Education Week Examines Passage Of Head Start Reauthorization

Nov 30, 2007

An article in this week's edition of Education Week (free registration required) offers insight into how key congressional leaders - including Rep. George Miller (D-CA), Sen. Michael Enzi (R-WY), Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA), Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon (R-CA), and Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL) - perceived the reauthorization process of the Improving Head Start for School Readiness Act of 2007. Quoted from the article:

This process in working on Head Start has shown Congress at its best, Rep. Dale E. Kildee, D-Mich., the chairman of the subcommittee that oversees early-childhood education, said during a floor debate this month. This is one of our better days, [and] one of our better bills. ... We ve had differences. We resolved those differences.

Head Start advocates were pleased with the outcome. The four years of working on this, while they were long and sometimes difficult and sometimes frustrating, [resulted in a bill] that will improve opportunities for young children, said Danielle Ewen, the director of child-care and early-education policy at the Washington-based Center on Law and Social Policy, a nonprofit organization that is an advocate for low-income people. Maybe it takes four years to come up with something that actually works.

New provisions in the bill were the result of years of bipartisan work, culminating in a bill that passed the House by a vote of 381-36 and the Senate by a vote of 95-0.  The legislation is expected to be sent to the President for his signature soon.