Holden raises concerns about Head Start

When the Head Start program began in 1965 as one of the fronts in President Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty, it was touted as a way to provide child care, immunizations and special learning preparation to preschoolers whose parents couldn't afford such services. Over the years, more than 21 million children have participated, including 18,000 in Missouri last year.

Periodically, Congress reviews the Head Start program, and last week the House passed, 217-216, a bill that has raised a ruckus, especially among Democrats who oppose new religious hiring guidelines for the program, which is administered by not-for-profit agencies and schools.

But a bigger concern should be the one raised by Gov. Bob Holden, who fears that turning over management of the program to states and changing the funding mechanism will dismantle Head Start. Currently, states are reimbursed on a per-pupil basis. Under the bill headed for Senate review, states would receive block grants and would be required to provide the same level of total spending and services.

Holden rightly observes that other programs -- he cited homeland security and Medicaid as examples -- that are turned over to states by the federal government tend to also result in a shift of financial responsibility for these mandates to the state's taxpayers.

Head Start has its detractors who say the program is flawed and ineffective. But there are thousands of teachers who say disadvantaged students have benefited from Head Start programs and are able to succeed in their classrooms. Coordinating Head Start with other state programs makes sense, but cutting off the federal funding would, in most cases, doom a program that has been a federal project from the beginning.