Rules Raise Bar for Head Start Centers

President Barack Obama visits a classroom at Yeadon Regional Head Start Center, in Yeadon, Pa. Long-awaited final regulations released by the administration will require the early-education centers to meet higher-quality benchmarks every five years.

—Charles Dharapak/AP

By Sarah D. Sparks

For the first time in the more than four-decade history of the Head Start program, early-education centers will have to prove they prepare disadvantaged children for kindergarten in order to hold on to their grants.

Long-awaited final rules , published Nov. 9, require the nation's 1,600 Head Start and Early Head Start programs, including migrant and tribal programs, to meet higher quality benchmarks every five years.

Poor performers—which the federal Office of Head Start estimates to number about one in three—will have to recompete for their grants beginning as...