The Birth of Head Start: Preschool Education Policies in the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations Review

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The Birth of Head Start: Preschool Education Policies in the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations ReviewVinovskis is an outstanding historian of Education and has written an accessible, well-researched history of Head Start. The major contributions of this work is the emphasis on the educational aspects of the program (as opposed to the "developmental" aspects touted by, among others, Head Start administrators Jule Sugarman and Edward Zigler), and the contention that congressional Republicans--far from opponents of this Great Society program--actually wanted Head Start to provide the educational outcomes espoused (though never really documented) by program advocates. The end result of this work is a clear contribution to the debate over the purpose and value of Head Start.
Where this book falls short is in its assumptions, the most problematic of which is that Head Start should be judged on its contribution to improved educational attainment of its participants. From the outset, Head Start was seen by its supporters as something quite apart from a simple education program. Instead, it aims to improve the total environment of children--their health, nutrition, and home environment--as much as educational abilities. So, the inability of Head Start to show improvements in IQ or in short-term educational outcomes never has been an argument against the program's effectiveness.Although such goals are "fuzzy" and harder to measure than the pervasive standardized tests, their importance are nonetheless central to understanding the Head Start debate, and they are, unfortunately, neglected in Vinovskis' analysis.
The other problem with the analysis is in its acceptance at face value the contention of Republicans in Congress that they were fans of Head Start. This ignores the complexity of Republican opposition to the War on Poverty and how Head Start presented a real problem for Republicans who sought to dismantle the Office of Economic Opportunity, the umbrella agency under which Head Start resided. One of the problems here is the selective use of papers from key people in the debate; Vinovskis makes excellent use of presidential papers, papers of HEW officials, and a key congressional Republican (Albert Quie), but fully neglects key congressional Democrats, like Carl Perkins, or Sam Gibbons, key Democrats on the House Education and Labor Committee. This results in a lack of balance in assessing the motives behind Republican attempts to move Head Start to the Offfice of Education, which was a key debate in the fourth year of the program.
Still, this is a great book on a popular program that has outlasted the era that spawned it and it makes a needed academic contribution to our understanding of Head Start.The Birth of Head Start: Preschool Education Policies in the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations OverviewOne of the most popular and enduring legacies of President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society programs, Project Head Start continues to support young children of low-income families—close to one million annually—by providing a range of developmental and educational services. Policy makers proposing to reform and update Head Start often invoke its origins to justify their position, but until now no comprehensive political history of the program has existed. Maris A. Vinovskis here provides in The Birth of Head Start an in-depth look at the nation's largest and best known—yet politically challenged—early education program. He sets the record straight on the program's intended aims, documenting key decisions made during its formative years. While previous accounts of Head Start have neglected the contributions of important participants such as federal education officials and members of Congress, Vinovskis's history is the first to consider the relationship between politics and policy making and how this interaction has shaped the program. This thorough and incisive book will be essential for policy makers and legislators interested in prekindergarten education and will inform future discussions on early intervention services for disadvantaged children.

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