Head Start is a government-funded program that focuses on “child development and early learning” for low-income children. It not only prepares children for kindergarten by helping them develop their early learning skills in language, math, literacy and social-emotional skills, but it also provides students with healthcare, including vaccinations, dental care and balanced nutrition. The program encourages parent involvement, as their influence has a major impact on children during their developmental years.
Without the necessary funding for Head Start, which was halted during the government shutdown, the program was forced to face closure, leaving thousands of students, parents and educators scrambling to find childcare and employment.
We have already seen the closure of one program and three others that are “affecting about 1,000 very-low-income children and 270 teachers.” The longer our government leaders refused to cooperate to lift the shutdown, the risk of these programs shutting down increased exponentially, leaving negative effects on their communities.
Among the community members most impacted are low-income, English-learning students and their families. As a former Head Start student, I joined the program not knowing a single word of English. Through the nurturing of the program educators, I found confidence in my ability to catch up to my classmates and developed an enthusiasm for learning.
This enthusiasm is what pushed me to work so tirelessly to pursue higher education straight out of high school as a first-generation student. My story is only one out of thousands where Head Start alumni have statistically proven to have been “12 percent less likely to live in poverty as adults and 29 percent less likely to receive public assistance.”
While the program strives to improve children’s livelihoods, my mother found herself inspired to learn English herself after witnessing how I became a learning sponge. Growing up in poverty in Mexico, my grandmother — the sole provider of her family — put herself and her siblings through as much schooling as possible, but the costs of attendance soon caught up with them, leaving my mother with only an elementary-level education.
She has long been my biggest advocate in pursuing higher education, as she understands the importance and privilege of receiving an education. I have fond memories of sitting next to her as she typed away on a school computer, diligently working to further her reading abilities, while I did my own reading homework.
My experience shows that the Head Start program not only strives to improve students’ educational careers, but that an entire community benefits from its services — including parents and educators.
Many working-class families do not have access to alternative childcare, leaving parents in a difficult position about whether they should attend work when they cannot find someone to watch their child during the day. This leaves families already struggling to make ends meet at risk of falling into deeper poverty, which defeats the point of the program as it strives to provide students with the building blocks to live successful lives.
These programs should be just as protected as Social Security or Medicare, as they protect the livelihood of entire low-income communities. Unlike Social Security and Medicare, which continue to function normally under a government shutdown, Head Start falls under the category of government programs whose funding freezes during a shutdown.
Freezing these funds has left thousands of students at risk of falling behind academically and despite the government shutdown having recently ended, Head Start programs could take up to six weeks for the funding to reach individual centers.
We must continue to advocate for this necessary program to be better protected from future shutdowns and, in general, continue to support low-income English-learner students, their families and their communities.
