Head Start prepares kids for kindergarten
This letter is in response to the editorial published in your Saturday, Jan. 26, edition regarding the effectiveness of Head Start (“Head Start has not helped, studies say”). In your editorial, you sight the findings of a recent impact study.
The study’s findings are now being utilized (erroneously) as ammunition for those searching for any reason to dismiss the validity of Head Start and the positive impact Head Start has on the lives of children and families in poverty. As Yasmini Da Vinci, National Head Start Association president, notes: “While the study documented children’s significant gains at the end of the Head Start experience and the flattening benefits of Head Start attendance at the end of third grade, it did not examine a range of factors that could have contributed to the losses and cannot predict whether Head Start children may yet show outcomes into adulthood. A wealth of other studies addresses these questions and document Head Start’s long-term effectiveness.”
One question the HHS student does answer definitely is whether Head Start does its job. The program gets at-risk children ready for kindergarten in every respect the study measured. After one year in Head Start, children showed gains in vocabulary, letter-word identification, mathematics and social-emotional development compared with peers. In addition, parents involved with the program used more appropriate discipline and spent more time engaging in literacy activities with their children. These findings affirm the Head Start model in design and in practice. Head Start’s success over the decades has been built on evidence-based practices.
Your editorial also accepts the Heritage Foundation’s recommendation to utilize Head Start funds to funnel money into “private pre-school providers.” This recommendation is not a viable option in terms of maintaining quality and in providing the comprehensive services needed for low-income children and families. Head Start is not a day care. It is a child and family development program with a variety of services designed to prepare low-income children and families for success in school and success in life.
Private providers are not equipped to provide said services. We can review this in terms of your local program, Greene Lamp. It operates six centers, five of which are five-star settings (the highest designation on the state licensing system) and one at four starts. This is not the typical quality we find in most day care or pre-school settings. In addition, Greene Lamp provides nutritional, behavioral, developmental, health and family services that are necessary for vulnerable families to succeed. This would not be the case in the settings the Heritage Foundation espouses.
Does Head Start work? Absolutely! In your own local community, you have examples of successful, thriving adults who are now teachers, nurses, former state senators and professional athletes who all received a Head Start at Greene Lamp. These are real life examples that cannot be accurately described in a study or written about in an editorial with a slant that calls Head Start a “modern welfare state giveaway” but that demonstrates the positive impact that Head Start has had on your local community.
Patricia Colon, President
North Carolina Head Start Association
Goldsboro
Head Start editorial doesn't give the facts
In reference to the editorial “Head Start not helping, studies say” (The Free Press, Jan. 26), I truly do not understand why information is given or printed that does not state all the facts, but only what “they” want others to hear. I agree that taxpayers have the right to expect federal programs for which they foot the bill to function at a reasonable level of effectiveness. I too am one of those taxpayers.
The article stated Head Start does not improve performance in math, language, literacy and similar learning skills, according to the studies, (and) what strides are made often disappear in Head Start children by the end of the first grade. Did anyone ever consider looking into the public school sector to see why the strides made in Head Start have disappeared?
Also, if Head Start is not helping and is only here “as employers, as conduits for public money and as a way of socializing children in a classroom environment,” why does it seem there are other agencies and entities, it appears, to model their programs after Head Start?
I understand testing and statistics are done on Head Start children while in Head Start. Has anyone ever considered the statistics on children that because of Head Start did not end up on the streets, dropping out of school or in prisons?
Instead of trying to find fault with a program, why can’t “you” do all the research and admit Head Start is and always has been a program of excellence!
Carole Humphrey
Administrative Assistant
Greene Lamp Head Start
Kinston
Blame illegal guns, not honest citizens
Our current administration sets excellent objectives. The problem is a lack of knowledge and competence at achieving them. Preventing gun violence is a case in point. Their operating principle seems to be that too many guns are in the hands of healthy, law-abiding citizens. So, this number has to be reduced by regulation.
Data from a comprehensive study of firearm homicides in a database of 107 countries by The Guardian are frequently used to show that the U.S. has a high incidence of such events. The part of this study that is ignored is data on gun ownership for the same countries. If one uses this data to plot homicide rate against gun ownership, the plot appears to show homicides decrease with increasing gun ownership. However, it is not statistically significant, indicating there is no correlation between gun ownership and homicides.
The real problem is twofold: 1) guns are in the wrong hands illegally under current law (example: street gangs) and 2) our mental health system is broken. It is very difficult to have someone committed involuntarily to a hospital for treatment even though they are perceived to be a danger to themselves or others. Mental health facilities have been cost-reduced almost to the point of ineffectiveness.
Until we get currently illegal guns off the streets and the severely mentally ill adequately detected and treated, we will continue to read of mass firearm homicides no matter how many guns are removed from the hands of honest citizens.
Don Shiffler
Kinston