This is Drew Indorf - I couldn't figure out how to access this blog through my own account. Sorry!
In Congress, both sides of the isle know that closing
the $1.2 trillion deficit has to be a top priority for Washington in the next
decade. Yet agreeing on a strategy to
accomplish such a momentous task has proven much more challenging. Sequestration, the automatic funding cuts
that will initiate in January 2013, threaten blanket cuts across all sectors of
government funding. While the media has
poured out articles on the threats to defense spending, I haven’t heard nearly
as much about the potentially devastating cuts to education.
A New York Times article from today alerted me to the
issue, noting that “automatic cuts would slice $590 million from federal
spending on Head Start,” eliminating 80,000 spots for pre-K children and 30,000
teacher jobs in the country. To give a
broader perspective on the budget cuts, Duncan explained two days ago that
“Title I funds for poor students, state grants for special education and the
Head Start public pre-school program…would lose $2.7 billion over 10 years, the
report predicted. As many as 15,000 teachers and aides could lose their jobs,
and 10,000 special education workers could be laid off” (Huffington Post, see
below).
When reading this, I first reacted in outrage that we
would threaten the future of our country with these massive cuts. But after further consideration, $2.7 billion
over 10 years really isn’t a lot of money, and federal government funding of
education is quite a small part of the budget.
Additionally, many proponents of the cuts cite evidence suggesting that
Head Start has failed to demonstrate lasting changes in student outcomes. A 2010 federal study claimed, “The benefits
of access to Head Start at age 4 are largely absent by first grade for the program
population as a whole”(See NYT article, below).
Even Paul Tough’s book on The Harlem Children’s Zone cited the failure
of Head Start to achieve lasting gains.
At the same time that sequestration threatens to cut
pre-K services for 80,000 American kids involved in Head Start, the White House
has announced its new Initiative on Educational Excellence for African
Americans, which aims to ensure “that every child has greater access to a
complete and competitive education from the time they’re born all through the
time they get a career” (Obama, see Education Week article, below). The programs outlined include early childhood
programs for African Americans, too.
After reading the chapter of Paul Tough’s book Whatever it Takes, I’m convinced of the importance of early
education programs to address the challenges of the “unequal childhoods,” yet I
also question how this program will differ from Head Start. If sufficient evidence suggests that pre-K
programs without the follow-up of a “pipeline” model do not produce lasting
changes in academic outcomes, why do we appear to be replacing one program with
something much the same? In fairness,
the details of Obama’s new initiative have not yet been released. I am hopeful that the new program aims not
only to fill any potential losses due to cuts in Head Start, but also build the
efficacy of early childhood programs by integrating them within a sustained
‘conveyor belt’ of support.
The fact remains that we need to cut the deficit. Yet instead of seeing this as our children’s
futures on the chopping block, perhaps we can see it as an opportunity to make
the tough calls about what works and what doesn’t. We shouldn’t cut funding to education, but we
should take a critical eye to the programs we support, ensuring that every dollar
we spend maximizes its intended impact on our nation’s youth.
New York Times Article Today:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/27/us/head-start-fears-impact-of-potential-budget-cuts.html?_r=1&ref=education
Education Week Article:
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/07/27/37africanamerican.h31.html?tkn=SWXFOiBcXmtdU9G9Y8o3mTBZe78QFbSMkgIq&cmp=clp-edweek
Huffington Post Article:
1 comment:
I like your optimism for seeing these budget cuts as an opportunity to figure out what works best; however, I always worry about cutting programs too early. Determining if a program is a complete failure or just needs more time and/or alterations can be very tricky. I think some reforms fail because they are not given enough time to overcome the initial challenges that are inevitable with change. This might not be the case with Head Start, but I still worry that we are in a cycle of constantly implementing new reforms to replace others that have not come to fruition. I understand that there is no time to waste for our current students, so can we even sacrifice the time to see a reform through its growing pains for the chance that the reform will be beneficial in the long run? It is hard to tell, but I think sticking with some programs might be better than being perpetually stuck in the “beginning reform” mode.
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