Head Start Effectiveness - When Does It Work?

...

I recently spoke with a teacher of the Head Start classroom program in Mauston, Wisconsin. LuAnn Vandoren has been working with children in the classroom for over fifteen years. Ms. Vandoren concurs that many children that enter her classroom with typical cognitive development, but a significant delay in self-help skills, self-regulation, and language. For Max, whose language skills are actually remarkably strong, it’s more a matter of “socially acceptable” language skills than a lack of language per se. According to Carey (2013), “By some measures, five-year-old children of lower socioeconomic status score more than two years behind on standardized language development test by the time they enter school.” For a young child, that presents a pretty big disadvantage when entering kindergarten. Imagine a child who doesn’t understand some of the language a teacher is using. He is already behind when she gives him directions, reads to the class, or when he’s trying to learn to read.

The Head Start agency that runs the Mauston Head Start Centers also runs programs in four other counties. They serve some of the poorest families in the state. It is not uncommon in rural Juneau or Adams County to have families living in in very old mobile homes, or even campers, year-round. Besides just offering and academic program, Head Start provides families with resources or referrals to health and care, fuel assistance, parenting classes, and nutrition programs. In classroom programs, children are provided with nutritious meals and snacks free of charge.

Ms. Vandoren described Head Start as a “strength based” program; meaning, teachers look for positive qualities in children, and help them use those strengths to work to their potential. For example, one little boy, Eduardo*, has a “big” personality that can sometimes become rough towards teachers or other children, in an effort to gain attention. Instead of considering this behavior as a problem, Eduardo is given the role of leader in the classroom. He takes his role seriously, and hopefully, this will help him use his bold nature in a positive way.

Ms. Vandoren shared that while school-readiness goals such as knowing their letters and numbers are certainly important, a huge goal of her program is the social-emotional development of the children. So, she states, Head Start takes a more nurturing approach to teaching than a typical school setting might offer. Max’s experience certainly drives home the need for that nurturing; without a lot of support, he would be entering kindergarten with no concept of waiting ones turn, getting along with other children, or following rules most children would understand and comply with. On a typical school playground, with no fencing and one or two adults for a large group of children, Max and his peers are likely to engage in behaviors considered unacceptable to a school. One young boy, Duncan*, age four, was sent home this summer by his local school (during a summer two-week pre-K introduction). He was more or less “suspended” because of rough behavior on the playground (allegedly “bullying” a much older child). His family made the switch to a Head Start classroom, and he is thriving under the nurturing, guidance, and close supervision. His teacher reports that he is generally agreeable and gets along well with other children, but he needed that extra support when school started. Now that he has the tools to follow classroom routines, he can get down to the business of learning some of the academics.

Howard Bloom (2015) reported on data from the 2010 National Head Start Impact Study and quantifies the variations of children’s cognitive and social-emotional outcomes in comparison the other alternatives, such as parental care.

The paper drew the following conclusions:

- Effectiveness of Head Start varied substantially from one H.S. program to another.

- Results for Spanish-speaking children with low pretest scores were very favorable.

- In other groups, results were mixed, ranging from much more effective to much less effective than local alternatives, including parent care.

Bloom concluded that one thing we do know about Head Start outcomes is that the immediate effects are pretty much without question. What is harder to show, however, is how long those effects last, and if they don’t, what is to blame? Does Head Start meet its intention of school readiness?

I wonder how someone argues something that doesn’t exist. If we know that children fare better right out of Head Start than they would otherwise, how do we know they wouldn’t be further behind than their peers later if they hadn’t been enrolled in Head Start?

Interestingly, one unique study (Whitehurst, 2010) compares children who have attended a Head Start program with siblings who either did not attend Head Start or attended another kind of preschool. This is important, since many times, comparisons are made between Head Start children and middle class children, and Head Start serves the neediest of children and families. It’s hard to show what children have learned through Head Start participation without putting into context where they came from-what they “come to the table” with to start. Whitehurst concluded that children in Head Start do, in fact, net in short term and long term gains, as well as overall family well-being.

“Into Adulthood: A Study of the Effects of Head Start” (Oden, Schweinhart, David Weikart, 2000), presents encouraging findings from a seventeen-year follow-up study of 622 young adults in Colorado and Florida, who were born in poverty, some of whom attended Head Start as young children. The researchers located and interviewed seventy-seven percent of the original sample of children.

The study found evidence of important effects on school success and crime. For example, at one study site had only about one-fourth as many Head Start participants as nonparticipant females (5% versus 19%) fail to obtain a high school or GED diploma, and only one-third as many (5% versus 15%) were arrested for crimes.

I spoke with Gail Bergeson, Home Visiting Supervisor for Juneau County, WI. Ms. Bergeson has worked with families in their homes for over fifteen years, and now supervises a team of nine home visitors. In this program, a teacher/parent educator makes weekly visits to the family home. They support the family and child through parent-child activities, parent training, and helping with family well-being. Some families start with the home visiting program when they are expecting their first child, and go stay trough subsequent children. One