Head Start children in Southern states are poorer than Head Start children nationwide, and their teachers earn less, finds a new analysis of Head Start programs by the Institute for Child Success, an early-childhood policy and research organization based in Greenville, S.C.
Eighty-one percent of Southern Head Start students have families with income at or below the federal poverty line, which in 2016 is $24,300 a year for a family of four. Nationally, about 72 percent of children qualified for Head Start by virtue of their families’ income.
Head Start teachers with a bachelor’s degree in the South also earned nearly $27,900 a year, compared with the national average of nearly $30,900 for teachers with that education level.
