The colors were brighter than any she had seen before. Shapes, letters, and lots and lots of colors adorned the walls; around the room, children worked together building high rises with colored blocks and "read" colorful picture books. "I had never seen so much color," Angelica Salazar recalls of her first days as a Head Start preschooler in Duarte, Calif. She remembers the discovery of library books and spending hours curled up on the reading rug. Head Start was Angie's first formal experience learning English. Her parents, who spoke mostly Spanish, enrolled her in the program knowing that their little girl would need English to succeed in school.
Today, Angelica Salazar, a graduate of Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, serves as a juvenile justice policy associate at the Children's Defense Fund (CDF), where she works to help identify and change policies that trap millions of our nation's children in a pipeline to prison every year. Before studying at Harvard, Angie taught middle school English in an impoverished Los Angeles neighborhood as a Teach for America corps member. Angie believes her early childhood experience in Head Start put her on the path to academic success and her commitment to serving others.
In a videotaped interview for the National Head Start Association, Angie and her father, Alejandro, talk about Head Start's influence on their family. Her father, speaking in Spanish, relates how he never had the opportunity to finish elementary school. Their family was poor, and he and his wife could not afford to pay for preschool. Head Start was a Godsend for the entire family, helping her immigrant parents become more fully integrated into their community. It allowed Angie's mother to work for the first time while her children received safe and high quality care. Angie is so grateful she had the right combination of opportunities beginning with her parents' commitment to her education, and grateful for the great start she had as a preschooler.
Angie is one among over 20 million children Head Start has given a positive start in life since 1964. Today, 15.5 million children in rich America live in poverty, and more than 20 percent of children under age five are poor, including more than 40 percent of Black children and more than 33 percent of Hispanic children. These are the children Head Start is designed to serve and get ready for school through educational, health, nutritional, social, and other services. When the latest tests show more than 60 percent of students and 80 percent of minority students can't perform at grade level in grades four, eight, and 12, school readiness -- especially for poor and minority children -- is more critical than ever. But right now, less than half of those eligible for Head Start and fewer than 3 percent of those eligible for Early Head Start, a program for infants and toddlers, are enrolled.
Poor children are already behind their higher income peers in cognitive development at nine months old; the gap is even wider by 24 months. By kindergarten, poor children have to beat the odds to catch up -- and as the testing shows, many never do. Quality, comprehensive child development programs are crucial for the physical, emotional, and educational health of all children -- especially poor and at-risk children. Extensive research also shows that early childhood programs significantly increase a child's chances of avoiding the prison pipeline that Angie now studies as a policy expert, and investments in quality early education can produce a rate of return to society significantly higher than returns to most stock market investments or traditional economic development projects.
There is a tragic irony to the fact that as our nation prepares to celebrate the Week of the Young Child from April 10-14, Congress is debating whether to slash more than $1 billion from Head Start and to cut the Child Care and Development Block Grant, the Women, Infants and Children Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the Maternal and Child Health Block Grant, and other essential programs for young children. But that is just the beginning. This week, House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan unveiled a proposal that would dismantle Medicaid and other lifelines for poor children in order to give trillions of dollars in tax cuts to the richest Americans and corporations. Where are our nation's values? We must stand up for programs that support the cradle to college pipeline. We simply can't afford to leave even more poor babies, toddlers, and preschoolers behind.
Watch Angie's story yourself -- and tell Congress, don't cut Head Start.
Follow Marian Wright Edelman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ChildDefender
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this nation is about religion not love and compassion,. world of difference.
look close at the repubs and the tea party folks they are about religion not love and compassion.
their agenda is materialism at any cost to the poor and needy.
this is a nation that makes mega corp profits and CEO bonuses off the sick and needy. any nation with that low level of empathy for others is sure to self destruct. look around it is happening everywhere you look.
I was so impressed that I have kept working with them these past ten years on a pro bono and reduced rate basis. I figure I have given done about $150,000 worth of pro bono service to them over that time. On occasion, I have even turned away other full-rate consulting engagements so that I could continue to work with them.
This Head Start program usually has a waiting list about as long as their enrolled list. Cutting them is the last thing that should be done.
money for corp wars but not for low income children.
that is a nation on the fast track to self destruction.
welcome to america.
Marian Wright Edelman is a major children's rights advocate and a powerful voice for children from low income families. She calls for more parent and community involvement, the whole "it takes a village to raise a child" idea, and more comprehensive, compulsory early child education.
I'm an early intervention teacher for students with autism, so it's a bit preaching to the choir for me. But if I'm going to read an education blog post, I prefer her voice over Ms. Rhee's, no offense intended.
You are grossly under-estimating parents and specially mothers. If you are a Head Start teacher, you are over-estiamting your achievements.
Prior to a generation ago, most students achieved high school, graduate and double graduate degrees with no Head Start programs.
Also, her facts about the Head Start program are all wrong. Even those who support it admit that the cognitive gains fade away after 1st grade.
The solution is not the teachers. Part of it is the white flight to the suburbs, and the way taxes are allocated for school districts--inner city schools nearly always come up short. It's not about enrollment, but about funding. There is no way for inner city parents in most to send their kids to better schools if given vouchers--they are often too far away and not accessible by public transit.
A statement that shows how little was taught or learned back in the days! Definite evidence of the need for Head Start
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And therein lies the reason hispanic children do the poorest in school, and drop out at the highest rates: Most hispanics do NOT place any value on education, or their children receiving one. You knee-jerkers can stop right now with listing your examples of successful hispanics and wonderful supporting hispanic parents that you know(or have made up in your head). The numbers tell the story and it is a pitiful one...A huge percentage of Hispanics are not finishing school, and fewer are making the attempt to even bother learning the language of this planets business.
Here's another one. Latino growth in the US is now due more to natural births than immigration. That means this new generation of kids will be more assimilated and will do better in school than the last. Finally, we need to help these kids succeed. The Census released figures saying that White, Anglo toddlers were now in the minority in America to Hispanic, African American and Asian children. These are facts and not prejudices. There is a difference. And this Latino graduated from high school, graduated from one of the best universities in the country and has a master's degree.
1. Put Millions Back To Work - Federal government invest $2 trillion over 10 years through a national infrastrucÂture bank (run by engineers, not politicianÂs) to create jobs now and increase productiviÂÂÂÂty later. Fund with a millionairÂÂÂÂe's tax