Debunking Myths About Head Start: How the Program Promotes Opportunity and Strengthens Families, Communities, and Economies

The Head Start program has served nearly 40 million children in its 60-year history,¹ with a proven record of setting kids on a path to success, stabilizing vulnerable families, and boosting local economies.² Together, Head Start Preschool³ and Early Head Start⁴—the companion program for expectant parents, infants, and toddlers—provide low-income families with access to early education, food assistance, parenting and mental health supports, developmental screenings and early intervention, home visiting services, and other comprehensive wraparound support services. But despite its important role, Head Start faces existential threats in the current political landscape.

Head Start has faced repeated attacks that threaten its ability to serve some of the most vulnerable children and families across the United States, from the proposal to dismantle it in Project 2025, the conservative governing playbook;⁵ to a federal funding freeze⁶ in January that disrupted services for programs and threatened closures;⁷ to the proposed elimination of the program in a leaked draft of the president’s budget.⁸ Though the president’s discretionary budget request for fiscal year 2026 spared the program from elimination,⁹ fears over its future remain. What’s more, the administration has already taken other steps that destabilize the program.¹⁰ For example, the abrupt closure of half of the regional Head Start offices responsible for overseeing grants and offering technical assistance has resulted in challenges for programs across the country, which face confusion about the status of their grant applications and how to meet the administration’s demands so that they can access much-needed funding.¹¹ The administration also continues to slow-walk congressionally approved funding,¹² which has already disrupted services and forced some programs to temporarily close.¹³

Several false claims about the Head Start program have been repeatedly used as a basis for dismantling it: 1) a rejection of Head Start’s success in preparing vulnerable children for school,¹⁴ 2) the assertion that, as a federal program, Head Start restricts families’ choices for care,¹⁵ and 3) that Head Start costs more than it generates in economic returns.¹⁶

This issue brief debunks those misconceptions by highlighting how Head Start not only improves educational outcomes but also increases overall child and family well-being;¹⁷ how its federal-to-local structure ensures that community needs are met; and how it generates high, lasting returns on investment and is deeply embedded in state and local economies across the country.¹⁸

Criticisms of Head Start’s effectiveness frequently cite a 24-year-old progress report that, at the time, found mixed results in Head Start children’s academic improvement and social outcomes by the time they reached third grade compared with peers who had not attended Head Start.¹⁹ However, a range of later studies have suggested that the benefits of Head Start²⁰ and other targeted preschool interventions seem to wane not because they are ineffective but because kindergarten curricula are often structured to help children without any preschool experience at all catch up to their peers.²¹ Lack of access to Head Start or to another preschool program is therefore a missed opportunity for kindergarten education to deepen skills and content knowledge that help boost children’s academic outcomes in the long run. Moreover, researchers point out that the original study has design flaws²² and that opponents of Head Start ignore more recent research showing the program’s promising results, alongside federal efforts over the past two decades to improve it.²³

Additional studies²⁴ have found that children enrolled in Head Start and Early Head Start:

• Are more likely to attend and finish college²⁵
• Are more likely to generate higher adult earnings and economic self-sufficiency²⁶
• Experience improved health outcomes later in life²⁷
• Have lower rates of child abuse and neglect and are less likely to be exposed to the child welfare system²⁸
• Show improved adult measures of self-control and self-esteem²⁹
• Are less likely to live in poverty³⁰ or depend on public assistance programs³¹ later in life

Head Start is also associated with positive parenting practices,³² and former Head Start enrollees are found to invest more in their own children, years later.³³As an antipoverty program that offers a suite of family supportive services, Head Start provides much more than education and has multifold and multigenerational benefits, including alleviating families’ economic burdens; helping parents access employment, housing, and food assistance; and connecting children with pediatric health care and early intervention services. Research finds that every $1 invested in Head Start and Early Head Start yields an estimated $7 in returns.³⁴ Head Start participants see overall increases in their human capital that put them on more solid footing in the short term and improve their economic and health outcomes in the long term.³⁵

Despite claims of excessive federal oversight, the Head Start program is actually structured as a federal-to-local partnership, meaning it is federally funded but the day-to-day operations and administration of the program happen at the local level.⁴⁰ School districts, for- and nonprofit organizations, faith-based institutions, Tribal councils, and other entities can apply to become Head Start grantees. The grantee model also means that Head Start slots are offered in a range of care settings to better meet families’ needs, including through locally designed program options.⁴¹ In fact, while more than half of Head Start children are enrolled in school-like center-based services, one-third of Early Head Start children are cared for in home-based settings.⁴²

Through program-specific Head Start policy councils, parents and community members can take a formal leadership and policymaking role in governing their children’s programs.⁴³ In this way, families are essential to deciding programs’ curricula, how budgets should be structured, and what their children do in classrooms. Each policy council establishes its own operating by-laws. More than half of the membership of the Embarras River Basin Agency Head Start Policy Council in Illinois,⁴⁴ for example, must be the parents of currently enrolled children, and community representatives that join the council must be approved by the parent members. Policy councils⁴⁵ can also operate with subcommittees⁴⁶ focused on different program priority areas, such as children’s health and nutrition, family and community partnerships, school readiness and education, and planning and assessment. Participation in a Head Start policy council not only provides parents with leadership roles but also ensures that programs reflect the needs and priorities of the communities they serve.

Another persistent criticism of Head Start is that, at $12.97 billion for fiscal year 2025,⁴⁷ the program costs more than its value to taxpayers. In truth, insufficient investment in children’s early years ultimately costs taxpayers far more in the long run by increasing the burden on the education and health systems and by shortchanging vulnerable families trying to meet their most basic needs.⁴⁸ Moreover, while Head Start relies on federal funding for its operations, the ripple effects of Head Start closures are felt across local and state economies.

Federal dollars fund state budgets by anywhere between 18 and 50 percent,⁴⁹ and most states could not afford to assume revenue responsibility if Head Start were eliminated. Shifting the cost burden to states to provide the services families receive at no cost through Head Start—particularly given existing waitlists for other care options⁵⁰—would almost certainly result in loss of services for the most vulnerable families, pushing even more families into poverty.⁵¹ It could also mean that some state leaders are forced to make cuts to other important programs in order to come up with the revenue needed to invest in child care. For many states, that is not an option either: As Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly (D) stated at a recent press conference, “There is no fat in our budget that would allow us to move funds from something else to cover for Head Start. And we could come nowhere near to replacing it.”⁵² The loss of Head Start would hit different parts of the country in different ways; families in rural areas, for instance, already face challenges finding and accessing child care,⁵³ making Head Start a vital support, with more than 3,000 child care centers in underserved areas.⁵⁴ In fact, were it not for a Head Start program, families in many rural districts and states would have no licensed child care options at all.⁵⁵

Head Start often collaborates with state preschool programs to increase access to early learning opportunities for young children.⁵⁶ If Head Start were not funded, many preschool programs would lose revenue they need to provide care for children not receiving Head Start services, causing disruptions for families and driving up costs for states.⁵⁷ Investments in high-quality preschool access not only generate more in additional earnings in the short term—for parents, who would see fewer burdens on their household income, and for early educators, who would earn competitive, dignified wages—but also can serve as a powerful supply-side stimulus by increasing labor supply and boosting overall earnings for both parents and educators.⁵⁸ When parents do not have to spend as much of their income on high-quality services, have adequate coverage throughout the workday, and do not have to worry about their children being cared for in unstable or lower-quality program conditions, they retain more of their take-home income and can focus better at work, work more hours, and take promotions or opportunities for professional development.⁵⁹ A loss of the wraparound services offered through Head Start—such as developmental screenings, early intervention,⁶⁰ and special education⁶¹—could also place higher burdens on states’ preschool and public school systems, which could face higher costs associated with intensive special education for children who did not benefit from early intervention and support.⁶²

Head Start also is a major employer in many states, with early educators, administrators, home visiting and mental health practitioners, and contractors on staff. The loss of the program would affect thousands of parents’ employment or job search opportunities, leaving them without access to care for their children, and more than 250,000 Head Start employees could be left jobless.⁶³ Rising levels of joblessness, in turn, affect the tax revenue that states need to fund crucial programs and services. Thus, a vicious cycle is born.

Head Start is crucial for vulnerable families and fills gaps in the chronically underresourced child care system. Even short of a total loss of the program, cuts to funding would further destabilize the child care sector and would harm vulnerable children, caregivers, and communities. Congress must protect Head Start through sustained public investment to enable the program and other family supports to meet the needs of more eligible families and promote children’s future well-being and success.