With a budget of about $12.3 billion per year, Head Start makes up the federal government’s largest single investment in early care and education. Each year, the program promotes school readiness by serving over 700,000 pregnant women and children from birth to age five in families with low incomes. Since Head Start began in 1965, it has served more than 40 million children and their families.
Despite Head Start’s long track record, the Trump administration has consistently targeted the program for either elimination or drastic reform. Project 2025, which was authored by several individuals who worked in either Trump’s first administration or his 2024 campaign, called for the complete elimination of the program due to false claims of scandal, abuse, and a lack of academic value for children. In early 2025, the administration seriously considered releasing a budget proposal that called for the program’s elimination (eventually the administration relented and released a budget proposal that kept Head Start funding at the current level).
More recently, the administration has targeted Head Start via regulatory changes. In May, the administration announced a proposed rule, “Restoring Flexibility to Support Head Start Program Access”, which would remove requirements established during the Biden administration related to staff wages and benefits. And, just a few weeks ago, the Trump-aligned Heritage Foundation released a report stating that, “Ideally, lawmakers should end Head Start. For now, officials must cut the program’s webs of red tape.”
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Potentially allowing individual state standards to substitute for the federal standards could compromise the program in multiple ways. Research suggests that child care quality, as measured by the Early Childhood Environmental Rating Scale (ECERS), is generally higher in Head Start centers compared to non-Head Start settings. State licensing and monitoring standards for child care vary enormously across states and, in many cases, are far weaker than Head Start’s requirements. Several states have child-to-staff ratios that are significantly higher than what Head Start allows. Higher ratios could mean less individualized attention, fewer meaningful interactions per child per day, and weaker outcomes, particularly for children with disabilities and dual language learners who need more intensive support.
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In many ways, the administration’s strategy for Head Start mirrors the way it’s approached the Department of Education: unable to completely eliminate something they dislike, they instead seek to dismantle it piece-by-piece. This forthcoming proposed rule seems designed to hollow out the program from within, leaving the Head Start name intact while gutting the federal standards that have long defined its quality and scope.
The post The Quiet Dismantling of Head Start: How the Trump Administration Is Using Regulation to Reshape a Program It Can’t Eliminate appeared first on American Renaissance.
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