- Head Start eliminated services to 57,000 children in U.S. as a result of sequester, By Michael Alison Chandler, August 18, 2013, Washington Post: “Head Start programs across the country eliminated services for 57,000 children in the coming school year to balance budgets diminished by the federal sequester, cutting 1.3 million days from Head Start center calendars and laying off or reducing pay for more than 18,000 employees, according to federal government data scheduled for release Monday…”
- Head Start hit with worst cuts in its history, By Adrienne Lu, August 19, 2013, USA Today: “Last year about 1 million of the nation’s poorest children got a leg up on school through Head Start, the federal program that helps prepare children up to age five for school. This fall, about 57,000 children will be denied a place in Head Start and Early Head Start as fallout from sequestration. New estimates about the automatic budget cuts were released Monday by the federal government. The cuts have slashed over $400 million from the federal program’s $8 billion budget…”
- Pa. taxpayers end up paying more as public defenders laid off, By Brian Bowling, August 18, 2013, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: “In Western Pennsylvania, budget sequestration measures are pushing the federal court system to rely on $125-an-hour private attorneys instead of public defenders who typically cost taxpayers $75 or less for hourly work on criminal cases. That 67 percent increase in providing legal services to indigent criminal defendants is just one way that budget ‘cuts’ will end up costing taxpayers more, while undermining the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of fair and speedy trials, legal experts contend…”
Tag: Head Start
Early Childhood Education – Oklahoma
Tulsa’s preschool programs seen as national model, By Ginnie Graham, March 11, 2013, Tulsa World: “President Barack Obama has proposed sending more federal money to states to create or bolster preschool programs. He mentioned Oklahoma in the State of the Union address for having one of the best. For nearly two months, local early education teachers, advocates and researchers have been answering national calls about Tulsa’s role in this evolution. ‘We love the national attention for the opportunity for all of us to know the value of an early childhood education and invite people in,’ said Andy McKenzie, Tulsa Public Schools assistant superintendent for early childhood services. For the past 15 years, Tulsa has built an early learning system with innovative designs and ongoing social science research. This has been a monumental turnabout. In the mid-’90s, the city nearly lost its Head Start grant and access to a public pre-K class was almost nonexistent. Now, Tulsa’s Head Start is considered a national model. The TPS pre-K classes are full and part of a scientific Georgetown University study…”
Early Childhood Education
In Alabama, a model for Obama’s push to expand preschool, By Motoko Rich, February 14, 2013, New York Times: “President Obama’s call in his State of the Union address to ‘make high-quality preschool available to every single child in America’ rallied advocates across the country who have long argued that inequity in education begins at a very young age. In details that emerged early Thursday, the administration proposed that the federal government work with states to provide preschool for every 4-year-old from low- and moderate-income families. The president’s plan also calls for expanding Early Head Start, the federal program designed to prepare children from low-income families for school, to broaden quality childcare for infants and toddlers…”