The Fiscal Year 2011 Budget request for Head Start (early education programs) is just over $8 Billion dollars. Yep, you read that right, Eight Billion!!!
So, as a taxpayer you might have two questions for this program:
1. Is it working?
2. Is it a good use for $8 Billion?
The idea for Head Start originated in the early 1960's where lack of education was seen as a root cause of poverty and in the spirit of the "Great Society" the Federal Government inserted itself into the solution set, read more here. The original 1965 budget for Head Start was just under $100 million. This means the cost of Head Start has grown by a factor of 800 over the subsequent 45 years!
Is it working?
Well, The year 2010 will surely go down as a bad year for Head Start—a “Great Society” pre-school program intended to provide a boost to disadvantaged children before they enter elementary school. First, a scientifically rigorous experimental evaluation of Head Start found that the program largely failed to improve the cognitive, socio-emotional, health, and parenting outcomes compared to the outcomes of similar children.
Is it a good use of $8 Billion?
U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that Head Start centers located in California, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas, Wisconsin, and the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area were actively enrolling children from families not qualified to participate in the early education program.
Read more detail here.
So, by any measure you have a Gov't program growing by leaps and bounds, with little discernable positive impact, and a systemic cloud of fraud about it.
You decide: want more of the same?
And this is just one teeny tiny reason why we have out of control gov't spending combined with massive ineffectiveness and abuse. The root cause? Government trying to do things it was not Constitutionally chartered to do.
Remember this for November!
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