When Head Start was founded, the idea was simple: give low-income kids a running start before kindergarten — not just with preschool classes and childcare, but with health screenings and support for their families.
Some 60 years later, it serves more than 750,000 children — and their families — every year.
But the Trump administration thinks the program is too costly and inefficient. Last week, it proposed the most significant changes to Head Start in decades. The proposed rules would eliminate many of the federal standards for how programs are run and hand those decisions to the states. They would also cap how much programs can spend on administrative costs.
Officials say the changes would save money and open up new slots for hundreds of thousands of kids. Critics say stripping these standards is the first step towards dismantling the program entirely.
What does the evidence say about whether Head Start works? And what happens if those federal standards go away?
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