Head Start -- If it ain't broke, Smash it anyway.

[Armstead]

Right Wing Republicans are idiots. As James Carville might say: "It's the incompetence, stupid."

There's no other explanation for screwing up a program that has worked well, and has long had the support of reasonable Republicans as well as Democrats. Like everything else in life, there may be room for improvement in Head Start. But generally -- until the nutjobs took over the country -- the phrase "If it aint broke, don't fix it" seemed to be the general bipartisan attitude to Head Start.

But now, the GOP Goon Squad claims that Head Start is not enough like Boot Camp, and needs to be drilling advanced calculus into the heads of poverty-striken young people. The GOP also wants to add to the bureaucracy of Head Start by addingthe level of state interference in its funding.

On C-Span last night, while the House was debating it, there were a number of Republicans who called who were as upset as Democrats by this savaging of a program that has helped countless kids.


IDIOTS!

---------------
An editorial below:

http://www.helenair.com/articles/2003/07/25/opinions/a04072503_02.txt
Cox Newspapers
(Helena Independent Record website)

Head Start needs no fix

By Tom Teepen - 07/25/03

Folk wisdom counsels, ‘‘If it ain't broke, don't fix it,'' but Washington is in a fixin' mood and it will break whatever it darn well pleases in order to keep at it. Pity Head Start and AmeriCorps. The hammer is out.

<snip>

The only thing today's arch-conservative Republican Party, especially its retrograde House contingent, hates more than any liberal program is a successful liberal program.

As repeated studies have found, Head Start prepares children from poor households to learn by reducing the educational and social deficits in their lives. Head Start kids, compared to kids like them who don't get into the program, fail less often and have lower incarceration and welfare rates. We all benefit.

But the administration has invented a new knock on the program: it doesn't produce reading and math whizzes, and Bush wants to push Head Start to concentrate on those subjects. Head Start, responding to a 1998 congressional mandate, already has put more emphasis there and to do much more would inevitably erode the program's attention to health, nutrition and social development — all essential for eventual learning.

<snip>

MORE

[bushisanidiot]

1. Yet Another Bad Political Move From The Greed Party

It must be "LEAVE EVERY POOR AMERICAN CHILD BEHIND WEEK". It's not enough that the stinkin' rich repukes are holding back child tax credits for those who make less than $26K, but now they're kickin' HeadStart Out from under their feet to boot?? Nice way to get votes, IDIOTS!

[Armstead]

2. I think the backlash against the right wing may be starting

This is the kind of half-baked, mean spirited power play that bugs even the most moderate middle-of-the road person -- especially if they can see the effects on the ground.

Let's hope the more the right-wing overreaches, the more people will see through it.

[blondeatlast]

3. I remember reading an article years ago somewhere about federal

programs that were efficient and effective as judged by government administrators. Head Start was WAY at the top of the list. They said that HS consistently operated well within their funding and had innovative ways of keeping costs down; whil at the same time having a MEASURABLE POSITIVE effect on school readiness and success.

I live in an area where my son goes to school with kids out of Head Start. They were well prepared to start kindergarten, in fact were ahead of most of the kids (including my son). How's bushit gonna feel when the HS kids surpass the spawn of his cronies?

HS is about school READINESS, not curricula. It has done a marvelous job of showing learning to be valuable to kids who aren't much exposed to college graduates.