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Since its beginning in 1965 as a part of the War on Poverty, Head Start’s goal has been to boost the school readiness of low-income children. Based on a “whole child” model, the program provides comprehensive services that include preschool education; medical, dental, and mental health care; nutrition services; and efforts to help parents foster their child’s development. Head Start services are designed to be responsive to each child’s and family’s ethnic, cultural, and linguistic heritage.Russ Whitehurst summarizes the findings:
[snip]
The Head Start Impact Study is a comprehensive, carefully designed study of a large-scale early childhood program that has existed for more than 40 years. It is designed to address the overall average impact of the Head Start program as it existed in 2002.
There is no measurable advantage to children in elementary school of having participated in Head Start. Further, children attending Head Start remain far behind academically once they are in elementary school. Head Start does not improve the school readiness of children from low-income families.
Ed told me that when he was in college a professor of his, applauding Head Start, said: "We have to get them away from their families."
That's the social model.
Siegfried Engelmann never passed judgment on the families. He taught disadvantaged children to read, write, and do arithmetic, and he didn't presume that he could replace a mother or a father.
Siegfried Engelmann never passed judgment on the families. He taught disadvantaged children to read, write, and do arithmetic, and he didn't presume that he could replace a mother or a father.
Siegfried Engelmann on Head Start
Siegfried Engelmann teaches fractions to disadvantaged 5-year olds
One Strongly-Confirmed Impact on Math
Third Grade Follow-up to the Head Start Impact Study
Is Head Start Working for American Students?
Can We Be Hard-Headed About Preschool? A Look at Head Start
2 comments:
Siegfried Engelmann never passed judgment on the families. He taught disadvantaged children to read, write, and do arithmetic, and he didn't presume that he could replace a mother or a father
Good point, and elaborated on in the fascinating book Engelmann and Bereiter wrote about the project, Teaching Disadvantaged Children in the Preschool (out of print, but easily and cheaply availably from alibris.com or abebooks.com). The Engelmann program did not demand or expect "parent involvement" -- they merely asked for the parents to send the children to the program every day, and encouraged them to take pride in their children's achievements.
An interesting consequence in both the Project Follow Through Direct Instruction schools, and in DI implementations in low-SES schools (such as the ones Mary Damer has reported on) is that "parent involvement" greatly increased, without pressure from the school, as the children's achievement soared.
Too often, schools put the cart before the horse, in this case positing "Get involved, then your children will learn" when the reverse is more demonstrably true: raise student achievement significantly, and parents will want to be involved in whatever ways are feasible for them.
The reason to extend the school day, the school year, and the school years is all same reason: that getting "them" -- meaning variously "urban youth", "low SES" kids, and or the kids on the left side of the curve --away from their families is The Goal, not even merely a means to an end.
The french revolution never really ended.
And the above reason, which cannot be said out loud directly, drives school policy for suburban exurban /middle and upper SeS / right side of the curve kids too, because suggesting that the two populations need different educational practices is racist.
Never mind. Headstart hires the single mothers whose kids attend headstart as their day care workers in their program, at least here in the twin cities. So they didn't really take "them" away from their families after all.
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