Head Start, the flagship federal education program for low-income preschoolers, doesn’t work. That is the conclusion of yet another high quality, large-scale randomized experiment commissioned by the Department of Health and Human Services, which runs the program.
Like an earlier study that found no lasting benefit to Head Start by the end of the 1st grade, this new study confirms no lasting benefit by the end of the 3rd grade—after an investment of 47 years and about $200 billion.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan recently warned that going over the “fiscal cliff” would result in cuts to programs like Head Start. It would, in other words, cut federal education programs that don’t work—which is actually what Barack Obama promised to do on the campaign trail back in 2008. Remember when he said “I want to go through the federal budget line by line, programs that don’t work, we cut”? Apparently, neither does he.
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