Legislation to Improve Head Start Passes Education and Labor Committee

Committee Defeats Misguided Republican Amendment to Permit Religious Discrimination in Hiring

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

WASHINGTON, DC -- By a strong bipartisan vote of 42-1, the House Education and Labor Committee voted today to improve and reauthorize the Head Start early childhood development and education program.

"Head Start has been the premiere early education program in this country for more than 40 years, serving more than 20 million children and families in that time," said George Miller, the committee's chairman. "The program remains a cornerstone in this country's efforts to combat poverty and provide all its citizens with the opportunity to thrive. But we know that there are areas where the program could be working even better for children and families, and today's vote takes us a big step closer to enacting very helpful reforms."

The Improving Head Start Act of 2007, introduced last week by U.S. Reps. Dale Kildee (D-MI), Mike Castle (R-DE) and George Miller (D-CA), helps more children arrive at school ready to succeed by; improving Head Start's teacher and classroom quality; expanding access to the program; increasing coordination between Head Start and state and local early childhood services; and strengthening Head Start's accountability.

"Head Start has served our most vulnerable children and families extremely well for 42 years, and more recently, Early Head Start has done the same for infants and toddlers," said Kildee, the chairman of the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education.  "These children and their families receive comprehensive educational, family support, health and nutritional services that enable them to succeed in school and in life.  We know that Head Start works, and I believe that this bill will make it work even better."

Republicans on the committee offered two ideologically-driven, misguided amendments during today's consideration of the legislation. The first amendment would have begun the process of dismantling Head Start by turning it over to the states through block grants, eliminating Head Start standards of program quality and accountability. The other amendment would have permitted Head Start grantees to use federal dollars to discriminate against job applicants on the basis of their religion.

"We are not going to permit Republican leaders to write discrimination into the Head Start law," said Miller. "Federal dollars should never be used to promote discrimination against workers simply because of their religious beliefs."

The Improving Head Start Act of 2007 will:

• Improve Head Start's workforce quality by increasing funding for teacher and staff salaries and professional development, strengthening the training and technical assistance, and hiring additional qualified staff;
• Strengthen school readiness by re-evaluating and updating current standards and assessments based on the best science, suspending and terminating the badly flawed National Reporting System, and improving professional development related to supporting children's cognitive, social and emotional development;
• Boost coordination by improving cooperation between Head Start and state and local child care programs to increase full-day and full-year services; improving linkages with Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, state health, mental health, and family services; and assisting programs in aligning Head Start and state early learning standards;
• Expand access to up to 10,000 more children;
• Allow programs to convert portions of their grant for use for Early Head Start, which serves children under three years old; and
• Increase accountability by devising a new system of application review that assesses program quality and leads to re-competition of low-quality centers; allowing the Secretary of Health and Human Services to more quickly strip bad programs of funding; and improving the triennial review process.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Tom Kiley / Rachel Racusen
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