Transcript

RON HASKINS: Let me start by apologizing to the panelists and especially to Steve. Unfortunately, I know exactly how to make sure that this event gets zero coverage. And the way to do it is to emphasize that this is a very positive story about a $7 billion program that enrolls 900,000 preschoolers. And in Washington, good stories just don’t sell. So this is a great story.

It’s a story of scholarly research that showed that Head Start should be able to produce bigger and more lasting impacts on the development of children than it was typically doing. It’s a story of a committee of professionals called, somewhat strangely, the Committee on Redesignation of Head Start that was appointed by a Republican administration under requirements passed by a Democratically controlled Congress. And they produced a report offering clear and compelling recommendations about how to improve Head Start. It’s a story of a Democratic administration that decided to touch the third rail of American preschool programs and developed a creative regulation to implement and actually improve the committee’s recommendations for reforming Head Start. And it’s a story of a Head Start program that has responded positively to the criticism and to the reforms that are proposed by the Obama administration and appears to fully support the administration plan for improvement even though the plan will likely result in the closing of some Head Start centers.

View Full Transcript »