is key to successful outcomes for Head Start children.
I want to stress that what we’ve already seen in the Impact Study is good news for the Head Start program. We are not going to sit by and do nothing if people try to misrepresent what, in fact, are ‘As’ and ‘Bs’ as though they are ‘Cs’ or ’Ds.’
NHSA is far from being alone in its views on the good news in the Impact Study. We encourage you to get the facts – not the politically motivated spin – by consulting other independent Head Start experts for their views. We would be happy to supply you with a list of such experts who can comment on the Impact Study findings.”
To download the complete Head Start Impact study in PDF form, click here.
The National Head Start Association (http://www.nhsa.org) is a private not-for-profit membership organization dedicated exclusively to meeting the needs of Head Start children and their families. It represents more than 900,000 children, 200,000 staff and 2,700 Head Start programs in the United States. You can read about Head Start success stories on the Web at http://www.IGotaHeadStart.org.
CONTACT: Ailis Aaron, (703) 276-3265 or aaaron@hastingsgroup.com.
EDITOR’S NOTE: A streaming audio recording of the news event will be available on the Web as of 5 p.m. ET on June 9, 2005 at http://www.SaveHeadStart.org. |
