This story first appeared at The 74, a nonprofit news site covering education. Sign up for free newsletters from The 74 to get more like this in your inbox.
Most of Cassie Reed’s life has been marked by instability. During her childhood, she moved between nine different foster homes, often enduring abuse. Violence followed her into her adult life, as she met and fled partners who mistreated her.
The turning point came several years ago for Reed, who lives in Spokane, Washington, when she was offered transitional housing in an apartment building that happened to be co-located with a Head Start program.
Reed, a single mom, enrolled her youngest child, an infant daughter named Evie, in Head Start.
The federal antipoverty program is best known for providing high-quality early care and education to young children from low-income families, but as Reed soon learned, what truly sets it apart is the slew of wraparound services that meet families where they are and help them build toward something better.
Head Start provided Reed with essential goods like diapers, formula, clothing and food. Staff helped her navigate the public school system with her older son, who has autism, even though he wasn’t in the program. Head Start provided her daughter with free hearing and vision screenings and dental care. It empowered her to “find her voice” by giving her a leadership position with the policy council, a majority-parent group involved in each Head Start program’s decision-making, a step which she said has made her a “better mom and … better community member.”
“I felt like they loved my children like they were their own and cared about all of our well-beings,” said Reed, whose daughter is moving on to kindergarten later this month. “They saw us as a whole and tried to help wherever they could. And if they couldn’t, they would sit down and research what would help.”
Some of the very services that proved to be transformational for Reed and her family, however, may now be at risk.
In announcing a proposed rule change on Aug. 6, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. invoked the name of his uncle, Sargent Shriver, who led Head Start’s creation in 1965, saying his department was “removing unnecessary bureaucracy” that would return the program to its roots. Others say the changes will weaken or eliminate most of the standards that have long positioned Head Start as the “gold standard” for early care and education licensing and quality in this country. “Nothing else compares,” said Shantel Meek, founder and executive director of the Children’s Equity Project at Arizona State University.
The Trump administration is proposing that the 133 pages of Head Start Program Performance Standards be reduced to about a dozen pages, eliminating requirements for standards such as low adult-to-child ratios; services such as medical, dental and developmental screenings and individualized services for children with disabilities; and requiring programs to conduct all education in the English language. The proposed rule, which will officially be published to the Federal Register tomorrow, outlines the drastic reduction in standards. If passed, these changes would allow Head Start programs to adhere only to state and local childcare licensing requirements, which typically fall well short of the quality and safety standards long embraced by Head Start.
“It basically takes the country from the ceiling to the floor,” said Meek. “The kids that Head Start serves will bear the brunt of the impact, but it will go beyond. States and the field in general see Head Start as a north star we’re trying to build to, and they’re trying to tear that down and gut the heart of the program.”
In addition to removing many Head Start standards, this proposed rule would also change the cap on administrative overhead from 15% to 5% of a program’s total costs. Trump officials believe this, plus other cost-saving measures such as having fewer teachers on staff, serving more children in each classroom and spending less money on services such as home visiting and mental health supports, will reinvest up to $2.2 billion in the program, allowing Head Start to “preserve or expand” services to an additional 236,000 children nationwide. Critics, however, believe that reducing the quality of care for the sake of adding slots is a dangerous game to be playing — especially when quality has been a hallmark of Head Start throughout its history.
“It feels like the Trump administration is saying, ‘Let’s see who can do this for the cheapest.’ That’s not what I think anyone wants — or should want,” said Joel Ryan, executive director of the Washington State Association of Head Start and the Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program. “I see this rule as incredibly destructive. I see it as another attempt to dismantle the Head Start program.”
Ryan’s colleague Lori Pittman, chief strategist at the WSA and a former Head Start parent, said the 5% cap would be a “really, really scary thing.”
“To take away the foundation and the structures that build this house called Head Start,” Pittman added, “will only destroy it, and we’re not going to let that happen.”
The publication of the full proposal tomorrow will kick off a 60-day period of public comments, during which administration officials will receive and review feedback. The federal changes could also face legal challenges, many stakeholders told The 74.
Katie Hamm, former deputy assistant secretary for early childhood development under President Joe Biden, said that the proposal would strip away the elements of Head Start that make it exceptional.
“What sets Head Start apart from other programs are its quality standards, comprehensive services, parental involvement in shaping the program, and a commitment to welcoming all children,” Hamm said. “All of those things are undermined in the revision.”
Trump administration officials see it differently. The proposed rule is about cutting red tape and “trusting local leaders to make the decisions that are best for their local communities,” said Alex Adams, who leads the Administration for Children and Families at HHS, during a call with reporters, adding that “one-size-fits-all mandates from Washington cannot fully account for the realities facing the 1,600 grantees.”
Later in the call, Adams referred to the proposed rule as a “right-sizing” of Head Start and emphasized that the flexibility these changes are meant to provide is “permission, not a mandate.”
Yet leaders on the ground fear that if it’s not required, it won’t hold up in most programs.
“How quickly this affects families will vary by program, and that’s the problem,” said Hamm. “If the floor is gone, it comes down to whether each local decision-maker chooses to hold the line or start cutting corners. That’s happening against flat funding and rising costs, with pressure to serve more children. When a standard isn’t on paper, it becomes optional.”
Head Start, a federally funded early childhood development program that turned 60 last year, has come under fire repeatedly since the start of the second Trump administration a year-and-a-half-ago.
The $12.2 billion program serving nearly 700,000 kids has long been a target of the right, most recently with the conservative playbook Project 2025 calling for its total elimination and a leaked draft budget appearing to cut funding for the program altogether. Though that ultimately didn’t pass, the administration turned to what Hamm called “the death-by-a-thousand-cuts approach,” repeatedly delaying funding and disrupting grants, closing roughly half of the program’s regional offices and eliminating a number of federal positions that supported Head Start.
The administration then unsuccessfully attempted to ban practices involving diversity, equity and inclusion and exclude scores of immigrant kids from the program, meaning preschoolers without legal status — and even some with— would have lost access. And it rescinded the federal policy protecting childcare programs — and other so-called sensitive locations — from immigration enforcement. Meanwhile, last year’s government shutdown also locked thousands of the nation’s most vulnerable kids out of Head Start programming. And more recently, the administration rolled back a Biden-era rule requiring higher wages and better benefits for Head Start teachers.
This week’s proposal to overhaul Head Start’s regulatory standards will only further contribute to the widespread uncertainty and confusion, various stakeholders told The 74. And if the changes are confirmed, they will have enduring consequences for children, families and early educators.
To middle and upper class Americans, the value of some of Head Start’s signature services may seem overstated, noted Nancy Baker, Head Start director for the Butler County Educational Service Center in southwest Ohio, which oversees 631 children in Early Head Start and Head Start across 16 sites in two counties.
But the reality is that for many children in Head Start, the classroom setting may be their only opportunity for services such as oral care or a vision screening.
“These families are in poverty,” Baker said. “They may not have transportation … If you are working in a low-paying job that may not offer sick leave, when the doctor’s visit comes due and you have to work that day, a parent will have to choose between, ‘Do I go to work, or do I take my child to the dentist and risk being fired?’”
“Every day missed is money out of your pocket,” Baker added. “It becomes kind of a vicious cycle.”
Head Start’s comprehensive services are provided, in part, out of a recognition that families who are eligible for the program face resource constraints and other barriers that may prevent them from meeting their children’s basic needs. The program aims to address those needs so families can pursue stability and children can be free to learn, develop and thrive.
Plus, Baker added, physical impairments in a young child can be mistaken for behavioral issues. A child with imperfect vision may be perceived as inattentive and unable to focus. With a pair of glasses, their entire learning experience — and classroom identity — can change. Head Start also tests children for lead, Baker added. They’ve discovered children in Butler County with high lead levels, which “can mimic ADHD-type behaviors,” she said, adding that “continuous lead exposure can lead to some pretty serious cognitive delays.”
“It’s a holistic program,” Baker said of Head Start. “It’s much, much more than childcare. It’s even much more than preschool. That’s where the standards start coming into play.”
Baker is proud of the services her community’s Head Start programs provide to children and families, from nutrition to family engagement to mental health consultations. And she is “disheartened” by this new attempt to “whittle down” Head Start.
“Some things they’re looking to reduce or eliminate are not massive, budget-saving things,” Baker said. “They’re just good things to do for kids, particularly for children experiencing poverty.”
Most of the standards the administration wants to eliminate, she added, are “good, proven services that don’t break the bank. We’re not tied up in bureaucracy and red tape. These are health screenings. Why would you want to get rid of that?”
Meek feels similarly about the “cutting red tape” argument from the administration.
“Brushing kids’ teeth and providing inclusive services for kids with disabilities and … using ratios that are manageable so adults can engage in the learning process with kids — none of that is red tape,” she said. “Those are all essential things to make sure kids are safe, healthy, developing and learning.”
Some parents have echoed these concerns. Reed, the mom in Spokane, worries about the elimination of Head Start’s low ratios, which allow adults to work with fewer children at a time, thereby giving each child more care and attention.
If this proposal is confirmed later this year and Head Start programs do begin to align only with state and local childcare licensing requirements, many programs could see dramatic increases in ratios and group sizes.
For example, Early Head Start, an extension of Head Start that serves infants and toddlers, allows one adult to care for up to four 2-year-olds at a given time. Only three states meet that same benchmark for 2-year-olds, according to an analysis from the Children’s Equity Project. By contrast, in Mississippi, one adult is permitted to care for up to 12 2-year-olds, and in Texas and Florida, one adult can care for up to 11 toddlers. If a Head Start teacher begins caring for two or even three times as many children as before, they not only risk missing warning signs in some children — such as a behavioral issue or a physical need going unmet — but they are also much more likely to burn out and leave the position.
Meek, at the Children’s Equity Project, said this is one of the standards that she feels most strongly about. Another, she said, is the impact on dual language learners.
Currently, Head Start standards include several provisions specific to children who are learning English alongside the language that is spoken at home. For example, if a majority of children in a program speak a primary language other than English, at least one staff member who regularly interacts with those children must also speak that language.
That standard has been in place since 1975, when the original regulatory standards for Head Start were published, the Children’s Equity Project found.
“It’s not something new and crazy and ideological that was added,” Meek said. “It’s been there since the beginning.”
The changes for dual language learners — including the requirement that all programs educate children only in English — would affect an estimated one-third of children in Head Start.
Adams at ACF told reporters in the press briefing that he hoped the 60-day public comment period would lead to “robust engagement and thoughtful engagement with the community so we can get this rule right in broad strokes.”
But at least some families and providers involved in Head Start worry that the major decisions around this rule change have already been made.
“This is like a slow-moving disaster,” said Ryan, “a slow erosion as dollars fade away, people fade away and ultimately quality fades away. And that’s the real danger in this.”