Head Start: history’s most expensive baby-sitting program

“It’s not whether an idea is liberal or conservative, but whether it works.”— President Barack Obama on funding education:

On the weekend before this past Christmas, while Americans eagerly anticipated Santa Claus’s arrival, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released its latest report on its Head Start research. Head Start is a federal program designed to improve the kindergarten readiness of low-income children.

The data, which was collected in 2008, took four years to analyze and consolidate into a report dated October 2012. The fact that the report took four years to complete, was not distributed for two months, and finally released just before Christmas might suggest a lack of eagerness on the part of the folks at HHS to share the conclusions and the department’s hope no one would read the study.

The 2012 study is a follow-on to a 2010 study that tracked 5,000 three- and four-year olds through kindergarten and the first grade. The current study tracks the children through the end of the third grade. The researchers gauged the program’s impact on cognitive development, social-emotional development, child-health outcomes, and parenting outcomes, comparing them to children who had not gone through a Head Start program.

HHS concluded that Head Start had no impact on the children’s academic outcomes and little to no effect on other measures of child well being. In some cases, the researchers even found negative impacts.

In cognitive development, of 11 measures tracked (e.g., reading, language, math), Head Start made no difference for either those who started as three-year olds or four-year olds. Of 19 measures tracked in social-emotional development (e.g., aggression, hyperactive behavior, conduct), the three-year old cohort showed a slight improvement in social skills and positive approaches to learning but no impact on any other outcome. Child-health reflected no difference for either group, and parenting showed a slight positive outcome for four-year olds because parents spendt more time with their children.

Bottom line: Kids who complete the Head Start program are no better prepared than kids who don’t utilize Head Start. Period. We know this after spending more than $180 billion over 48 years with no measurable benefit. The program is currently funded at $8 billion annually.

If we followed President Obama’s advice in the quote at the top, we would shut down the program today. But Washington doesn’t work on a rational basis. More likely, there will be little or no discussion of Head Start, and the program will continue with increased funding for the most expensive baby-sitting service in history.

I do have one suggestion. If we’re going to ignore the data, let’s at least stop spending money on research.

Norman Poltenson is the publisher of  The Central New York Business Journal. Contact him at npoltenson@cnybj.com