Texas providers support more Head Start slots but fear looser standards and lower administrative funding could weaken services.
By Wilborn P. Nobles III,
Dallas Morning News
https://www.dallasnews.com/
Federal officials proposed an overhaul of the Head Start program Thursday that they say would reduce bureaucracy, give local providers more flexibility and create as many as 236,000 additional preschool slots nationwide. Texas Head Start leaders say they worry children and families could lose critical services in the process.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said the proposal would shift authority over issues including staff-to-child ratios, group sizes, workforce requirements, background checks and transportation practices from federal rules toward state and local systems. Officials say the changes would save $2.2 billion and lower administrative costs.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called Head Start “the program that works for the most vulnerable, the poorest kids in our society,” and said the administration hopes the proposal will end up “protecting the program as it was designed.”
The proposal also would cap administrative costs at 5%, down from 15%, and add requirements related to nutrition and physical activity. The proposal is subject to a 60-day public comment period. It is not yet final.
Texas Head Start leaders and program executives said they support expanding access to the federally funded early education program. But they warned that loosening requirements around staffing, group sizes, family services and administrative costs could weaken the quality that distinguishes Head Start from other childcare programs.
“It’s not about my program; it’s about the people I serve that I’m most worried about,” said Hanna Adams, executive director of Cornerstone Community Action Agency. The agency’s Head Start program serves Parker, Palo Pinto, Jack and Wise counties and about 370 children, she said. About 23% of those children, or roughly 85, have identified disabilities.
Alex J. Adams, an assistant secretary at HHS, said the department is hoping to give Head Start centers the flexibility by eliminating most of Head Start’s regulations.
“Federal mandates can certainly hinder local decision-making, drive up costs and limit the program’s reach,” Adams said on a preview call with reporters Wednesday night. He highlighted a decadelong decline in Head Start enrollment. “If we get this proposed rule right, we will grow the number of Head Start slots.”
Kim Kofron, director of early childhood education at Children at Risk, called the proposed changes “concerning” during a phone interview Thursday.
“With a reduction in standards, the children most in need of high-quality care are going to bear the greatest burden, not just in Texas but across the country,” she said.
Steven Barnett, founder and senior director of the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University, said the proposal could undermine Head Start’s ability to prepare children in poverty for school.
Barnett said eliminating federally prescribed child-staff ratios could allow child-to-teacher ratios to double or even triple in some Head Start programs. He said Head Start should align with high-quality state pre-K standards rather than basic childcare licensing requirements.
“Low child-staff ratios are linked to better school readiness,” Barnett said in a written statement.
Adams said her program would not want to lower its standards, particularly as it serves children with disabilities and other high needs.
Related: Texas falls short on pre-K standards, new report says. Here’s how it can improve
“If it’s lower, I don’t know that we would lower a standard of who we’re serving and why we serve them,” she said.
Adams of HHS emphasized that centers have the option to continue to operate as they had in the past. He estimated the new rules could generate more than $2 billion in savings and potentially allow Head Start to serve more children.
What to know about Head Start
Head Start began in the 1960s as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty and currently has more than 1,600 operators, including school districts and nonprofits.
It’s governed by more than 100 pages of regulations that require centers to have low staff-to-student ratios and a research-backed curriculum, among other things, and they ensure centers are providing wraparound services that are critical to children in poverty, including medical and dental screenings and parent coaching.
The proposal would eliminate or replace most of those federal regulations. Head Start operators would instead look to state and local childcare licensing requirements for guidance.
Ann Awalt, executive director of the Community Action Corporation of South Texas, said Head Start’s federal standards have historically provided a consistent floor for programs operating in states with different licensing requirements.
Awalt’s agency operates Head Start and Early Head Start programs across seven South Texas counties, serving more than 1,000 children and families. She said programs have generally followed whichever federal or state standard was more stringent when the requirements differed.
Awalt questioned whether state licensing standards would provide the same level of quality as Head Start’s current requirements. State licensing rules typically focus on health and safety, she said, while Head Start programs provide broader services such as screenings, family support and community assessments with a strong focus on education and school readiness.
Those community assessments help programs determine where to locate centers, what services families need and how to respond to local health and workforce conditions, Awalt said. She said local officials sometimes use the assessments to guide broader community planning.
Amanda Shelton, executive director of the Texas Association of Community Action Agencies, said the proposed administrative-cost cap could be especially difficult for programs already operating on lean budgets.
“The administrative cap will be significantly reduced,” Shelton said during a call with the Texas Head Start operators. “These organizations are already navigating very lean budgets and still providing quality services to the community.”
Shelton said programs would need to determine whether they could continue providing the same level of services under the lower cap.
What the proposed Head Start changes could mean for Dallas
Tori Mannes, president and CEO of Dallas-based ChildCareGroup, said the organization is still reviewing the proposal. ChildCareGroup is one of two Head Start grantees serving Dallas, Mannes said.
Mannes emphasized the importance of maintaining low student-to-teacher ratios and strong teacher-child interactions. She also questioned whether the proposed administrative cap would leave large organizations with enough capacity to oversee programs, maintain compliance and provide services safely.
“Administrative capacity isn’t bureaucracy for its own sake,” Mannes said. “It’s really what enables complex, large organizations to deliver safe, accountable, high-quality services at scale.”
Mannes said ChildCareGroup will also be watching how the proposal affects staffing, family services and access. She pointed to former Head Start parents who later bought homes, advanced in their careers or joined the organization’s board as examples of the program’s two-generation impact.
Kofron from Children at Risk said in a written statement that the proposal could force grantees to cut staff, family supports or services if they cannot operate within the 5% administrative cap. Kofron also raised concerns about the proposed shift from dual-language instruction toward English-only instruction, saying many Texas Head Start children come from multilingual households.
She also said Texas’ current standards for group sizes and staff-to-child ratios are less stringent than Head Start’s existing requirements, warning that quality could vary significantly among grantees if federal standards are weakened.
Max Rombado, director of early learning policy at Texans Care for Children, said the organization will be analyzing the proposal’s potential impact in Texas.
“Head Start is an essential program that provides children from low-income families with childcare, early learning, health and developmental screenings, nutrition and other comprehensive services,” Rombado said. “If the administration moves forward with changes to Head Start, it will be important to both improve access and make sure the kids in the program are getting a high-quality experience.”
The Texas program leaders said more slots are needed. They said their programs have waiting lists and serve families who often have few affordable childcare options.
But they said expansion should not come at the expense of quality.
“We need more slots,” Adams said. “I just don’t want more children served on the backs of low-income children.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
This reporting is part of the Future of North Texas, a community-funded journalism initiative supported by the Commit Partnership, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, the Dallas Mavericks, the Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Lisa and Charles Siegel, the McCune-Losinger Family Fund, The Meadows Foundation, the Perot Foundation, the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas and the University of Texas at Dallas. The News retains full editorial control of this coverage.
Workforce Readiness & Economic Mobility Reporter
Wilborn P. Nobles III is the workforce readiness and economic mobility reporter for The Dallas Morning News. He previously covered Atlanta City Hall for Axios and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He also worked for The Baltimore Sun and The Times-Picayune. The New Orleans native is a graduate of Louisiana State University.
