Head Start:
A Leap to Success or a Plunge to Failure

When the issue of education is brought to attention, conflicting points of interest and opinions clash upon the sheer utterance of the word. It is no wonder than that the many differing issues and proposed solutions regarding the Head Start Program have yet to be agreed upon. But for one to be able to have an opinion of such, an understanding of the history, issues, purposes, and functions is needed. However seeing how short time is before the reauthorization of the Head Start Program is passed, this paper will cover these essentials in order for a representative, such as yourself, to read quickly yet still gain an understanding as to why to support the reauthorization of the Head Start bill.

First off, what is Head Start? In very simplistic terms, Head Start is a "national program [directed under the Office of Child Development,] that promotes school readiness by enhancing the social and cognitive development of children through the provision of educational, health, nutritional, social and other services to enrolled children and families."

The whole creation of Head Start stems from three base ideas. J McVicker Hunt's theory of IQ; challenged the belief that intelligence was not genetic but rather "malleable" and that a test of the IQ can determine the genetic potential of one's intelligence, which is fully "developed through encounters with the environment." Thus the earlier one is exposed to this environment the earlier their "rate of intellectual development" would be. The second is that of Benjamin Bloom's theory of "critical periods."

Such "critical periods" defined the time of rapid growth where people "were most sensitive to environmental experiences." This furthered the idea of reaching out to children at a fairly young age. The third wide spread idea was President Lyndon B. Johnson's "war on poverty" in the 1960s, which was somewhat based on President Kennedy's anti-poverty planned programs. The "war on poverty" consisted of three core concepts: 1) "All willing citizens and existing relevant organizations should be enlisted in an effort to fight poverty in their particular community." 2) "It is essential to plan and implement all efforts to help poor people WITH them, not FOR them." 3) "It is time to launch an all-out war on child poverty."

This last principle led to the idea that an education had the potential to gradually end poverty. Many programs came about to assist teachers

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