[AAACE-NLA] A Better Start For Head Start

[Thomas Sticht]

Research Note
14 July 2003

A Better Start For Head Start
Tom Sticht



The U. S. Education Department (USED) . Office of Vocational and Adult
Education (OVAE), Division of Adult Education and Literacy (DAEL) has
recently posted the funding levels for states and territories for program
year 2003-2004. Altogether the funds for the State Grants sum to around
$571,262,500.

In another recent report entitled " A Blueprint for Preparing America's
Future: The Adult Basic and Literacy Education Act of 2003:Summary of
Major Provisions," the USED states " The Federally funded system of adult
basic and literacy education serves approximately 2.7 million adults each
year." This means that the State Grant 03-04 program funds amount to
around $212 per adult student. By contrast, the Head Start program serves
around 1,000,000 children at a cost of some $6,500,000,000 or about $6500
per child.

The obscenely low level  of funding for the State Grants for adult
education and literacy development is starkly illustrated by the USED's
statement in the Blueprint report that "The findings of the most recent
national survey of adult literacy were published in the early 1990s.  That
survey found 40 million American adults (ages 16 and older) functioning at
the lowest level of literacy, and 90 million functioning at the two lowest
levels. These individuals are not equipped with the skills they need to
work effectively in the high-skill jobs that increasingly characterise our
economy."

If the number of adults in the lowest level of adult literacy is correct,
then the $571, 262, 500 dollars for the State Grants for 03-04 comes to
less than $15 for each of the 40 million American adults in the lowest
level of literacy.  It is less than $6.50 for each of the 90 million
adults that the USED says "
are not equipped with the skills they need to
work effectively in the high-skill jobs that increasingly characterise our
economy."

For some reason, the federal government seems to think that it is wise and
prudent to spend $6500 per Head Start child to try to overcome their
potential learning difficulties in school, but for the 20 or so years that
the Head Start children are striving to overcome their pre-school and
in-school learning difficulties, it is OK to let them return home each day
to parents who are lacking in the literacy skills which, according to the
same federal government, are needed to work effectively to support the
children across the 20 years that the children are going to be in school.
In a different approach to the problems of Head Start children, the
federal government might try funding the State Grants at $6500 per adult
enrolee, which would come to around $17.5 billion for 2.7 million adult
students.

With this type of investment, adults could receive a high quality
education in literacy and numeracy skills, and then, through the
intergenerational transfer of attitudes and skills from parents to
children, we could look for the adult's education to improve not just one
child's educability, as happens in Head Start, but  all the children in
the adult's family.

>From this point of view, an investment in adult education and literacy
development would not be regarded as just an adult education program,
rather, it would also be regarded as an early childhood program. It is
important to realise that in many cases Head Start and even Early Head
Start may come too late to help prevent harm to children's learning
ability because many times this harm starts in the mother's womb before
the children are born. Well designed and delivered adult education and
literacy development for young adults, particularly women, may be a more
comprehensive approach to the prevention of children's learning problems
and school failure than approaches that wait until children are conceived,
carried in pregnancy, and then born.

In this more comprehensive approach to early childhood education, it would
be recognised that a major head start for children starts with the heads
of the parents. It would also be recognised that $212 per adult student is
a shamefully poor commitment to increasing the education and literacy
skills of adults, and it makes a mockery of the well known fact that
parents are their children's first teachers. It is also a disservice to
the millions of children who need a better start in life for both
schooling and the pursuit of happiness in the complex world of the 21st
century.

Well educated parents will make sure that their children are not left behind.


Thomas G. Sticht
International Consultant in Adult Education
2062 Valley View Blvd.
El Cajon, CA 92019-2059
Tel/fax: (619) 444-9133
Email: tsticht at aznet.net