Blogs For Victory

Andrew Coulson over at Pajamas Media on Head Start:

“Head Start,” the flagship pre-kindergarten program introduced in 1965, has been a $166 billion failure. That’s the upshot of a sophisticated multi-year study just released by the Department of Health and Human Services.

An earlier iteration of the study, published in 2005, had found a few modest improvements in the language skills of participating students while they were enrolled in the program. But by the end of the first grade, even those few effects have disappeared, according to the follow-up released this month. Out of 44 separate cognitive tests given to former Head Start students at the end of the first grade, only two showed even marginally significant effects. The other 42 showed no statistically significant effect at all.

But even that overstates the case for Head Start. That’s because, on each of the 44 separate tests, there is a 1 in 10 chance of a false positive…After controlling for the likelihood of false positives, the study’s authors found no “socio-emotional” benefits and no “parenting practice” benefits either. No benefits to Head Start of any kind at the end of first grade. None.

Cheerleaders for the program has this mealy-mouthed response to the study:

…This study demonstrates that Head Start programs are of good or better quality (Ed. Note: compared to what?) and finds favorable cognitive, socio-emotional, and health impacts for children who attended Head Start and positive impacts on parenting practices. Yet the study indicates that many of the early gains made in Head Start prior to kindergarten might be lost at the end of first grade…

…Head Start has a 45-year history of continuous improvement. This study was conducted from 2002 to 2006. Two years ago, Head Start reauthorization included many significant improvements to the program which are currently in the process of implementation.

Translation: “Ok, so the program doesn’t work, but its been in place for 45 years and we started to improve things right after the study ceased collecting data. Trust us – in another 45 years, it’ll be swell. Can we have a budget increase?”

Here is the mission statement of Head Start:

Head Start is a national program that promotes school readiness by enhancing the social and cognitive development of children through the provision of educational, health, nutritional, social and other services to enrolled children and families.

As the first linked article goes on to note, Candidate Obama promised us that he would terminate any program found to be a failure. Given the mission statement of Head Start and the results of the study, Head Start should be on the President’s “cut” list. Naturally, there is no move to cut Head Start – if anything, we’re likely to see increased funding for it. Why? Because its a program which spends a lot of money in a way which pleases liberals and, of course, funds ever more AFSCME union dues and thus campaign donations to the Democrat party. There isn’t a chance in heck that Obama will cut even a dime, no matter how much a failure the program is.

In the grand scheme of things, $166 billion over more than 40 years is not that big a deal – but it has been money entirely wasted. It is money which could be used henceforth on the one program which has demonstrated ability to improve education outcomes for disadvantaged children: school choice. Liberals still find this hard to believe, but the fact is that when you give parents the choice and the power, things work out better for kids. Flabbergasting as it seems, parents are better judges of the needs of the child than Head Start bureaucrats. I know – very weird, but there it is.

We need to completely reform our government – go through it with no pre-conceived notions and from top to bottom decide if what we’re doing is actually worth the cost of doing it. It’ll take a very brave President backed up by a very brave Congress – both happily willing to lose office at the next election – to do this.