The Trump administration’s proposal to overhaul Head Start

The Trump administration wants to deregulate Head Start, the early education program for low-income families and hand oversight of the federal program over to the states. It proposes cutting hundreds of standards, including requirements for low class size, medical, dental and disability screenings, mandates for full-day care, and pay parity for staff.

Announcing the proposed cuts, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy stated in a press release that the goal was to get rid of the red tape, and to give more trust to parents and local communities to expand the program to more children. HHS wants to eliminate more than 100 pages of rules and add some new requirements: classes would be taught only in English and programs would teach parents about marriage and healthy relationships. Kennedy, whose uncle Sargent Shriver started the program in 1965, has said these changes could allow a nearly 40% increase in new slots for kids.

But advocates and early education experts are sounding the alarm. They argue many of the federal guidelines maintain the program’s effectiveness at helping vulnerable kids and families and that rolling them back would harm quality and compromise safety. Conservative critics have questioned Head Start’s effectiveness and the costs, and eliminating it was a goal laid out in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025.

So today, we’ll talk about the legacy and impact of Head Start and look at what the proposed rule changes would mean for the 700,000 children it currently serves. Plus, we check in on the Trump White House efforts to overhaul education policy, including its push to dismantle the Department of Education.

Guests:

• Steven Barnett, board of governors professor and the founding director of the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University
• Norma Bell, Head Start teacher at the Children’s Village in Philadelphia
• Erica Meltzer, national editor at Chalkbeat