The federal government announced a proposed federal rule Thursday that rewrites or eliminates many regulations for Head Start early education programs nationwide.
The Administration for Children and Families in the Department of Health and Human Services said the proposed change would provide more flexibility and help expand Head Start enrollment.
Wisconsin providers and childcare experts, however, say the proposed rule would roll back standards for classroom quality, teacher qualifications and health services.
The new rule would end supports for children with disabilities and children who speak languages other than English, as well as requirements that Head Start providers work closely with the families of children enrolled in the early education program, advocates say.
“The term ‘flexibility’ is being used to make it sound friendly,” said Jen Bailey, executive director of Reach Dane, which operates Head Start programs in 13 locations in Dane County and Green County. “We all like flexibility in our work.”
Bailey, who is president of the Wisconsin Head Start Association, spoke in an interview earlier this week, before the notice of proposed rulemaking was posted Thursday.
Bailey said existing rules already give Head Start programs flexibility to operate. “We’re designed to meet the needs of our local communities and kids and families,” she said. “I see this as a means to not fund the program, because if you eliminate many of the standards, then you can justify the flat funding we’ve been under the last couple of years. Flat funding is really a funding cut.”
Providers have been bracing for the rule change for several months following published reports from the Associated Press and other news outlets about early drafts of the document.
“Headstart, like childcare, is not just about making sure children are physically safe from dramatic harm,” said Jennie Mauer, executive director for the Wisconsin Head Start Association, which represents 39 Head Start programs across the state. “It’s really about nurturing their growth and development, so they come to the K-3 to 12 system prepared and ready to participate.”
About 12,000 children in Wisconsin are enrolled in Head Start, Mauer said this week.
School readiness for children in poverty
Head Start was launched in 1965 to help children from low-income families become ready for school and currently serves about 670,000 children in the U.S., according to a new report from the Children’s Equity Project at Arizona State University.
The report, a response to concerns about the program’s future that have been circulating since President Donald Trump took office, analyzes the potential impact of changes along the lines of those the federal government announced Thursday.
“Decades of research have found that children who attend Head Start show improved language, literacy, and social emotional outcomes after program participation and even improved rates of educational attainment and some intergenerational effects,” the ASU report states.
The report attributes those gains to national standards that Head Start has established for local providers to follow, drawn up to ensure higher quality early education,
Quality is important for all children in early education, the ASU report states, but “it is especially important to children who may have higher needs, such as children living in poverty, children with disabilities, children experiencing homelessness, and children involved in the child welfare system — the very children Head Start prioritizes in its services and those who demonstrate the most benefit from these services.”
Some of the performance standards that the proposed new rule eliminates were updated in 2016 and 2024.
In some instances, the rule would replace Head Start standards with the standards set by childcare regulators in the Head Start provider’s state.
For example, the new rule eliminates a Head Start standard for the ratio between the number of children and the number of childcare teachers, deferring instead to the ratios prescribed in state regulations.
The current rule requires one adult caregiver or teacher for every four infants in a Head Start center. That aligns with Wisconsin state regulations and those of 34 other states and the District of Columbia, according to the ASU report.
But 15 states’ current regulations allow for more infants, and changing the Head Start standard would mean increasing the number of infants per adult in those states.
Head Start also requires one teacher for four 2-year-old children. Only three states also require that ratio, according to the ASU report. In 47 states — including Wisconsin — and D.C., local rules allow for a larger number of 2-year-olds.
“Changing the staff-to-child ratios is dangerous and a health and safety hazard,” said Bailey of Reach Dane. “We enroll many children with disabilities such as autism that need a lot of support to keep them safe.”
Because children growing up in poverty face additional adversities that require greater support, “It would be categorically unsafe to shift to different ratios in the name of flexibility,” Bailey said. “Children will be harmed.
Ending duplication — or lowering standards?
The notice of the proposed new rule states that the agency is eliminating a number of provisions in the current standards because they’re already specified in the federal law that governs the Head Start program.
For example, the new rule eliminates requirements in the current standards for Head Start programs to evaluate children’s health, help families navigate the healthcare system, help pregnant women get access to healthcare and insurance, teach children about brushing their teeth and provide mental health supports for children and families.
“Head Start programs remain responsible for ensuring the provision of health, mental health, and related services per the Act and must also continue to comply with applicable state and local requirements,” the notice states.
Mauer said the standards are supposed to help local programs carry out the federal law’s requirements, however.
“I think it leaves a large set of unanswered questions about what some of the components mean if there’s no explanation of how to implement them,” Mauer said. “There’s a lot of missing detail.”
The Administration for Children and Families said in its announcement Thursday that the new rule “restores flexibility to programs to meet local needs, reduces regulatory burden and administrative costs, and aims to increase available slots and services for families. It is projected to preserve or expand as many as 236,000 Head Start slots nationwide and save $2.2 billion .”
Mauer said that the proposal to serve some 200,000 more children nationwide “leaves a big unanswered question of how do they intend to get there.”
While the rule appears to give Head Start programs permission to continue to offer the comprehensive services that are outlined in the current standards, there’s no new money being allocated for Head Start, Mauer said.
“The math doesn’t math to me,” Mauer said. “It demonstrates to me a fundamental misunderstanding of what it takes to operate a classroom with small children.”
The federal proposal announced Thursday drew protests from a range of Head Start advocates and supporters. Some linked it to the Trump administrations’ past actions that delayed Head Start funding, closed federal offices that served local Head Start programs and at one point proposed zeroing out Head Start funding in the next budget year. The program was subsequently added back in.
The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, drawn up prior to Trump’s election in 2024 as a proposed blueprint for the next president, called for eliminating the program.
The new proposal amounts to “undoing the safeguards that have helped make Head Start one of the nation’s most effective public investments in young children and families,” the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association said in a statement.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) condemned the proposal, saying it “puts kids’ wellbeing and safety on the line and is all part of the President’s plan to shut down Head Start entirely, and it’s shameful.”
