“Fraud,” “deceit,” and “exploitation.” Those words were used this week at a hearing about the Head Start program–the federal government’s long-standing preschool program for low-income children. An investigation carried out by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), revealed several cases of underreporting of income and the falsification of addresses by Head Start employees in order to “qualify” children for the program. Head Start grantees receive money based on the number of children they serve. As reported in an Education and Labor committee hearing on May 18, reports of two fraudulent cases …
The federal government’s Head Start program comes under scrutiny today by the House Education and Labor Committee, which will examine a Government Accountability Office investigation that discovered fraudulent behavior and unlawful actions in the program’s enrollment and eligibility processes. Chairman George Miller (D-CA) called today’s 1:30 p.m. committee hearing after learning of GAO’s undercover investigation. Last week Miller asked Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to conduct an immediate review of Head Start, an early childhood education program first started in 1965. The GAO report is not yet publicly available. These …
If you’ve heard the results of the recent Head Start Impact Study, congratulations. You are one of the few Americans who, no thanks to national media sources, are aware that your taxpayer dollars have been funding a failing federal program for the last 45 years. The Heritage Foundation recently hosted an event titled: Is Head Start Helping Children Succeed and Does Anyone Care?, to discuss the recently-released Impact Study that found no lasting impact for Head Start children after first grade. According to the study–which compared both three- and four-year-old …
Credit the Pittsburgh Tribune Review for being one of the nation’s first newspapers to editorialize about last month’s national Head Start evaluation, which found that the program provided children with zero lasting benefits. They editors write: “That it took the feds more than 40 years for a proper analysis suggests it’s the spending that matters, not results. And yet Congress is moving ahead to increase early childhood education programs with $8 billion in new spending. Mr. Obama has said, repeatedly, that federal programs without benefit should be dumped. Well, Mr. …
The President’s FY2011 budget request calls for significant increases in education spending and, as promised, the Department of Education is exempt from Obama’s so-called spending freeze. At a briefing today at the Department of Education, words such as “historic” and “bold” were used to describe the President’s budget. Secretary Duncan stated that the FY2011 budget represents “one of the largest increases” in education spending, which the president “sees as the key to our economic future”. But is more spending on education the key to economic prosperity? For that matter, is …
While the federal government already spends as least $25 billion on the existing 69 preschool and child care programs, the Obama administration is calling for #70—proposing $9.3 billion for a new “Early Learning Challenge Grant”. As we wrote last year, the Early Learning Challenge Grant fund would push states to spend more on preschool programs, when evidence is mounting that preschool programs aren’t delivering the benefits their proponents promise.
It appears that President Obama will exempt education from his so-called spending freeze. Despite the fact that Obama already doubled the Department of Education’s budget through the Omnibus and Stimulus bills last year, he plans to continue the spending binge. The Washington Post reported yesterday: Administration officials said they could not provide a direct comparison to current elementary and secondary education spending levels, but they said federal education spending would rise overall by 6.2 percent. That would apparently be the largest percentage increase since 2003, not counting the huge infusion …
The Los Angeles Times reports that President Obama plans to call for a “$1.6 billion increase in federal funding for child-care programs” in his upcoming State of the Union address. The report frames this proposal as part of a larger effort to “help the middle class.” Some parents will probably welcome the news of more subsidized child care. But they need to remember that their children are the ones who will end up paying for the billions that will be added to the ballooning national debt, which is set to …
When a Congressionally-mandated study released in 2008 found that President Bush’s favorite reading program was a failure, it was national news. An article by Greg Toppo in the USA Today blared the headline “Study: Bush’s Reading First Program Ineffective” and reported that the results could be a “knockout punch” for the program. Similar articles appeared in the New York Times (by Sam Dillon) and Washington Post (by Maria Glod). But when a similarly devastating report was published last week that undercuts a pillar of President Obama’s education plans, none of …
President Obama and other supporters of increasing government spending on preschool have argued that “investments” on early childhood education yield big results later in life. As President Obama told an audience last March, “For every dollar we invest in these programs, we get nearly $10 back in reduced welfare rolls, fewer health care costs, and less crime.” The president and other preschool backers generally base these claims on impressive results from one or two small-scale preschool programs that existed decades ago and that have not been replicated since. Unfortunately, a …
