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INTRODUCTION
Throughout its 35-year history, Head Start has been the nation’s cornerstone of services for low-income children and their families. Its basic principles have been models for countless other programs designed to improve the circumstances and opportunities that vulnerable populations face. Today, Head Start and Early Head Start programs provide comprehensive child development services for children between birth and age 5, pregnant women, and their families. Head Start is child focused and has the overall goal of helping children from low-income families become ready to attend and succeed at school. Administered by the Head Start Bureau in the Administration on Children, Youth and Families (ACYF),1 funds are provided through grants to local public agencies, private organizations, Indian tribes, and school systems. These organizations, in turn, operate Head Start programs. They provide services in the areas of education and early childhood development; medical, dental, and mental health; nutrition; and parent involvement. An underlying premise of Head Start services is that they should be appropriate for the child’s and family’s developmental, ethnic, cultural, and linguistic heritage and experience.
Children are eligible to enroll in Head Start if their families meet certain income guidelines. In fiscal year 2000, Head Start served over 850,000 children in over 18,000 centers at a cost per child of approximately $6,000. In addition to direct program services, the Head Start Bureau sponsors training and technical assistance activities; supports research, demonstration, and evaluation projects; and monitors programs for compliance and quality. In fiscal year 2000, total Head Start program costs came to about $5.3 billion (U.S. Department of Education, 2001).
Head Start for American Indian and Alaska Native Children
To serve American Indian and Alaska Native children, the Head Start Bureau created Region XI, which currently provides funding directly to 153 tribal grantees in 27 states. These grantees serve over 25,000 American Indian and Alaska Native children.2 The Region XI grantees are often unique in that they tend to be located in rural, remote locations, and programs in these areas are often affected by challenges associated with their geographic location, such as limited transportation, limited resources (e.g., the pool of qualified teachers may be small), and relatively small numbers of children to enroll in preschool.
Research on Head Start
A substantial research enterprise has been attached to Head Start and other early childhood programs, providing information of significant value. Perhaps the most important finding, based on a comprehensive review of 36 studies, is that early childhood care and education “can produce large effects on IQ during the early childhood years and sizable persistent effects on achievement, grade retention, special education, high school graduation, and socialization . . . These effects are large enough and persistent enough to make a meaningful difference in the lives of children from low-income families: for many children, preschool programs can mean the difference between failing and passing, regular or special education, staying out of trouble or becoming involved in crime and delinquency, dropping out or graduating from high school” (Barnett, 1995, p. 43).3
Research-based information has been used by Head Start to enhance services and structures to better serve children and families in terms of their abilities, needs, and development. For example, the Family and Child Experiences Study (FACES) is a national longitudinal study that describes the characteristics, experiences, and outcomes for children and families in Head Start. Information is being collected for a nationally representative sample of 40 Head Start programs and 3,200 children and parents at their entry into the program, for one or two years of the children’s participation in the program, and at the end of the kindergarten year. The study is providing important information linking quality and outcomes for children in Head Start. Findings show that Head Start helps children’s development and school readiness skills, most Head Start parents are involved with the program and are very satisfied with services their children receive, higher levels of teacher education are associated with higher levels of classroom quality, and higher quality Head Start classrooms are linked with greater educational progress for children (Zill et al., 2001).
The Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project measured a broad range of outcomes, collecting extensive information about programs and individual families’ experiences with them and conducting analyses to link program intervention with child and family outcomes. The study included 3,000 families living in 17 diverse communities. The research design had a dynamic and iterative evaluation process for continuous program improvement and an impact evaluation to identify outcomes for infants and toddlers in Early Head Start. Findings from the evaluation show that children in Early Head Start, as compared to their peers not in the program, have greater cognitive development scores, score higher on measures of language development, and demonstrate more positive social-emotional development (Love et al., 2002).
The congressionally mandated longitudinal study of the impact of Head Start is currently being designed. The study will involve 5,000 to 6,000 three- and four-year-old children from a stratified national sample of grantees/delegate agencies. This effort will study school readiness outcomes and collect information to understand under which conditions Head Start works best and for which children.
American Indian and Alaska Native (AI-AN) children have not always been the direct beneficiaries of knowledge that has been gained through research. Very little evidence has been systematically gathered from Head Start programs that serve these children. To date, understanding the differences across and within AI-AN populations has remained largely outside the body of knowledge derived from systematic, large-scale research on early childhood development. To the extent that studies have been conducted, they often are ethnographic or case studies, which, although rich with detail and understanding, may be limited in their generalizability and are not necessarily the best method for producing knowledge that can be turned into strategies to better serve American Indian and Alaska Native children.
There is a strong consensus that American Indian and Alaska Native children bring unique aspects of their culture and background into Head Start. Based on studies and practitioners’observations, it is likely that many American Indian and Alaska Native children have learning approaches, develop language skills, exhibit behavioral characteristics, and are affected by health matters in ways that are different from those of other racial and ethnic groups. Moreover, American Indian and Alaska Native children differ from each other across tribal and ancestral affiliations and across the cultural norms that affect their families and the types of environments in which they live.4 Any research efforts must take into account the unique cultural characteristics of the children and families served as well as the goals and directions of the local communities in which they live.
To provide appropriate, relevant Head Start services, programs must accommodate the unique characteristics of AI-AN children. Understanding and building on these unique characteristics may be especially timely, given the emphasis currently placed on measuring outcomes that is affecting all Head Start programs (and all educational programs, too).
1ACYF is an agency of the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). (back)
2An additional number of American Indian and Alaska Native children receive services from Head Start programs outside Region XI. (back)
3Research has also noted a fade-out effect, whereby the gains demonstrated by Head Start children do not persist consistently over time. The literature is replete with discussions on the phenomenon, ranging from possible explanations to questions about flaws in the research. See, for example, Barnett, 1995. (back)
4One particular challenge in describing and assessing early childhood education for American Indian and Alaska Native populations is to recognize their uniqueness while avoiding any overgeneralization about their distinctiveness; if this challenge is not met, the analyst risks stereotyping, with attendant adverse consequences. (back)
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