Head Start

Head Start was ahead of its time in 1965, when it began as a preschool “ready-to-learn” program for disadvantaged families, offering them a program that addressed the needs of the “whole child”—developmentally-appropriate preschool programs, help with immunizations and access to health and dental care, nutrition information and parental involvement and guidance. Some 20 million children have graduated from Head Start.

Head Start: In May, 2003, Connect for Kids director Cecilia Garcia profiled a Washington, D.C. Head Start program.

This year’s effort to reauthorize Head Start has been highly contentious, partly because of efforts to shift control over federal funding for the program to the states. The School Readiness Act to reauthorize Head Start was approved by a margin of only one vote (217-216) in the House of Representatives on July 25, 2003. On the Senate side, Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH), Chairman of the Health Education, Labor and Pension Committee, has indicated that any Senate bill will not be modeled after the legislation passed by the House. Gregg’s committee is expected to “mark-up” its own Head Start reauthorization bill in September.

The National Head Start Association and other child and education advocates warn that the House proposal to reduce federal oversight would allow states to avoid quality and accountability standards and would threaten Head Start's comprehensive approach, with its emphasis on health care, teacher quality, and parent participation.

Special Education
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is both a civil rights law guaranteeing a free appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment to students with disabilities and a federal grant program to help schools pay for the extra costs of educating children who need special services. Before the law, over a million students with disabilities were excluded from public schools, and another 3.5 million did not receive appropriate services. Today the great majority of children and youth with disabilities are educated in regular classrooms, and some six and a half million students with disabilities receive special education services.

IDEA: Connect for Kids editor Susan Phillips gave her perspective on some of the key points of contention over IDEA in a June 2003 column.

An IDEA reauthorization bill passed the House on April 30 on a mostly partisan vote. In June, a Senate bill passed the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee with unanimous, bipartisan support. The Committee-approved bill doesn’t tackle the tough issue of federal funding levels, leaving that for the full Senate, which is expected to take up the bill in September.

Advocates are in general much happier with the provisions in the Senate proposals than in the House-approved IDEA reauthorization. The Council for Exceptional Children is one group that is following the bill closely. http://www.cec.sped.org/

School Lunch and Beyond
Congress is set to rewrite the regulations governing some of the most basic and successful federal nutrition programs for low-income children—the ones providing lunches and breakfasts in schools; snacks and suppers for kids in child care and after-school programs; and summer meals when school is out.

Child Nutrition: Meet Jasmine Hain and other children and families who rely on the help of these federal programs, in this April 2003 Connect for Kids feature.

On July 16 the House Subcommittee on Education Reform of the Committee on Education and the Workforce held first hearing on the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act of 1966 and the National School Lunch Act. Also, several child nutrition bills have been introduced in the Senate to improve the quality and access to nutritious food.

The Food Research Action Council is a good source for more information on all federal food programs:

Media Ownership
Amid some evidence that consolidated ownership of mass media results in fewer choices and less quality children’s programming, along with an increase in programming many find inappropriate for children, Congress is considering action to overturn a June, 2003 decision by the Federal Communications Commission that is widely expected to increase the already intense consolidation of media markets.

Media Ownership: Here’s a kid’s perspective on media ownership. And from June, here’s the opinion of Norris Dickard, the director of public policy at the Washington, D.C. based Benton Foundation.

A Senate bill seeking to overturn a June, 2003 decision by the Federal Communications Commission was approved by the Commerce Committee just a few days after the FCC vote. Similar bills are under consideration in the House.

The Media Access Project has background on this issue.

Check out the Connect for Kids Weekly for a more comprehensive overview of the Congressional agenda and kids’ issues.