Obama to Tout Head Start Accountability
President Obama to tout Head Start accountability in visit to Yeadon this morning.
Obama to Tout Head Start Accountability
Thomas Fitzgerald, Inquirer Politics Writer
The crowd is gathering in Yeadon, at the regional Head Start center, a little more than an hour before President Obama is scheduled to show up, tour a classroom and speak out on improving early-childhood education, in the latest "We Can't Wait" initiative designed to work around what the White House says is an obstructionist GOP in Congress.
According to White House officials, Obama will announce a proposed regulation that will require low-performing Head Start programs to compete for continued federal funding instead of getting automatically funded as they are now.
Administration officials say this should lead to an improvement in the quality of Head Start education, which serves 900,000 children from low-income families around the nation. An estimated one-third of the Head Start programs will not be able to meet the new benchmarks and will have to compete for funding.
Get the federal government out of the education business. It causes nothing by needless regulations and standards, along with wasting billions of taxpayer dollars. Push 100% of education responsibility & funding down to the state level!!!— kelprod2- 2 points:
First, if all responsibility for education funding is shifted from the federal to state level, it will dramatically increase the strain on state and local budgets.
Second, investments in programs like Head Start save the public $7 to $16 for every dollar invested because they reduce the need for special education, remediation, grade retention, juvenile justice and welfare costs.
Although it's easy to spout slogans, reality is a bit more complicated.— AMom - @AMom - You're kidding right? How exactly would "strain" on state and local budgets increase? And moreover, even if the budgets did increase, that would put more pressure on the schools to actually perform which they haven't been in 30+ yrs.— Citizenc92
- Desperate men do desperate things.— dogman5
- Is this guy ever going to govern? As president he has nothing but campaigned and divided this country with his rhetoric. It was a sad day when he was elected, so many were duped into believing the false promises of hope and change.— junethe4th
- If a republican proposed accountability for Head Start to get funded the Inquirer would be accusing them of killing toddlers.— tr88
- Standardized testing in pre-school? How much $$ have the testing companies contributed to his campaign-- so far?— brinsley
You can reach Tom Fitzgerald at 215-854-2718 or tfitzgerald@phillynews.com.
Reach Thomas at tfitzgerald@phillynews.com.
