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February 20, 2007

Quality of Head Start Programs Imperiled By Steady Erosion of Funding

The survey was designed to understand how a one percent cut in federal funding during fiscal year 2006 has affected Head Start programs nationally and in each state. This cut occurred in the context of an estimated 13 percent real cut (inflation-adjusted) in federal funding from fiscal year 2002 to fiscal year 2008. This survey revealed many alarming problems (see Appendix 1 for a state-by-state summary of these cuts). It is apparent from the data that the erosion in federal funding is harming Head Start programs. Fully 90 percent of the Head Start programs responding to this survey reported that they were at full enrollment. This signals that these programs have been forced to make increasingly deep cuts in order to maintain enrollments.

Posted by Gary Holden at February 20, 2007 12:03 AM