Other Agencies’ Budgets Would Also Affect Education

Under President Bush’s proposed fiscal 2006 budget announced last week, the federal Head Start program would get a $45 million increase in funding. But that money would go for a project involving only a handful of states, not to increase the main program educating preschoolers.

The proposed increase to Head Start’s fiscal 2005 budget of $6.84 billion would go to nine states participating in a pilot project in which they would receive their Head Start funds directly. Normally, the federal money is distributed to individual Head Start programs.

Critics have labeled the pilot program an attempt to dismantle Head Start. Opponents of the president’s Head Start budget proposal said they found...