Head Start paranoia evolves

A few years ago, in my last job as Director of the Missouri Head Start State Collaboration Office, I reveled in the conspiracy theories surrounding Head Start, even co-founding a quasi-subversive listserve with some of my snarkier peers around the country. With them, we laughed (to ward off crying) at the standardized testing of four-year olds, a corrupt Head Start official assigned to root out corruption, marriage proponent trainers that made gender jokes during presentations, and schemes to "block grant" Head Start to the states without any protections against being stripped of it significant social service and parent components. All of this was done in relative isolation as it seemed no one with any power could put a stop to this. Maybe we were just paranoid. In this month's Mother Jones, they showed that it's not paranoia if they really are out to get you, with a brief expose of all these issues. More than $100 million was spent over four years for standardized testing that was so ill-begotten that it's data was never used for anything. "Shay Gurry, an education coordinator for St. Jerome's Head Start in Baltimore, remembers a kid who was asked over and over to pick out a picture of a knight; finally she erupted, 'there's no moon, so there's no night!' Another, asked how many books would be left if you had three and gave one to a friend, explained, 'I don't have any friends.' (Excerpted from Mother Jones, January + February 2008 [sorry, there's no link to this article]). The Head Start official was corrupt, doling out thousands of dollars in contracts to her family members and "dubious" reimbursements to herself. It's been a dark time for Head Start these last eight years but I'm afraid they're not quite over. While our new Congress is still getting its sea legs, it passed a Head Start Reauthorization bill that, while vastly improved over previous drafts from as many as three years ago, still contains some disconcerting concepts. I might go over some of those concepts in a future post. In the meantime, I am very pleased to know that CMCA's program can weather just about anything that comes our way. Mernell King, Early Childhood Director, and her team are exemplary. In addition to the fact that they completed a nearly flawless peer review last summer, they left a great impression on our agency independent auditor (who wrapped up his scrutiny of our agency just today). He was blown away by our accountability systems and even pointed out that Melissa Chambers, Assistant Director, was the "best ChildPlus manager" he'd ever seen. Mernell often says that if you stay focused on what's best for kids, you're going to have a good program. Interestingly, that's not as touchy-feely as it might sound. To the CMCA Head Start team the best interest of the kids also happens to mean maintaining strict accountability of the government funds we receive, squeezing every drop of quality out of those dollars, and holding themselves to the highest standards in all areas of program implementation. I couldn't be prouder to work with a group of people. The Head Start landscape continues to evolve and we're preparing for the future.


Today I'm over my Head Start conspiracy theories . . . and wonder who's behind the dismantling of the rest of the social service, education, and health sectors . . .