[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 26 (Monday, February 12, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1819-S1821]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       HEAD START REAUTHORIZATION

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, later this afternoon, several of us 
will be introducing legislation to reauthorize Head Start. Senator 
Kennedy, Senator Enzi, Senator Dodd, and myself will be the cosponsors 
of the legislation. We have been working on it for a long time, all 
through the last Congress. We have heard from lots of parents, 
children, and Head Start operators. I wish to talk about that.
  The Head Start program is an enormously popular and successful 
Federal initiative. It began in the 1960s when Lyndon Johnson was 
President of the United States. In fact, I have always thought it was a 
part of the story of the American dream that President Johnson went 
back to Cotulla, TX, near the Mexican border, where he taught first 
grade, to announce the Head Start program. It exemplifies one of the 
great principles of what it means to be an American--that we believe in 
equal opportunity. For that President of the United States to go back 
to where he was a first grade teacher reminds us that other children 
could succeed, as he did, in becoming President.
  Today, Head Start has grown to a nearly $7 billion Federal program. 
That amount was spent last year. It served 900,000 children. In my 
State of Tennessee, 20,000 students or so were served. The funding was 
$118 million for Tennessee. This is a program that touches a lot of 
people. It deserves the Senate's attention, and it has had the Senate's 
attention.
  During the last Congress, I made clear, as did several other 
Senators, that we want to see Head Start serve more children. But 
first, we wanted to make sure the program is accountable, financially 
solvent, and meeting the purpose for which it was formed. President 
Bush, in his message to Congress, said much the same thing 2 years ago. 
``Great program,'' he said. ``But let's make it more accountable. Let's 
recognize that now we expect children to learn more and be able to do 
more before they arrive at school.'' The President said we want to get 
the States more involved, which was a good suggestion because when Head 
Start was founded, it was almost the only program to help 
preschool children. Today, while it is a large $7 billion program, 
there are $21 billion more in Federal dollars being spent to help 
preschool children in one way or the other, and there are a great many 
State and local programs that are Head Start or preschool programs.

  The President's objective, as was ours, was to find a way to make all 
of these programs work well together. We listened carefully and I 
believe, as Senators Kennedy, Enzi, and Dodd believe, we have made 
significant improvements to the bill.
  For example, the bill will establish 200 new Centers of Excellence 
that will serve as model Head Start programs across the country. The 
Governors will be involved in this. Hopefully, we can learn over the 
next 5 years from the States how, from these models, we can put 
together State efforts, local efforts, Federal efforts, and Federal 
Head Start efforts in a more efficient way to help children who are of 
preschool age.
  Second, our legislation requires grant recipients to recompete for 
new grants every 5 years to help ensure a constant high level of 
quality.
  Third, we clearly define what we mean by deficiency. We don't aim to 
catch people doing things wrong; we would rather catch them doing 
things right. When there are things that are wrong, the Head Start 
providers deserve to know what the standards are so they can make sure 
they meet them.
  Fourth, this legislation provides clear authority to the governing 
boards to administer, and be held accountable for, local Head Start 
programs while ensuring that policy councils on which parents sit 
continue to play a crucial and important role.
  Finally, as I mentioned earlier, this legislation continues to 
encourage State standards especially that cause there to be more 
cognitive learning, more emphasis on what children should be able to 
know and be able to do before they get to first grade--make sure they 
are ready to learn.
  Americans uniquely believe that each of us has the right to begin at 
the same starting line and that, if we do, anything is possible for any 
one of us. We also understand that some of us need help getting to that 
starting line. Most Federal funding for social programs is based upon 
an understanding of equal opportunity in that way.
  Again, Head Start began in 1965 to make it more likely that 
disadvantaged children would successfully arrive at one of the most 
important of our starting lines--the beginning of school. Head Start, 
over the years, has served hundreds of thousands of our most at-risk 
children. The program has grown and changed, been subjected to debate; 
but it has stood the test of

[[Page S1820]]

time because it is very important. We have made a lot of progress. Only 
a few professionals had studied early childhood education when it 
began. Even fewer had designed programs specifically for children in 
poverty with the many challenges.
  The origins of Head Start come from an understanding that success for 
these children wasn't only about their education. The program was 
designed to be certain that these children were healthy, got their 
immunizations, were fed hot meals and of crucial importance--that their 
parents were deeply involved in the program.
  From the beginning, comprehensive services, including medical, 
dental, and nutritional services--and parent and community involvement 
were a part of Head Start programs, and that is still true today. In 
the early days, teacher training and curriculum were seen as less 
important. Now we know a lot more about brain development and how 
children learn from birth, and we understand that even for these very 
young children, teacher training and curriculum are very important.
  Today, young children are expected to learn more and be able to do 
more in order to succeed in school. Many public schools now offer 
kindergarten. When this program started, Tennessee didn't have a public 
school kindergarten program. Now 40 States offer early childhood 
programs.
  As Congress prepares to reauthorize Head Start, it is important that 
we recognize the program's importance and work to make it stronger. But 
we need to recognize also that today it is not fulfilling its promise 
as well as we would like. It is not meeting the purpose of serving our 
children who are most at risk as well as we would hope. I am not 
satisfied with the current practices, which fall short of the standards 
the taxpayers should expect, and that is why there are some changes in 
the bill.
  We address this issue, first, by holding up successful local programs 
as models so others may follow their example, and by clarifying lines 
of accountability so any corrupt practices may be rooted out. The bill 
creates ways for States to help strengthen and coordinate Head Start, 
but would continue to send Federal funds directly to the nearly 1,700 
grantees that provide services in over 29,000 Head Start centers that 
serve just over 900,000 disadvantaged children.
  Let me talk about the Centers of Excellence first, because this is 
one of the most hotly debated parts of the bill--or it was. I think it 
is pretty well accepted now. The bill authorizes the Secretary of 
Health and Human Services to create a nationwide network of 200 Centers 
of Excellence in early childhood built around exemplary Head Start 
programs. These Centers of Excellence would be nominated by the 
Governors. Each Center of Excellence would receive a Federal bonus 
grant of at least $200,000 in each of 5 years, in addition to base 
funding.
  The Centers' bonus grants could be used for some of the following:
  One, to work in their community to demonstrate the best of what Head 
Start can do for at-risk children and families, including getting the 
children ready for school and ready for academic success.
  Two, it can coordinate all early childhood services in the community. 
As I mentioned earlier, we are spending $21 billion in Federal dollars 
for these children. Many States and local governments are spending 
money. We need to spend it together.
  Three, we can offer training and support to all professionals working 
with at-risk children.
  Next, we can track Head Start families and ensure that their services 
are provided seamlessly to children, from prenatal to age 8.
  Next, they can be models of excellence held accountable for helping 
our most disadvantaged children.
  Finally, to have the flexibility to serve additional Head Start, or 
early Head Start children, or provide more full-day services to better 
meet the needs of working parents.
  Head Start centers are uneven in performance, but usually they excel 
in two areas critical to success for caring and educating children: No. 
1, developing community support and, No. 2, encouraging parental 
involvement. Alex Haley, one of my closest friends, and the author of 
``Roots,'' lived by these words:

       Find the good and praise it.

  For me, that was an invaluable lesson. My hope is these Centers of 
Excellence will find the good and praise what is best about Head Start 
and show it to the rest of us.
  It also helps to get the Governors involved. The President had 
suggested that we turn more of the funding over directly to the States. 
I and others are not willing to do that, at least at this stage.
  One of the beauties of Head Start is that it is very decentralized 
and for a long time it has worked well that way. So our compromise was 
that the Centers of Excellence, which will get the Governors involved, 
will help coordinate the programs more effectively and maybe we can 
learn something over the next 5 years that we can put then in the next 
reauthorization of Head Start.
  Also, this bill goes a long way to help make the spending of that $7 
billion of taxpayers' money more accountable. First, it requires 
recipients to recompete for grants every 5 years. This ensures that 
after 5 years, each program is still meeting its standards.
  I recognize there are concerns about this recompete requirement. Some 
people say we need continuity and it will create anxiety among 
children, among teachers if they are afraid they may lose their right 
to continue serving after 5 years.
  Many Head Start grant recipients are doing a very good job, and 
rather than causing a disruption every 5 years, I hope this recompete 
process will highlight their success. To help streamline the process 
for successful programs, grant recipients that are neither deficient 
nor have been found to have an area of noncompliance left unresolved 
for more than 120 days will receive a priority designation during the 
recompetition process.
  Second, the bill defines what makes a local program deficient. Right 
now, the deficiency standard is very general and inconsistent across 
the Nation. But if an action threatens the health, safety, or civil 
rights of children and staff, denies the parents the exercise of their 
full roles and responsibilities, misuses funds, loses its legal status 
or financial viability, or violates other standards specified in the 
bill, those are the more specific standards that are now a part of the 
bill. It will help make it possible for grantees to have a clearer idea 
of what they are expected to do.
  Finally, the bill makes clear that the governing board shall be the 
body that is charged with running local programs and which will be held 
accountable for those programs. This may seem like a little bit of 
inside baseball, but it is actually not. It goes straight to the heart 
of several of the problems we have had in some Head Start grantees 
around the country.
  Perhaps the most effective witness I heard in any of our hearings was 
the mayor of Shelby County, TN--that is around Memphis--A.C. Wharton. 
A.C. Wharton testified, as did other witnesses, that the dual 
governance structure between the governing board and the policy council 
was inadequate and neither body had adequate decisionmaking authority. 
Here is what he told the committee:

       What we're faced with is not merely a benign situation in 
     which an errant agency through no bad intent runs afoul of 
     the guidelines. In many instances the wrongdoings and 
     shortfalls are calculated to bring about the political 
     empowerment or financial enrichment of those who profit from 
     the wrongdoing.

  I believe we fix that problem based on the advice we received from 
Mayor Wharton and other witnesses. This bill gives governing boards 
direct authority and holds them accountable. That is an important 
element of the bill, and I think it is a necessary step. But Mayor 
Wharton and others reminded us that we need to be careful about how we 
handle this issue. Mayor Wharton said the governing body should not 
``be allowed to ride roughshod over the dignity that should be accorded 
all participants in Head Start programs whether they are grantees, 
policy councils, policy committees, or certainly children and 
parents.''
  I appreciate the mayor's concern, and I appreciate that note of 
caution. I thank him for his straightforward testimony. Perhaps he will 
know that long trip from Memphis to Washington was not in vain because 
his concerns are right in the middle of the bill that we will introduce 
later today.

[[Page S1821]]

  We all understand the importance of parental involvement and parental 
responsibility over the operation of the Head Start Program. We want to 
preserve that parental responsibility, but we also want to make sure we 
preserve fiscal accountability of the program at the same time, and we 
believe we have done that. We have crafted a careful balance. We give 
the governing board fiscal and legal responsibility, while ensuring 
policy councils on which parents sit continue to play an important role 
in the running and operation of local Head Start Programs within the 
framework the governing board sets. It is a fair compromise and one 
that will strengthen the program.
  I learned about the importance of preschool education in a very 
personal way. When I was growing up in Maryville, TN, at the edge of 
the Great Smokey Mountains, my mother operated the only preschool 
education program in our town--well, there may have been one other. I 
think Mrs. Pesterfield also had one. But she operated this program in a 
converted garage in our backyard. She had 25 3- and 4-year-olds in the 
morning and 25 5-year-olds in the afternoon. I think she charged $25 a 
month for this care for these children.
  This was before Head Start. This was before we understood very much 
about preschool education and the early development of the brain. But 
parents instinctively knew that was a good place for their children. 
When Alcoa moved executives to our little town, they usually would find 
a way to get their children into Mrs. Alexander's nursery school and 
kindergarten before they looked for a home because those parents knew 
then that preschool education was important to their children's 
success.
  We all understand that for all of our children. We understand that 
the earlier this starts--at home first--and then with all the extra 
help we can give that home, these children will be ready to get to the 
starting point.

  I am the only U.S. Secretary of Education, I think, Mr. President, 
who spent 5 years in kindergarten. The reason I did was that my mother 
had no other place to put me than the kindergarten she operated in our 
backyard. Looking back, there probably wasn't a better place for me to 
have been than that 5 years of intensive preschool education. It is 
something we should hope for virtually every child growing up in this 
country. We believe anything is possible. We believe in free 
enterprise, we believe in competition, and we believe in the starting 
line. But there is no Federal program that exists that does a better 
job of helping disadvantaged children get to the starting line than 
Head Start.
  I congratulate Senator Kennedy, Senator Enzi, and Senator Dodd, and 
the other Senators who have worked on this legislation. We look forward 
to introducing the legislation this afternoon. I thank all those who 
have taken time to come to the hearings, and I especially thank the 
mayor of Shelby County, Mayor Wharton, for his testimony because it has 
made its way directly into the legislation to help make sure Head Start 
not only helps children but that there is accountability to the 
taxpayers.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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