Have researchers given Head Start the death knell? After 48 years, $8 billion in one year (2012) alone,[1] countless and interminable hours of teachers' instruction and children's time away from home, thousands of hours of debate by educators and policymakers, perhaps thousands of hours of elected U.S. congressmen's time being lobbied and them debating, and myriad studies, following is what was given in the "final report" to our U.S. Department of Health and Human Services by commissioned researchers at the end of last year:[2]

       In contrast, there was little evidence of systematic differences in children's elementary school experiences through 3rd grade, between children provided access to Head Start and their counterparts in the control group. .....

       However, these early effects [on children's "well-being"] rapidly dissipated in elementary school, with only a single impact remaining at the end of 3rd grade for children in each age cohort. .....

       However, there were no impacts on teacher-reported measures of social-emotional development for the 3-year-old cohort at any data collection point or on the children's self-reports in 3rd grade. (p. xvi)

       In the health domain, ... but by the end of 3rd grade, there were no remaining impacts for either age cohort.

       In summary, there were initial positive impacts from having access to Head Start, but by the end of 3rd grade there were very few impacts found for either cohort in any of the four domains of cognitive, social-emotional, health and parenting practices. The few impacts that were found did not show a clear pattern of favorable or unfavorable impacts for children. (emphases added; p. xvii)

Part of what is so incredible about this is that many researchers and educators have been telling our congressmen for decades that neither sound research nor sound fiscal policy support the promotion of Head Start. It is also incredible that for decades even "conservative" and allegedly Constitution-minded congressmen have promoted and supported huge tax-funding increases for this federal program when there was no solid basis for doing so.

Will this "final report" toll the "final bell" for Head Start and huge outlays of re-distributed property and wealth supporting it? Many doubt that because many know that neither sound research-based thinking nor Constitution-informed spending motivate many educators and congressmen who benefit from the continuance of programs like this one.

I will add one more thing, and this makes this "final report" rather intriguing. It is that many researchers have found what parents do and can do in the home to be much more effective and beneficial than anything a tax-funded program can do.

Studies by Tizard, Hughes, and Carmichael[3] are some of the first research I ever included in my reviews of research on home-centered learning, or home-based education, or homeschooling.[4] Many people think that children, especially those of the "lower class," will only be improved or "brought up" if specialized, professional, university-taught, state-certified, or state-licensed experts teach these children. This thinking, whether implied or explicit, is rampant in the United States and elsewhere. Tizard and her colleagues found in their study entitled "Language and social class: Is verbal deprivation a myth?," however, the following:

        Despite the widespread belief, enshrined in the Bullock Report, that working class children benefit from nursery school attendance because of the teacher's `measured attention to the child's language needs', the evidence suggests that they are much more likely to receive this from their mothers. (pp. 540-541)

That is, the working-class children were benefited more by being with their mothers than in schools run by professionals. Much research on modern-day homeschooling seems to be echoing what Tizard and her colleagues were finding over three decades ago, and contradicts the thinking of ad nauseum Head Start promoters.

If educators and congressmen want to enhance children's academic, social, and physical-health lives beyond the third grade, then they need to do all they scripturally and constitutionally can to strengthen the biblical and natural family.

--Brian D. Ray, Ph.D.

National Home Education Research Institute
http://nheri.org/
 
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Notes:

[1] Retrieved April 23, 2013 from http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ohs/news/fy-2012-head-start-funding-increase-0.

[2] Puma, Michael; Bell, Stephen; Cook, Ronna; Heid, Camilla; Broene, Pam; Jenkins, Frank; Mashburn, Andrew; & Downer, Jason. (2012, October). Third Grade Follow-up to the Head Start Impact Study, Final Report (OPRE Report 2012-45). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

[3] Tizard, Barbara, Hughes, M., Carmichael, H., & Pinkerton, G. (1983b). Language and social class: Is verbal deprivation a myth?  Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 24 (4), 533-542. (Preschool. "Despite the widespread belief, enshrined in the Bullock Report, that working class children benefit from nursery school attendance because of the teacher's `measured attention to the child's language needs' (p. 54), the evidence suggests that they are much more likely to receive this from their mothers" (p. 541).)

[4] Ray, Brian D. (1986). A comparison of home schooling and conventional schooling: With a focus on learner outcomes. Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University, Science, Math, and Computer Science Education Department. (In partial fulfillment of exams for a doctoral degree; not Ray's doctoral dissertation.) (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 278 489). See also: Home centered learning annotated bibliography, online www.nheri.org, store, bibliography.