Washington, D.C. — In less than four months since coming to power, the Trump administration has already taken significant steps to undercut funding and other federal support for Head Start, a program that has provided critical educational, health, nutritional, and social services to nearly 40 million children since its founding.
New analysis from the Center for American Progress highlights five key facts about Head Start and the support it provides for families across the country, with an interactive map of new congressional district-level data on Head Start-funded slots and grants. Eliminating or severely disrupting the program—as the current administration has indicated it wants to do—would negatively affect hundreds of thousands of children and families, especially those living in poverty or in rural and other vulnerable communities.
Key findings from the analysis include:
- More than half of the U.S. population lives in a child care desert. If Head Start is eliminated or disrupted, hundreds of thousands of child care slots could disappear.
- Over the past year alone, Head Start served more than 790,000 children, including nearly 556,000 preschool children and more than 235,000 infants and toddlers.
- Approximately 46 percent of all funded Head Start slots are in rural congressional districts, and 96 percent of rural congressional districts have at least one Head Start grantee. Without Head Start, many rural communities would have no licensed child care center at all.
- Head Start provides critical support to vulnerable populations who face challenges accessing child care, including children in poverty, children with disabilities, American Indian and Alaska Native children, and children of migrant and seasonal workers.
- Because Head Start is a federal-to-local program, slashing it would greatly hinder state-level initiatives to build child care and early learning programs, including state preschool programs.
“Cutting or disrupting Head Start’s funding and delivery of services has wide-reaching effects, threatening some of the most vulnerable children in our nation,” said Casey Peeks, senior director for Early Childhood Policy at CAP and co-author of the issue brief. “Protecting this program is crucial for the countless American families who depend on its services. Eliminating it would also have devastating effects on the economy overall.”
Read the issue brief: “5 Things To Know About Head Start” by Casey Peeks and Allie Schneider
For more information or to speak with an expert, contact Mishka Espey at [email protected].