Bush Budget Proposes Level Funding for Head Start

Saying that local Head Start programs are having to cut transportation services, buy cheaper food for children, and eliminate some education and training courses for parents, advocates for early-childhood education are criticizing President Bush’s fiscal 2008 budget proposal for the 42-year-old child-development and preschool program for poor children and families.

For the sixth year in a row, the Bush administration, in its budget plan released last week, is recommending $6.8 billion in spending for Head Start. The program, in the Department of Health and Human Services, is the largest federal education program outside the Department of Education. Congress appropriated $6.8 billion for it in fiscal 2006 and has not completed work on a spending plan for fiscal 2007, which began Oct. 1.

To keep up with inflation, the National Head Start Association, an advocacy group based in Alexandria, Va., is calling for an additional $750...