Head Start also has roots in the Freedom Summer when young Northerners went to Mississippi to work with poor black children whose needs were being completely ignored by the state and local authorities. It became apparent that many were malnourished and anemic -- one reason why Head Start includes health screenings. Project 2025 is all about turning the clock back to the Jim Crow days, reversing all our gains. Of course they're coming for Head Start.
Aggggh- Ideologues misreading research findings and purposely twisting facts to tear apart one of the most effective approaches to preventing adverse outcomes for children and families is infuriating. Early childhood programming and family support has a huge body of research demonstrating it's ability to move the trajectory of children at risk for a multitude of adverse outcomes. And these programs provide support and stability to many families. The Zero to Three network and a seminal 2000 book by the National Academy of Sciences, a 1999 Rand Study, and multiple clinical trials have demonstrated the important impact such programs have.
Our cultural predisposition to play "whack-a mole" with complex biopsychosocial problems and to avoid prevention and social support options in favor of over-intervening once problems emerge flies in the face of what the research tells us. The assaults on these programs will further damage our civic society and do immeasurable harm to families whose resiliency would otherwise be enhanced with the support of these programs. But that's the point isn't it.
Our current leadership wants to maintain the privileges and security of their claim to superiority by othering, diminishing, and imposing unequal opportunity options on people who might otherwise show them up. This is yet another way these weaklings do everything to avoid being displaced by the people they insist are not as good as they are, but who in fact, often excel once barriers in their paths are removed. This assault on early childhood programs is an abomination
It only convinces me more strongly that those who purport to "lead" with their dehumanizing tactics are terrified that if the opportunities available to people were actually fair and equal, they and their progeny would not be shining stars, and would be eclipsed by the many people that they work so hard to exclude. This is shameful.
Destroying NASA, cancer research Head start, epa, noaa, fema, usaid is not to save money. The MAGA intention to Shrink governent is to transfer government expenditures into the billionaire’s pockets. No savings, just grift. Meanwhile the American People grow poorer and more desperate.
"the rule could—and almost surely would—deny public benefits to some children who are full citizens."... What exactly are "full citizens"? Is there any other kind?
It’s not that the Trump administration (so-called) is opposed to Head Start per se. It’s opposed to any program that sends federal money to anything that doesn’t enrich or celebrate Trump.
It’s really that simple. If you stop the wealthiest people and organizations in the Milky Way from paying any taxes and you don’t want a budget deficit, you have to cut everything that doesn’t benefit the wealthiest people and organizations in the Milky Way. So Head Start goes. It only helps poor people, in the minds of Russell Vought and the other cretins who control Trump’s budget. Subsidies for fossil fuel exploration and extraction? They stay.
It’s great to be an oligarch in Trumpworld. It sucks to be anyone else, especially a poor child.
I'm pretty sure they are not considering the devastating effects on rural areas. Conservatives think of Head Start as an "inner-city" program. Yet, it is often the best (and only) source of high-quality childcare in rural America.
Leslie - yes, similar to the Medicaid changes in the OBBB (Oligarchs & Billionaires Budget Buster bill) - changing rules to reduce & complicate eligibility, and hurting small rural hospitals that were on the edge of financial failure before. Now the closures are occurring so no one in those rural areas has nearby care anymore - like back to the days of shutting down the town's public swimming pool so "those people" can't use it.
This is the administration’s playbook. Cut the social programs so much that they become ineffective and then use that to fully cut the program. It is frustrating and very dishonest.
Jodi - Republicans often claim "government can't do things efficiently" - when they're in power, seems like they do their best to make that come true 😠
This regime is cruel beyond belief, and they are absolutely the cruelest when it comes to their policies around children and families. I weep for the lives they are gleefully endangering. In addition to their outright killing of young, innocent children, the proposed changes to Head Start will condemn children to diminished opportunity for success for the remainder of their lives. By attempting to implement rules that will punish the children of undocumented immigrants--children born here who are American citizens--they demonstrate their evil disregard for the lives of the children and the future success of our society as a whole.
"the proposed changes to Head Start will condemn children to diminished opportunity for success for the remainder of their lives."
That is exactly what Republicans and the Epstein Class wants. They don't want equal opportunity anymore (if they ever did) - they want a permanent worker class that is perpetually endebted to the capital class that lords over them. While the Epstein Class would like proper slavery to return, they'll settle for economic and technological slavery - for now at least.
I wish Substack had a sad emoji--because you are 100% correct. These are sick policies designed to throttle all but the wealthy and, in the process, destroy our nation. What I do not understand is, who do they think will do all the work they don't want to do? Robots? Or do they plan already to have left this planet behind for Mars where they can build their AI utopia?
re: "Exclusive: Trump Preparing A New Attack on Head Start"
Jonathan Cohn, thank you for doing this difficult work so very well. Please take care of yourself when it all becomes too much. I assume it is time for us to contact our Federal electeds to stop this dead in its tracks, before it gains too much traction, unless you have a different suggestion.
The one program that successfully educated and raised numbers of families and their little ones out of poverty over the many years. It was something we could be proud our country did for giving little ones a better chance. More could always be done, but this program was solid.
T is there to turn off every light of hope; doing the cruel and ugly work of Project 2025. Stephen Miller and Russ Vought must be growling and groveling in their dirt hovels of the mind, writhing in dark ecstasy at all their evil plans made real.
This is no surprise. It's part of Republicans' larger goal to end public education altogether.
ProPublica has done reporting on state voucher programs which give taxpayer money to private schools with little to no oversight. I've seen it for years in my own state (Arizona) where the vouchers pull directly from public school budgets, go mostly to defray tuition costs for those who already send their kids to private school, and where the organizations who administer the vouchers get to skim 10% off the top. (Two of those organizations are owned by two state legislators who passed the bill.)
I cannot think of a single thing this administration has done to make life better for anyone who isn't already a billionaire. They have gutted all divisions of civil rights across the agencies. They have dropped enforcement actions against companies who defraud their customers and against abusive police departments. They have loosened OSHA regulations intended to keep workers safe. And under the guise of parental rights, they want to loosen child labor laws.
If they had their way, they would eliminate Head Start. If they really had their way, they'd rescind Brown v. Board and the 14th amendment.
I am outraged by this news. Not surprised, sadly, but outraged nonetheless.
My paternal grandmother, born and raised in Puerto Rico, eventually ended up working for Head Start on an administrative capacity in Newark, NJ, back in the late 70s. She was there until she retired. I remember how she spoke of how important the institution was to people like us and countless other low-income minorities in the city.
More personally: Of my three sons, only our youngest attended Heads Start. Specifically because he was diagnosed with ASD when he was 3. That allowed him immediate qualification for the program, as well as admittance to our school systems pre-K program a year later. Head Start was wonderful for my son. As is the case with many children on the Spectrum, routine was immensely valuable to his well being and developmental catch-up. I am not at all surprised that the proposed changes don't stop at discriminating against children of immigrants (even when the child in question was born here and by the most recent SCOTUS ruling, entitled to citizenship by that fact) but also look to curb access to children with disabilities.
I'm disgusted and pissed off.
My rural TN town is predominantly white and predominantly low-income. Most of the children using Head Start are white American citizens, born to white American citizens. Like the majority of the state, MAGA loyalty is deep. I can see them being unphased by proposed access denial to immigrant (read "brown") children. However, I know for a fact that early childhood diagnosis of disabilities like ASD are as high here as they tend to be in most of the country. It is my hope that spreading word of the threat to access for these vulnerable children will move some of them to speak out.
Head Start also has roots in the Freedom Summer when young Northerners went to Mississippi to work with poor black children whose needs were being completely ignored by the state and local authorities. It became apparent that many were malnourished and anemic -- one reason why Head Start includes health screenings. Project 2025 is all about turning the clock back to the Jim Crow days, reversing all our gains. Of course they're coming for Head Start.
MAGA enjoys doing harm to the weakest.
Aggggh- Ideologues misreading research findings and purposely twisting facts to tear apart one of the most effective approaches to preventing adverse outcomes for children and families is infuriating. Early childhood programming and family support has a huge body of research demonstrating it's ability to move the trajectory of children at risk for a multitude of adverse outcomes. And these programs provide support and stability to many families. The Zero to Three network and a seminal 2000 book by the National Academy of Sciences, a 1999 Rand Study, and multiple clinical trials have demonstrated the important impact such programs have.
Our cultural predisposition to play "whack-a mole" with complex biopsychosocial problems and to avoid prevention and social support options in favor of over-intervening once problems emerge flies in the face of what the research tells us. The assaults on these programs will further damage our civic society and do immeasurable harm to families whose resiliency would otherwise be enhanced with the support of these programs. But that's the point isn't it.
Our current leadership wants to maintain the privileges and security of their claim to superiority by othering, diminishing, and imposing unequal opportunity options on people who might otherwise show them up. This is yet another way these weaklings do everything to avoid being displaced by the people they insist are not as good as they are, but who in fact, often excel once barriers in their paths are removed. This assault on early childhood programs is an abomination
It only convinces me more strongly that those who purport to "lead" with their dehumanizing tactics are terrified that if the opportunities available to people were actually fair and equal, they and their progeny would not be shining stars, and would be eclipsed by the many people that they work so hard to exclude. This is shameful.
Destroying NASA, cancer research Head start, epa, noaa, fema, usaid is not to save money. The MAGA intention to Shrink governent is to transfer government expenditures into the billionaire’s pockets. No savings, just grift. Meanwhile the American People grow poorer and more desperate.
"the rule could—and almost surely would—deny public benefits to some children who are full citizens."... What exactly are "full citizens"? Is there any other kind?
One could point out the irony that the current head of HHS, which administers the program is RFK jr, nephew of Sargent Shriver
It’s not that the Trump administration (so-called) is opposed to Head Start per se. It’s opposed to any program that sends federal money to anything that doesn’t enrich or celebrate Trump.
It’s really that simple. If you stop the wealthiest people and organizations in the Milky Way from paying any taxes and you don’t want a budget deficit, you have to cut everything that doesn’t benefit the wealthiest people and organizations in the Milky Way. So Head Start goes. It only helps poor people, in the minds of Russell Vought and the other cretins who control Trump’s budget. Subsidies for fossil fuel exploration and extraction? They stay.
It’s great to be an oligarch in Trumpworld. It sucks to be anyone else, especially a poor child.
What would Jesus say?
I'm pretty sure they are not considering the devastating effects on rural areas. Conservatives think of Head Start as an "inner-city" program. Yet, it is often the best (and only) source of high-quality childcare in rural America.
Leslie - yes, similar to the Medicaid changes in the OBBB (Oligarchs & Billionaires Budget Buster bill) - changing rules to reduce & complicate eligibility, and hurting small rural hospitals that were on the edge of financial failure before. Now the closures are occurring so no one in those rural areas has nearby care anymore - like back to the days of shutting down the town's public swimming pool so "those people" can't use it.
This is the administration’s playbook. Cut the social programs so much that they become ineffective and then use that to fully cut the program. It is frustrating and very dishonest.
Jodi - Republicans often claim "government can't do things efficiently" - when they're in power, seems like they do their best to make that come true 😠
The cruelty is the point with this regime 😔
cruelty is a feature, not a bug.
This regime is cruel beyond belief, and they are absolutely the cruelest when it comes to their policies around children and families. I weep for the lives they are gleefully endangering. In addition to their outright killing of young, innocent children, the proposed changes to Head Start will condemn children to diminished opportunity for success for the remainder of their lives. By attempting to implement rules that will punish the children of undocumented immigrants--children born here who are American citizens--they demonstrate their evil disregard for the lives of the children and the future success of our society as a whole.
"the proposed changes to Head Start will condemn children to diminished opportunity for success for the remainder of their lives."
That is exactly what Republicans and the Epstein Class wants. They don't want equal opportunity anymore (if they ever did) - they want a permanent worker class that is perpetually endebted to the capital class that lords over them. While the Epstein Class would like proper slavery to return, they'll settle for economic and technological slavery - for now at least.
I wish Substack had a sad emoji--because you are 100% correct. These are sick policies designed to throttle all but the wealthy and, in the process, destroy our nation. What I do not understand is, who do they think will do all the work they don't want to do? Robots? Or do they plan already to have left this planet behind for Mars where they can build their AI utopia?
re: "Exclusive: Trump Preparing A New Attack on Head Start"
Jonathan Cohn, thank you for doing this difficult work so very well. Please take care of yourself when it all becomes too much. I assume it is time for us to contact our Federal electeds to stop this dead in its tracks, before it gains too much traction, unless you have a different suggestion.
The one program that successfully educated and raised numbers of families and their little ones out of poverty over the many years. It was something we could be proud our country did for giving little ones a better chance. More could always be done, but this program was solid.
T is there to turn off every light of hope; doing the cruel and ugly work of Project 2025. Stephen Miller and Russ Vought must be growling and groveling in their dirt hovels of the mind, writhing in dark ecstasy at all their evil plans made real.
Shattering.
This is no surprise. It's part of Republicans' larger goal to end public education altogether.
ProPublica has done reporting on state voucher programs which give taxpayer money to private schools with little to no oversight. I've seen it for years in my own state (Arizona) where the vouchers pull directly from public school budgets, go mostly to defray tuition costs for those who already send their kids to private school, and where the organizations who administer the vouchers get to skim 10% off the top. (Two of those organizations are owned by two state legislators who passed the bill.)
I cannot think of a single thing this administration has done to make life better for anyone who isn't already a billionaire. They have gutted all divisions of civil rights across the agencies. They have dropped enforcement actions against companies who defraud their customers and against abusive police departments. They have loosened OSHA regulations intended to keep workers safe. And under the guise of parental rights, they want to loosen child labor laws.
If they had their way, they would eliminate Head Start. If they really had their way, they'd rescind Brown v. Board and the 14th amendment.
I am outraged by this news. Not surprised, sadly, but outraged nonetheless.
My paternal grandmother, born and raised in Puerto Rico, eventually ended up working for Head Start on an administrative capacity in Newark, NJ, back in the late 70s. She was there until she retired. I remember how she spoke of how important the institution was to people like us and countless other low-income minorities in the city.
More personally: Of my three sons, only our youngest attended Heads Start. Specifically because he was diagnosed with ASD when he was 3. That allowed him immediate qualification for the program, as well as admittance to our school systems pre-K program a year later. Head Start was wonderful for my son. As is the case with many children on the Spectrum, routine was immensely valuable to his well being and developmental catch-up. I am not at all surprised that the proposed changes don't stop at discriminating against children of immigrants (even when the child in question was born here and by the most recent SCOTUS ruling, entitled to citizenship by that fact) but also look to curb access to children with disabilities.
I'm disgusted and pissed off.
My rural TN town is predominantly white and predominantly low-income. Most of the children using Head Start are white American citizens, born to white American citizens. Like the majority of the state, MAGA loyalty is deep. I can see them being unphased by proposed access denial to immigrant (read "brown") children. However, I know for a fact that early childhood diagnosis of disabilities like ASD are as high here as they tend to be in most of the country. It is my hope that spreading word of the threat to access for these vulnerable children will move some of them to speak out.
Pray for me, it's off to Facebook I go.
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