Today is National Call-In Day for folks to call their Congressional offices and let them know that it is not okay to dismantle one of the most effective early childhood programs in the country. 

Head Start has long been recognized as one of the most successful federal programs in decades.  It provides a comprehensive net of services for vulnerable and needy families with very young children.  Ask any teacher of any school and they will tell you the same thing.  It is the involvement and awareness of the parent that is the most important factor in most children's academic success.  Head Start Preschool programs provides parenting support, nutrition education and nutritious meals, psychological and medical screening and involves parents in the process.  

Currently administered by the Dept of Health and Human Services, Head Start is a multi-faceted attack at some of the root causes of poverty in this country -- the poor start that less-advantaged children have.  UNICEF has long maintained that to break the cycle of poverty from generation to generation, the most important thing to do is to focus efforts on children under the age of five.  Ensure that very small children get the right nutrition, a safe and secure environment, appropriate medical care, and the intellectual and emotional stimulation necessary for healthy development and you have just about gauranteed that they will do better than their parents.   Head Start has efficiently and effectively worked to do this in the US for decades.  The biggest complaint heard about Head Start was simply that it was underfunded and was not able to serve all the children in the US who were eligible.

Now of course this administration is not saying that they want to dismantle Head Start.  They are speaking of improving it.   Improving it by de-federalizing it and turning it over to states.  Unmooring the program from the federal guidelines and standards which have contributed to its long term success.  But the real danger is that it dangles Head Start funds with few strings over the heads of badly cash-strapped states.  One does not have to be an expert in government fiscal policy to know what will happen to these programs given the current mess most state budgets are in.  Head Start programs will get squeezed.  A nip here.  A tuck there.  And suddenly it will bear little resemblance to the national model that has been successful for decades.

More background info [easy to read and not too wonky.]:

For an excellent overview of Head Start and its success, see the Children's Defense Fund's Q&A

And more background info here and here.

Tools for Action:

Sample letters to send tp send you your Congressperson here and here.

Speaking points for a call to your Congressperson's office, here.

4:57:39 PM    

Mary at  The Left Coaster  has an excellent summary  of the news about the "Saddam buying uranium in Niger" charge that Bush and Blair used to justify starting a war with Iraq.

Today the Bush administration acknowledged

for the the first time today that President Bush was relying on incomplete and perhaps inaccurate information from American intelligence agencies when he declared, in his State of the Union speech, that Saddam Hussein had tried to purchase uranium from Africa.

On one hand, I guess it's a good sign that the Bush administration is at least publically acknowledging that this is an issue.  I confess I don't get my news from very mainstream sources.  I don't watch network or Cable news and I don't read USA Today -- so I don't have a good sense of whether there was any building public interest in/concern about this issue, but TBG was ranting just yesterday that the same media that ran like starving dogs after the whole "blue dress" story seems very apathetic about this one.  So, I guess the fact that the Bush administration feels compelled to address the issue means that they are feeling some kind of public pressure.

On the other hand, they are probably betting that this "acknowledgement" will suffice to put the whole issue to bed.  And I fervently hope that is not the case.  This post by Prometheus has me hoping he is right and the agencies maligned by the administration's implication that Bush was duped by poor intelligecence [Hah!] stand up for themselves loudly to set the record straight.

11:45:32 AM    

Tacitus earns* a link on the left [ooohhh a pun] despite the fact that he is "on the other side of the aisle," so to speak, thanks to this post in which he articulates a stand for clear, analytic thinking instead of knee-jerk partisan reacting.  He says:

As near as I can figure, a great many people have a great deal invested in particular preconceptions, and that investment requires reinforcement. Weblogs are a great environment for that reinforcement (how else to explain the zest for so many predictable mediocrities on both sides?), and the expectation of it easily transmutes into a sense of entitlement.

And:

Some folks need to get a grip: Just because I don't hate Muslims as you do doesn't mean I'm a dupe for Islamism. Just because I'm concerned about the progress of the Iraq war doesn't mean I'm a defeatist. Just because I don't adore President Bush doesn't mean I'm a leftist. Learn to accept nuance. Learn to tolerate gradations of belief.

*And no, I don't have an over-inflated, delusional view of the worth of a link on my site. I check my Site Meter every day. It definitely keeps one's ego in check.

12:27:31 AM