Trump administration plans to upend Head Start by deregulating it
The Trump administration is preparing a major rollback of federal requirements for Head Start, a change that supporters of the childcare program fear could gut its long-standing anti-poverty mission.
The proposed changes would remove most of Head Start’s 133 pages of requirements for math and literacy curricula, class sizes, medical screenings, home visits and even a requirement that children brush their teeth after meals, according to three people with knowledge of the plan who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Administration officials say the changes will streamline a heavily regulated program while giving states and cities more control over how it is run.
But Head Start advocates say that erasing regulations serves as a backdoor way to dismantle a program the administration does not like. The White House last year called Head Start “radical” and tried but failed to freeze spending on it.
While Head Start facilities will still be required to comply with state rules, there are almost no comparable state-level programs with similar requirements. And even though the federal rules would not prohibit centers from providing traditional anti-poverty services, some fear that the lack of any requirements means that many are likely to stop doing so.
The changes are expected to be formally introduced as early as next week and could be finalized by year’s end. They would remake a program that has served more than 30 million children since it was created in 1965 as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty.
A White House official, who declined to be identified, wrote in an email that the administration is supporting Head Start by keeping its federal funding in place and supporting efforts the official said would reduce administrative burdens.
A spokesperson for the Health and Human Services Department’s Administration for Children and Families, which oversees Head Start and drafted the changes, did not respond to a request for comment.
But Ruth Friedman, a childcare policy expert who worked as a congressional aide to create a bipartisan 2007 law updating Head Start, called the proposed changes a “massive gutting” of the program.
“Eliminating Head Start’s performance standards guts the science-backed standards that ensure our youngest learners get what they need to arrive at kindergarten ready to succeed,” she said.
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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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