Head Start & Pre-K Collaboration

For over 40 years, in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, Head Start, our national pre-kindergarten program, has provided education and support services to young children from our lowest-income families. According to the National Head Start Association, Head Start serves more than one million children, from birth to age five, most at or below 100 percent of poverty. Now, with the rapid expansion of state funded pre-kindergarten, states are looking to Head Start as an important component of their early education system and, in many states, as a model early education program.

Because of inadequate federal funding, Head Start serves only about half of the eligible children. While more federal funding for Head Start is needed, partnerships with state pre-k programs are one avenue to assure Head Start-eligible children receive pre-k services even when local Head Start programs are full, and in some cases to expand Head Start's reach. Effective collaboration between Head Start and state pre-k programs can produce a system that provides the highest quality of services to all children, if those implementing pre-k and Head Start are willing to work to build and maintain a strong partnership.

Head Start provides children a strong, developmentally appropriate educational program, as well as offering other important services within its approach to serving the "whole" child: developmental and social-emotional screening; comprehensive health screenings, including vision, hearing, and dental, with follow-up as needed; activities to involve families and connect them with community resources; and support for children's transition to kindergarten and parents' transition to the workforce. Many state-funded pre-k programs may not offer all of these additional important services.

Challenges in creating successful partnerships between Head Start and state pre-k programs are caused by disparate regulations and standards, including teacher qualifications, class size and teacher-child ratios. For example, the National Institute for Early Education Research documented that more than half of state pre-k programs require teachers to hold a bachelor's degree, and many of these also require early childhood certification. Head Start requires all teachers to hold at least a Child Development Associate (CDA) credential and at least 50 percent of lead teachers to hold an associate-level degree. New legislative language in the 2007 reauthorization of the Head Start program requires more Head Start teachers to obtain bachelor's degrees. Pre-k programs and Head Start may also conduct separate assessments for program and student outcomes, and may use different measures of success.

In order to collaborate more effectively on behalf of children, leaders of Head Start and pre-k must resolve program differences and manage various funding sources. Head Start funds flow directly from the federal Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families (ACF) to local grantees, while state governments appropriate and distribute pre-k funds through a variety of streams (see Pre-K Now's report "Funding the Future: States' Approaches to Pre-K Finance"). To facilitate these partnerships, each state has a Head Start-state collaboration director who can be a key to connecting the Office of Head Start regional staff, state early education and care administrators, state Head Start Associations, and child care and other interested early learning stakeholders. In addition to connecting state and regional leaders, the Head Start-state collaboration directors can help programs implement federal cost-allocation guidelines, support policy discussions on pre-k, and convene briefings on implementation challenges.