The Trump administration is proposing a budget for the upcoming fiscal year that starts October 1 that would completely eliminate federal support for the early childhood education program known as Head Start. Layoffs have already begun in other states. In Florida, where Head Start serves more than 40,000 families, experts say the loss could be devastating to those families and potentially the economy.
Wanda Minick, the executive director of the Florida Head Start Association, says she’s been shocked to learn that most people don’t know what Head Start does. She says from her point of view, the services are essential.
"…insuring that our families, regardless of circumstances, have an opportunity to have an education, have access to nutritious meals, have access to health and medical and dental services that most early care and education programs do not do,” she says.
Head Start was established in 1965, part of President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. Today it serves thousands of Florida families—mostly those who are low income or have children with disabilities. Head Start provides childcare for children ages 3-to-5, and Early Head Start serves children under the age of three and pregnant women.
“Head Start is a two-generational thing," says Mimi Graham, director of the Florida State University Center for Prevention & Early Intervention Policy. "It’s to lift up the families and help the children be ready for school.”
Graham says the program has lifelong impacts for kids who might otherwise not have had access to early childhood programs.
“The kids who got Head Start -- they’re more likely to graduate from high school, more likely to go to college, their BMI is less, their health is better, they’re making more money, they’re more likely to be employed, they’re more likely to own their house…You can go on and on and on,” she says. "There’s health, educational and economic outcomes."
So, what would happen if Head Start were eliminated?
Nina Perez is the early childhood national director at MomsRising.org. She says she doesn’t think either Florida’s school readiness programs or its private market could absorb all the kids who would lose their childcare.
“One of the things I don’t think people realize is that this will have ripple effects in a community," she says. "Not only in the loss of critical high-quality education opportunities for children -- and for the parents also depending on that care -- but it affects the entire market in the sense that now you have a new childcare desert.”
Perez says parents will be forced to figure out how to fill in those gaps. She worries that parents could pick childcare options that have less vetting.
“And as they fill in those gaps into a market that’s going to become tighter, some pick unsafe care options because they won’t have any choice,” she says.
Or parents may be forced to exit the workforce.
Head Start advocates all over the country are sounding the alarm, hoping to convince the Trump administration it would be making a mistake to eliminate the program. Florida Head Start’s Wanda Minick says there’s still time to save it.
“This is simply a proposal. It does have to go through the House and Senate Congressional to be finalized," she says. "So, at this moment in time, our organization -- as well as other Head Start associations around the nation -- are gearing up to educate everyone about the work that Head Start does and has been doing for 60 years.”
On Monday, a coalition of parents and providers announced that they’re suing the Trump administration over the cuts. The lawsuit accuses the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services of trying to dismantle Head Start without Congressional approval.
