Imagine being told that the best way to improve a life-changing program is to expect less of it: fewer hours, larger classrooms, lower teacher qualification standards, higher children-to-teacher ratios, fewer protections for children with disabilities, and less capacity for the health, nutrition, and family supports that make Head Start unique. These are just some of the key concerns raised by the Office of Management and Budget’s New Proposed Rule Making (NPRM), which proposes changes to the Head Start Program Performance Standards.
Head Start is more than childcare. Congress created it as a comprehensive, two-generation strategy to disrupt poverty, combining early learning with health, nutrition, mental health, disability services, family support, and connections to resources that help families achieve greater stability and make sure their children are kindergarten-ready. The need is particularly urgent in our community. The Public Policy Institute of California’s most recent annual report on poverty will show Santa Barbara County has the highest poverty rate in California for the second consecutive year, when poverty is measured using a methodology that accounts for our exceptionally high cost of living.
Currently 21.4 percent of our overall population and 24 percent of our children live at, or below, the poverty line.
In a community where families are struggling to afford housing, food, childcare, and transportation, we should be strengthening Head Start — not weakening the standards that protect its quality.
Consider what is at stake: a proposed 5 percent administrative cap would strain an already stretched infrastructure supporting health, nutrition, disability, and family services. Reduced program hours would make it harder for working parents to have affordable, safe childcare and earn the wages they need to care for their families. Larger child-to-teacher ratios would dramatically reduce individualized attention and the quality of education the children receive. Weakened disability standards would put quality and vulnerable children at greater risk.
Reducing unnecessary bureaucracy is worthwhile. But strong standards are not simply paperwork. They are the guardrails that protect the integrity of the Head Start model.
Congress created Head Start. Any fundamental transformation of the model should be decided by Congress — not accomplished incrementally, and destructively through government regulation.For Santa Barbara County families, the stakes are too high.
Let’s not dismantle Head Start through deregulation. Let’s strengthen it for the next generation. Please go to SaveHeadStartSB.com and tell OMB and Congress “No” to the NPRM.
