Head Start Program Pros And Cons

The Head Start Program contributes to the successful learning of children in a major way. Head Start promotes healthy prenatal out comes, enhances the development of infants and toddlers, and promotes healthy family functioning. The children are giving a better chance to succeed in school and life. Therefore, the rate of human learning and development is in the early years.

Head Start is a federally funded, education development program that was created in 1965. The program provides education and services for eligible children from low-income families. Head Start 's philosophy focuses on the development of social-emotional, physical and mental health, nutrition, and working with families and the community and stated “low-income people should help plan and run their own programs” (p. 41-42). Head Start has truly expanded their resources over the years by providing a full school year for ages 3-6 years old and offering services such as health screenings, referrals, and social services (p. 42). Most importantly, each and every Head Start program must follow the federal Head Start Program Performace Standards that address all areas of development (p. 42). The program is truly committed to support low-income families and creating an education system that supports all aspects of the child.

What are the goals of Early Head Start? The goals or priorities of this is to provide safe and developmentally enriching caregiving. To support parent, mother and father, in the role as primary caregivers. The teaching of the children, and family in meeting personal goals. Being able to successfully achieve self sufficiency across a wide variety of domains. Communities being mobilized to provide proper resources and environment that is necessary. But also, to ensure the provision of high quality responsive services for the family. The idea of this topic, is to show the types of things that should be looked for when choosing a child care center. When choosing a child care center for whom it may involve it should be important to look for things like the quality of care, and the type of care and learning techniques that will be involved, while the child is there.

Head Start has already accomplished the goal of affecting services available for low-income families and children. This is being accomplished due to better resource and referral services (Blank, 2002). 20,302,000 children have been enrolled in the

Head Start was created in 1965, during Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidential administration, as part of the Great Society plan and the War on Poverty (Currie , 2001). After observing the quality discrepancies between low income and high income educational settings, Johnson realized that “Five and six year old children are inheritors of poverty 's curse…(Johnson, 1965)” As a result, he called for the creation of a program that would allow “…preschool children of poverty [to] get a Head Start on their future (Johnson, 1965).” Soon, Head Start was established, with the goal of “enhance[ing] children’s physical, social, emotional and cognitive development (Mississippi Head Start Association, 2012).”

The research finds that participants with the lowest initial skills are the most beneficial from public Head Start programs. But this study also states that Head Start program has lots of limitation. At the beginning of this research paper, the author introduces the history and definition of Head Start program and its main purpose. He states, “The federal Head Start program is the largest early childhood education initiative in the United States, giving matching grants to preschool centers that provide parent training, early education, and health services to poor children and their families” (Healy, 2015, para. 1). As the author emphasis, the Head Start program is not suitable for all children but only offers to children from the low-income families. There are still many families left who need the public

Head Start and Early Head Start are comprehensive child development programs which serve children from birth to age five, pregnant woman and their extended families. They are child-focused programs that have the overall goal of increasing the school readiness of young children in low-income families. . These programs try to prepare young children intellectually, socially, emotionally and physically for their future educational and social endeavors. ( U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2002).. The programs prepare the parent(s) to be supportive in the endeavor. Head Start has the philosophy that parents are a child's first and most influential teacher. The Head Start program is beneficial to early learning.

In 1964, the Economic Opportunity Act transpired which included quite a lot of organizations like Job Corp, Vista, and Project Head Start. The top organization listed above is Project Head Start created in the year 1965. The plan is to help children ages three to five years old of low income families. The goal and attention remains to introduce these young kids to an early start to education, to help with thinking skills, as well as academic skills, good nutrition, health services, and parent involvement to make them successful in the future. The program not only helps children but aids in helping the family as a whole. For example, a number of parents are taught the English language; others learn to read. Head Start also assists family members

Head Start programs came about in 1964; when President Johnson declared a “war on poverty.” His idea was you must break the cycle of poverty to win the war. The program’s idea was to help break the cycle of poverty by, providing the children of low-income families the ability to meet the emotional, social, health, nutrition, and mental needs. The Parents also are offered resources in higher education, paying utilities, and other needs that are essential to succeed. According to The Basic Head Start Facts Sheet 2011, Head Start is the nation’s first national early education and early childcare program. Since then over thirty-two million children have had assistance with the program; therefore, has caused an increase of twenty-eight percent in High School Graduations (Smith 8). Head Starts main goal is to lower the achievement gap between lower-class and middle-class children.

As the longest running program to acknowledge systematic poverty in the U.S., Head Start is a family-centered program designed to promote school readiness, empower low-income families, and link community agencies and families. The objectives of Head Start are in agreement with the concept of social and economic justice. Based on the liberal viewpoint that the government should be involved with society to make sure that everyone has equal rights and opportunities, Head Start enables low-income families to have equal access to a wide range of services academically, socially, emotionally, and physically, that otherwise would not be accessible to

She declares which the chance of failure for these children is at high risk. Currie argues “those actually enrolled in Head Start are likely to face the most severe problems and are least likely to do well in the future” (683). In defending the needs of these children, it is crucial to provide a preschool program such as Head Start. This is not only an academic resource, but it focuses on the whole child; which means it provides these underprivileged children with opportunities such as: nutrition, health, education, and builds social skills that they otherwise do not have access to.

The lack of attention given to an individual child’s needs can be observed in the structuring of the classroom at Head Start. The program places

According to the Administration for Children and Families (2010), “Head Start is a national program that promotes school readiness by enhancing the social and cognitive development of children through the provision of educational, health, nutritional, social and other services to enrolled children and families” (para. 3). Based on this mission subject, it is possible to subject Head Start to a program evaluation based on the following questions: (a) Is Head Start provisioning educational, health, nutritional, social and other services to enrolled children and families? (b) Is the provisioning of educational, health, nutritional, social and other services leading to an enhancement of the social and cognitive development of children? (c) Is the social and cognitive development of children a social good for which taxpayers should pay $7 billion a year? These questions will be addressed, both directly and indirectly, later in this overview.

The mission of Petite Genie, is to provide an atmosphere where developmentally appropriate assessment, and active learning is key. Through hard work and play students have the ability to learn at their own pace, and in their own way. We provide a culture that believes that education is fun. Plant your little seedlings on steady educational ground. We will provide an atmosphere that is rich with learning opportunities at every corner, and caters to the different learning styles education is fun, the children of Petit Genie will play with a purpose.

This model allows us to further examine the effect a decrease in government spending (g) has on a child’s success (S) and attendance (a) at Head Start. Examining the elasticity of government spending (g) allows us to examine what may happen when the $9 billion budget is cut to Head Start. If government spending (g) decreases the child’s success (S) will also decrease. Also, examining the elasticities, this reduction in government spending will also reduce the child’s attendance (a) at Head Start. Examining this elasticity makes sense; a reduction in funding would mean fewer classroom materials and pay cuts towards the teachers of Head Start. The classroom materials used at Head Start is essential for a child’s success (S) and learning.