Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
INTRODUCTION
Head Start began in 1965 as part of the Johnson administration's War on Poverty efforts to help reduce the gap in achievement between children from low-income families and their more advantaged peers. When Head Start began in 1965, publicly funded early childhood education programs for children 3–5 years of age were not widely available, especially not for families living in poverty. Head Start became one of the most widely recognized and popular federal programs. Today, it consists of two programs: Head Start and Early Head Start, which was established during the 1994 Head Start reauthorization (see Chapter 5). In fiscal year 2008, Head Start was allocated approximately $6.9 billion, of which $6.2 billion funded 1,905 programs providing services to 976,150 children and their families, according to the latest Program Information Record (PIR) data from the 2006–2007 fiscal year. Head Start is funded through a combination of federal funds given directly to local grantees (80%) plus a local match or in-kind contributions (the remaining 20%). In-kind contributions may be in the form of monetary contributions, donations of goods or services, or volunteer hours. Grantees receiving funds to operate Head Start programs tend to be community action agencies (32%), public/private school systems (17%), or private/public nonprofits, such as churches and nonprofit hospitals (37%).
Whether Head Start is able to reduce the achievement gap and indeed whether it “works” has been a hotly debated topic since its inception, and legislative pressures to demonstrate program performance and accountability are increasing.
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