Published in Reuters on DECEMBER 27, 2012
Is this near five-decade commitment to give every child an opportunity to succeed in life worth the money? At a time when the federal government faces difficult fiscal choices, the question is appropriate. Many expected the Department of Health and Human Services’ Head Start Impact Study, which was released on Friday, to provide definitive answers.
As it turns out, those expectations were overblown. While the study documented children’s significant gains at the end of the Head Start experience and the flattening benefits of Head Start attendance at the end of third grade, it did not examine a range of factors that could have contributed to the losses and cannot predict whether Head Start children may yet show outcomes into adulthood. A wealth of other studies address these questions and document Head Start’s long-term effectiveness.
