How Trump’s cuts to Head Start could leave the signature early education program in tatters

The early education program was established in the 1960s to help fight poverty.

FILE – Students help put away supplies at the end of a reading and writing lesson at the Head Start program run by Easterseals, an organization that gets about a third of its funding from the federal government, Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025, in Miami. [Photo: Rebecca Blackwell/AP Photo]

President Donald Trump’s administration is planning a dramatic overhaul of Head Start that would gut its quality standards, upending the hallmarks of the early education program for impoverished children, two people familiar with the deliberations said.Head Start, established in the 1960s to help fight poverty, has long been considered by experts to be a gold standard early learning program. Its regulations, which stretch more than 100 pages, outline requirements on everything from child-to-teacher ratios and child health screenings to family engagement.The Republican administration would replace those regulations with around a dozen pages of rules, leaving most of the specifics up to state and local law, said the people familiar with the deliberations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss information that was not yet public and because they feared reprisal.The draft rules would require more documentation from parents who are homeless or unemployed, the people familiar with the deliberations told The Associated Press. An early version of the proposal also would have barred parents who are in the United........

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