The evidence of any lasting benefit from Head Start is thin. Head Start began in 1965. Since then, it has enrolled 21 million poor youngsters. The object was and is to give them health care and educational services to prepare them for school. During those 40 years when two or three generations have passed through Head Start’s portals, advocates have repeatedly cited successes and want the program expanded. Accepting their word, why has the purported need for Head Start not faded, even slightly• Graduates of Head Start who became parents ought to be able to connect the dots. Education and socialization begin at home as these are by natural right and duty a chief object of parenthood. People too poor — or otherwise ill-equipped — to properly care for children should not have them. Why would anyone bring a new life into destitution? The evidence of any lasting benefit from Head Start is thin, even as the states and federal government are spending $25 billion a year on a variety of early interventions — and Congress is working on reauthorizing Head Start, itself a $6.6 billion program. Finally, we might get some answers. The National Head Start Impact Study ordered by Congress will end in 2006. But if Head Start is found to be worthy, a dubious proposition, we might then ask why we undo the good by condemning these little ones to our deplorable system of public education.

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