Head Start Supporters Fear Impact of Threatened Cutbacks

Concerns of ripple effect mount amid budget battle

Supporters of Head Start are feeling under siege in the federal budget battle, fearing that the kind of deep cuts they’ve seen proposed in Congress would likely have ripple effects hurting state pre-K and after-school programs for elementary school children.

The program is administered through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, but is considered an integral part of the government’s early-education efforts, offering low-income preschoolers education, health, and nutrition services. It dodged a proposed current-year cut of $1.1 billion, or 15 percent, in the U.S. House of Representatives’ budget bill defeated in the Senate last week.

But advocates also saw the defeat of efforts by Senate Democrats to boost Head Start’s budget to $7.4 billion, from the fiscal year 2010 total of $7.2 billion. That proposal was part of the Democrats’ competing budget...