Headstart doesn’t really achieve the results its advocates claim for it:
HHS’ latest Head Start Impact Study found taxpayers aren’t getting a good return on this “investment.” According to the congressionally-mandated report, Head Start has little to no impact on cognitive, social-emotional, health, or parenting practices of its participants. In fact, on a few measures, access to the program actually produced negative effects.
Head Start doesn’t need more money. It needs to be put on the chopping block.
The HHS’ scientifically-rigorous study tracked 5,000 children who were randomly assigned to either a group receiving Head Start services or a group that did not participate in Head Start. It followed their progression from ages three or four through the end of third grade. The third-grade evaluation is a continuation to HHS’ first-grade study, which followed children through the end of first grade.
The first-grade evaluation found that any benefits the children may have accrued while in the Head Start program had dissipated by the time they reached first grade.
The study also revealed that Head Start failed to improve the literacy, math and language skills of the four year-old cohort and had a negative impact on the teacher-assessed math ability of the three-year-old cohort.
Based on this track record, HHS and Head Start devotees should not have been surprised to learn that the results of the third-grade evaluation were even worse. If the impacts of Head Start had all but disappeared by first grade, how could they suddenly reappear by the end of third grade?
Not only were the third-grade evaluation results poor, so was the department’s handling of the study. HHS sat on the results for four years. All that time, taxpayers were kept in the dark while their tax dollars continued to fund a completely ineffective program.
Thomas Sowell wrote a book called Reality isn’t Optional The Bureacrats at the EPA should read at least the title:
Friday, U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that, why no, the EPA may not punish the oil industry for their noncompliance with the EPA’s lofty Renewable Fuels Standard mandates in failing to blend a certain amount of cellulosic biofuels into their product, seeing as how those biofuels are not actually available.
Bill Maher begins to get a clue:
MAHER: And here, listen to this about disability. People who take disability, who are on disability, in 1968 it was 51 to1, people on disability to people who worked. In 2001, not that long ago, it was 23 to 1. Now it’s 13 to 1, 13 people to one who are on disability. Now, of course, you know, some of that is real. We are an overworked, overstressed, polluted, ripped off and lied to people. So, I mean, obviously there are some people who really do have disabilities. But 13 to 1?
You know, it just seems like there’s less people pulling the wagon and more people in the wagon, and at some point the wagon is going to break.
Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2013/01/26/bill-maher-agrees-country-has-takers-we-have-235-dirt-bags-america#ixzz2JJBVTUMd
2 Comments
You’ve posted negative comments before about Head Start and I’ve responded. The article you quoted is definitely slanted and you neglect to mention all the good that Head Start does in the lives of children.
FYI: The purpose of Head Start is to PREPARE CHILDREN FOR KINDERGARTEN and the report shows that THAT goal IS achieved. What happens to these children in the local school districts and WHY they lose that advantage cannot be laid at the feet of Head Start – that is a LOCAL SCHOOL DISTRICT impact on the children that came, equal to their peers in preparedness.
Head Start provides children with structure, safety, and health and nutrition services as well as basic knowledge of their letters and numbers, socialization skills, science and math exposure, development of large and small motor. Children who need speech enhancement/services or other services for disabilities receive them. Head Start helps children to attain socialization skills they wouldn’t have if they were not attending preschool.
You base your hatred of a national program on a limited exposure to a poorly run program or two. There are thousands, of wonderful programs out there with dedicated staff who could earn tons more in local schools, but they stick with the programs and children they love and believe in.
The report can claim that Head Start failed, but it didn’t. The local school districts and their home lives failed these children. The children were WELL prepared…they were ready…they were on a level playing field with their peers when they entered Kindergarten and then they were not given the supports they needed to continue to stay abreast with their peers.
Don’t blame Head Start programs – they accomplished their goals of preparing the children for Kindergarten. Point your nasty little accusatory finger toward the real cause of these children falling behind – the poverty they live in – and look to the local school districts who fail to educate and support these children and families in ways to overcome their life atmospheres.
Why anyone, ANYONE would want to strip these children of a safe place, of a place where they are wanted, loved, taught, where they receive nutritious, wholesome meals, where they are secure and their brains are challenged and they are HAPPY…is beyond me.
You, and others like you, would sentence these children to a life stripped of those benefits because they “lose” the ‘benefits’ due to poor support AFTER they leave Head Start?? You would have them spend their days probably watching inappropriate shows in front of a mindless TV? Not having their minds engaged in positive learning environments? Where they possibly wouldn’t receive nutritious food because it’s not always the easiest nor cheapest food to attain? You would deprive young, very young sometimes, parents of classes where they can learn to parent the little people in their care? For Head Start is not just for children – parents are educated many times alongside of their children.
Nice. Real nice.
Oh what’s the point? You’re too blinded by hatred to be able to see the good. I’m done.
If what you imagine you are seeing in my posts about HS is hatred, I think you need to rethink who it is who is blinded here.