Impending rules changes by the Republican Pres. Donald Trump Administration to running the Head Start programs for pre-kindergarten education will be a boon to Louisiana.
The program is designed provide free child care, allegedly with part of that provision of basic instruction to children from infants up to about five years old, to families who are at the 130 percent poverty level (about the same level as those qualifying for free or heavily discounted health care for states with expanded Medicaid), or in foster care, or who are homeless. It exists in parallel to monies spent by states on similar services to nonqualifying families.
It is, however, typically more expensive to taxpayers –- federal ones, as it exists as a roughly $12 billion grant program going directly to states – than spending per slot by state taxpayers for their separate programs, reaching about $20,000 annually on average for the 0-2 age group program and $15,000 for the 3-5. In large part this is due to the far more stringent regulations the programs have than their state, with one exception, equivalents have.
The incoming rules changes by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services aim to reduce that that complexity, essentially chopping a rulebook of about 130 pages down to 10, by giving states flexibility to default to their own standards in many cases. Theoretically, this would reduce compliance and delivery costs for providers, meaning states could stretch their allocated grants further to open up more slots for the oversubscribed program nationally, approaching perhaps a quarter of a million new ones.
After all, if it’s good enough for states, why not for Head Start in those states? Opponents claim this would lower standards thus effectiveness – except that Head Start’s effectiveness already is low. So low, in fact, that the best research available on the program shows any gains it may have inculcated for clients begin eroding immediately after entry into first grade and disappear completely within a couple of years. Nor are other presumed noncognitive benefits, such as greater completing of schooling and workforce participation and better wages, realized (with some studies showing worse outcomes in some areas). There’s nowhere to go but up, relatively speaking.
In other words, as currently constituted it’s a waste of extra dollars that do no better than less-expensive delivery held to other standards. Understand that the real motivation for the outcry from some special interests is for political reasons. For example, keeping very low client/teacher ratios boosts employment that help unionization efforts, or eliminating the requirement for multi-lingual instruction where it now would occur only in English inhibits building a political constituency of non-English speaking households ready for mobilization for special interest causes. More generally the new rules thwart increased government control and spending desires that empower government and its elites.
And, the new rules also introduce some beneficial new regulations. Food served to children would have to be healthier and emphasis in instruction would be placed upon demonstrations of healthy marriage as a positive good that also seek to engage parents in their kids’ learning, particularly fathers.
Given the metrics of Louisiana’s programs, which spend about $220 million annually for around 19,000 participating children, or on a per client basis around $2,000 less for the early program and about $5,000 less for the regular program that the national Head Start medians, several thousand new slots could be created by dropping Head Start per client payments to the average the state pays out to other providers. This would help to address shortfalls in provision overall of child care, since Head Start is so intertwined with public education’s provision of similar services.
Improving children’s welfare must come before political agendas and protecting bureaucratic turf. The regulations that could take effect before the end of the year accomplish that.
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