Early Childhood Programs

The number of children under age five who are at risk of school failure increased greatly during the 1980s. Education reform and the reauthorization of Head Start--the centerpiece of federal early childhood programs--have focused attention on improving the quality of early childhood programs and increasing the number of children being served. This report highlights the major themes and policy implications for implementing Head Start and other early childhood programs. GAO concludes that efforts to improve the quality of the Head Start program and expand it to include more children are complicated by several factors: the growing numbers and changing characteristics of poor children, rising costs of services, and limited community resources.

GAO found that: (1) about 35 percent of poor children attended preschool programs in 1990 compared to 60 percent of children from high-income families; (2) participation rates were particularly low for immigrant, linguistically isolated, and rural children; (3) efforts to provide eligible children with the full range of Head Start services are hampered by too few qualified staff, the rising costs of services, and limited community resources for many health and social services; (4) 59 percent of all disadvantaged children attending early childhood centers are in programs other than Head Start which often do not provide a full range of services; (5) some European countries have created integrated, seamless early childhood systems that avoid some problems of low participation, uneven access to services, and coordination difficulties; and (6) in implementing proposed changes to Head Start, Congress needs to consider whether sufficient funds are going to high poverty areas, whether providing already required services could strain the program's ability to improve quality, whether the benefits of linking Head Start services with other early childhood programs outweigh the problems and costs of doing so, and the quality of training and the types of benefits that teachers should receive.