NAEYC Children’s Champions Update

May 4, 2007

U.S. HOUSE PASSES HEAD START REAUTHORIZATION BILL

On May 2, the House Committee on Education and Labor passed H.R. 1429, its version of the Head Start reauthorization by a vote of 365 to 48. The next step will be for the full Senate to each vote on their Head Start bills, and then the House and Senate will go to “conference” to negotiate the differences in their bills into a single piece of legislation.   A description of the Senate version, S. 556, as passed by the Committee is available at
http://www.naeyc.org/policy/federal/02-15-07.asp

Four measures that would have weakened or stopped reauthorization were defeated:

• Rep. Price (GA) amendment would give eight states the Head Start funds with no guarantees that the comprehensive program standards or other Head Start program accountability measures, or comprehensive services for children in the Head Start program would remain intact. The language of the Price amendment explicitly says that the states that would receive Head Start’s funding would only need to “generally meet” the Head Start standards. (vote of 165–264)  

• Rep. Putnam (FL) amendment would undo the carefully constructed provisions to create a comprehensive, fair approach to the review of grantees in order to improve and ensure high quality Head Start programs; instead the Putnam amendment creates an unreasonable and unworkable bureaucratic burden both for programs and for federal staff administering Head Start. (vote of 161–262)

• Rep. Mica (FL) amendment would put an unrealistic and unattainable time period for teachers in Head Start programs to continue to obtain Bachelor’s degrees as they work in Head Start programs with no new dollars to accomplish the requirement, which could lead to programs having to cut other critical quality elements and services of Head Start to meet this requirement. (vote of 137–286)

• Rep. McKeon (MI – ranking member of the Committee) motion to recommit the bill, which means send the bill back to the Committee without final passage, with instructions to add language to allow faith-based Head Start grantees to hire on the basis of religious affiliation. (vote of 195–222)

Other amendments that passed include (Johnson –TX) requiring the Secretary of Health and Human Services to create a partnership between Head Start and Historically Black Colleges and Universities; (Kennedy – RI) to define “inclusive classrooms” as Head Start classrooms that include both children with and without disabilities; (Cuellar –TX) to require States or agencies that administer Head Start programs to describe the type of assessment used to determine the rate of progress made by students with limited English proficiency; (Sestak – PA) authorizes the Secretary of Education to carry out a program to forgive student loans for Head Start and Early Start teachers who have earned a bachelor’s degree in a field related to early childhood education and who commit to teach in the program for a minimum of 3 years; (Schuler – NC) amendment to reaffirm that faith-based and community-based programs can be Head Start grantees; (Porter – NV) to require Head Start grantees to perform criminal background checks before hiring employees; (Space – OH) to change the criteria for the allocation of resources for technical assistance and training to include consideration of barriers in rural areas to professional development, parent involvement, home visits and health screening; (Hirono – HI) to direct 50% of training and technical assistance directly to grantees for program improvement, and to ensure that training and technical assistance are provided by entities with specific expertise in infant and toddler development; and (Carnahan – MO) that in the event the amounts appropriated for the program do not exceed the funds appropriated for the previous year, Head Start grantees may negotiate a reduced funded enrollment level.

The House bill also:

• Suspends the use of and terminates further development of the Head Start National Reporting System test until the National Academy of Sciences panel on Developmental Outcomes and Assessments provides its guidance.
• Requires 50 percent nationally of center-based Head Start teachers to have a bachelor’s degree by 2013. 
• Increases the set aside for Early Head Start and provides more flexibility to serve infants and toddlers.
• Creates a new system of application review to identify programs providing a high quality comprehensive early childhood program. The Secretary is required to convene an expert panel with specific areas of expertise, to devise a system of application review based on information from annual budget data, annual audits, the triennial review, an observational measure of classroom quality, and Program Information Report (PIR) data.
• Requires improved coordination between Head Start and state-funded pre-kindergarten programs through the creation of local memoranda of understanding. The bill provides a clear exemption for Head Start programs if there is no state-funded pre-kindergarten program in the service area or if the pre-kindergarten program is unable or unwilling to work in good faith on a memorandum of understanding with the Head Start agency.
• Requires states to establish a state early learning council for statewide coordination and collaboration across early childhood sectors as well as a state director of collaboration for Head Start and clarifies the role of the Head Start Collaboration Director.
• Increases the eligibility for Head Start.
• Modifies the roles and responsibilities of the governing board and maintains the role of the policy council.

NAEYC: Comments on Major Legislation in 2007

• CCDBG (Child Care & Development Block Grant)
• Head Start
• Higher Education