John Kerry's position on

Head Start: This program, created in 1965, delivers early education and support services to low-income children and their families. Head start primarily serves low-income preschool children ages 3-5 and Early Head Start, created in 1995, serves low-income infants and toddlers (birth to age 3) and pregnant women.

Description of candidate's position: Kerry opposes the most recent Republican attempt to reauthorize funding for Head Start. He proposes increasing spending for Head Start and other after school programs. Head Start has a proven track record but the Bush Administration only includes minimal budget increases for fiscal year 2004, which would compromise the program.

Quotation from the candidate: "Every single person who knows anything about Head Start or education understands what they are really trying to do is put it in a block grant and shove it off on the states which already have a lot of problems. July 10, 2003 from the Kerry website: www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/releases/pr_2004_0707a.html. "And as President, I am determined that we stop being a nation content to spend $50,000 a year to keep a young person in prison for the rest of their life &endash; when we could invest $10,000 to give them head start…" July 29, 2004 from the Kerry website

Assessment of the proposal:

Positive: Critics of the Administration plan grant that Head Start has flaws, and that there are many individual programs that are of poor quality. But they argue that a large majority of Head Start programs are reasonably successful, and that it is unclear whether states could improve Head Start. They also contend that the process of turning over the program to states could harm Head Start and that the replacement programs developed by states might be worse. link

Negative: The Brookings Institute notes that current costs for the Head Start program are approaching $7 billion per year and Kerry's increase in spending would require substantial additional funding.

Comparison: Bush and Kerry both agree that Head Start is a valuable educational program. Kerry supports increasing funding to the existing program. Bush favors handing more control over to the state governments and requiring them to partially fund the program while adhering to strict guidelines approved by the Sec of Health & Human Services and the Sec of Education

Link to Bush's issue page

Link to Bush's Head Start page