The HEAD START program, 100 Billion spent on the program

[Danno 1,228]

100 Billion dollars, I'd guess this has got to be the most expensive baby sitting program anyone could dream up.

Imagine the amount of life changing education this 100 billion should have delivered.

Head Start’s Impact Evanescent — HHS Study

Posted by Andrew J. Coulson

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2010/01/13/...cent-hhs-study/

HHS has finally released the second installment of its series of studies on the persistence of Head Start effects. Its finding (see page xiv): virtually all academic effects disappear by the end of 1st grade. There is only one positive statistically significant finding out of eleven academic outcomes measured, the size of that effect is minuscule by recognized standards (it’s half way between zero and what most social scientists consider “small”), and the confidence in the finding is low by recognized standards. (Many authors would categorize it as “insignificant” rather than “significant” — it’s only significant at a 90% confidence interval, not the more common 95% confidence interval).

We have spent more than $100 billion on the program to date (ballpark estimate from Table 375 here) and HHS’s own research shows that its results diminish to essentially nothing by the end of the first grade.

There are other government education programs whose effects actually grow substantially over time, and that are comparatively economical. Consider the federal DC voucher program. Just a year or two after switching from public to private schools, the effect of the private schooling was not big enough to rise to the level of statistical significance. But by their third year in private schools, the evidence was clear that voucher-receiving students were reading more than two grade levels above a randomized control group that stayed in public schools. This program, as I’ve previously documented, costs 1/4 as much per pupil as DC spends on public education: about $6,600 vs. $28,000.

But Congress, and particularly Democrats, have defunded the DC voucher program while raising spending on Head Start. President Obama is at the forefront of this travesty. If you weren’t already jaded and disgusted by education politics and its domination by employee unions opposed to educational choice, start now.

Andrew J. Coulson • January 13, 2010 @ 4:32 pm

Edited January 17, 2010 by Danno

[Nizzy 1]

They won't even take my son into the program here in VA because of income requirements...they told me our income has to be less than 33,000. I have to pay for it if I go t any other school with higher requirements...