Right wing's latest talking point: Head Start has been a failure. [View all]

[proud2BlibKansan]

I've seen it all over in online comments and on their blogs. And this one once again shows the utter stupidity of RWNJs.

They are claiming that since most Head Start kids are performing at the same level as their peers by 3rd grade who were not eligible for Head Start, this proves Head Start is a failure. But that is the entire point of Head Start - to erase the gap between low income kids and their same age peers. WE WANT THEM TO PERFORM AT THE SAME LEVEL.

There is lots of research to support the necessity of Head Start.

Poverty dramatically affects children's brains: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-12-07-childrens-brains_N.htm

Low income children's language development: http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ695690&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=EJ695690

Vocabulary rich childcare environments, in which children have opportunities to engage in conversations that nurture explanations, narratives, or pretend talk are essential for later literacy (De Temple, 2001; Dickinson & Tabors, 2001; Katz, 2001; Beals, 2001). Unfortunately, disadvantaged children are less likely to experience high-quality center-based care (NICHD ECCRN, 1997). Some characteristics of childcare centers that serve low-income communities are larger child-caregiver ratios, low caregiver warmth, sensitivity, and responsiveness to children, and the use of more authoritative commands and less open-ended questioning by caregivers (Phillips et al., 1994).
http://literacyencyclopedia.ca/index.php?fa=items.show&topicId=229

First graders from higher socioeconomic status (SES) back- grounds knew at least twice as many words as lower-SES children (Graves, Brunetti, & Slater, 1982; White, Graves, & Slater, 1990),
http://www.marylandpublicschools.org/NR/rdonlyres/75E1290D-1F33-47DA-BF20-A4CA86FA75BC/14884/VocTT.pdf

Betty Hart and Todd Risley concluded in their seminal study “The Early Catastrophe” that by age 3, children from families receiving public assistance have heard an average of 30 million fewer words than their affluent peers. This conclusion evidences the ‘word gap’ that exists between a typical 4 year old child of a professional family and a low income 4 year old student. “Simply in words heard, the average child on welfare was hearing less than 1/3 words per hour (616) then that of the average child in a professional family (2153).” Extrapolate this per hour, per day (14 hour waking day) word gap over 4 years and the result is that over 30 million less words are heard over this period of time by the low income child.1
http://bayoudistrictfoundation.org/Files/Press/TheCaseforEarlyEducationinNewOrleans.pdf

What the president says is TRUE: "Every dollar we invest in high quality early education can save more than $7 dollars later on,"
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/obama-push-universal-preschool-proposal-142600889--election.html