Families, Not Just Kids, Need a Head Start

Education of poor children without real stability for poor families will not create the community change needed to stamp out poverty.

Perhaps the best evidence of this is that Head Start, a  federal pre-school program created decades ago to help lift poor kids out of poverty, isn’t doing the job.

Born of the federal government’s War on Poverty, Head Start was an attempt at educational equity for poor kids who rarely get quality pre-school and show up to kindergarten far less ready to learn than other kids.

But its advantages are proving to be too short-lived, because education alone is not the answer. That means it’s time for our corporate community to go beyond it’s commitment to STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering and Math – and to invest in the safety net, in job creation and in financial stability initiatives that build family strength.

Even decades ago, we knew that a kid who starts out behind in kindergarten rarely catches up academically.

Today, we know even more. We know that a kid who isn’t ready for kindergarten at 5 is less likely to be reading by 8. And, we know that reading proficiency by the end of 3^rd grade is a key indicator of whether that kid will graduate from high school  on time. We know that up through 3^rd grade, kids learn to read. From 4^th grade on, they read to learn.

All of that validates the need for quality pre-school programs that stress academics, require skilled teachers and offer parents opportunities to get involved.

But early learning alone is not the pathway out of poverty it was envisioned to be.

The academic advantage a child gleans from attending Head Start is clear in those early grades. That’s important. Because lots of kids don’t have even that opportunity. Only about 40% of the kids in Santa Clara County who are economically eligible for Head Start actually get a seat in a classroom.

But that early academic advantage fades fast. Often by 4^th grade.

The education community has vigorous debates about what the program needs.

But we know that poverty is the huge, exacerbating factor in this. A poor kid is far less likely to graduate than a non-poor kid even when both are reading-challenged.

Poverty trumps all. Even the Head Start advantage is chafed away by the hard reality of living without adequate housing or a reliable source of food.

Education will only be a real pathway out of poverty when we consider that children grow up in the context of families. Poor families deal with immense stresses that make it unlikely, if not impossible, for them to support their child’s education.

At United Way Silicon Valley, we focus on families raising younger children. Our goal is to help them stabilize so they can support their kids’ educational success.

That means what happens in the classroom has to be accompanied by what happens in the neighborhoods, businesses, parishes and living rooms.

It’s time to stop thinking of educational opportunity as something that happens in a school. What really matters is what happens at home.

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