Like scattered billiard balls, 16 Early Head Start children scampered across a rubber-matted playground in Southwest Philadelphia last week.
Vigilant for tumbles or conflicts, four teachers calmly monitored the 1- and 2-year-olds in their high-energy frolic at an early learning center run by KenCrest, a nonprofit that operates Head Start and other programs in seven neighborhoods throughout Philadelphia.
Head Start’s low ratio of one teacher for every four toddlers is a hallmark of standards for the 61-year-old federal program that provides free education, health, nutrition, family support, and daycare services for low-income children from birth to age 5.
But now, advocates say, Head Start risks being eviscerated by changes proposed by the Trump administration.
The vaunted teacher-child ratio, along with other foundational principles that make Head Start unique, is being threatened by plans to “deregulate” the program — overhauling the way it operates by eliminating more than 1,400 regulatory mandates that dictate how the program is administered.
“We could be going to two staff members for 25 toddlers and two for 30 older kids,” said Melanie Brennan, executive director of early learning programs at KenCrest.
“What’ll bathroom time look like?”
The Trump administration defends its proposed changes as the building blocks for a better Head Start, which serves 700,000 low-income children nationwide, including an estimated 7,500 in Philadelphia.
“We are removing unnecessary bureaucracy, strengthening nutrition and physical health, trusting parents and local communities,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose department administers Head Start at the federal level.
That does not ring true to Head Start professionals in Philadelphia.
“It’s laughable to say all they’re trying to do is take away some bureaucracy,” Brennan said. “By ending rules that guide Head Start’s high, uniform standards, the administration’s real goal is to leave the education business.”
In Philadelphia, more than $70 million in federal funding for Head Start goes through the Philadelphia School District, the program’s largest provider in the city, said Diane Castelbuono, the district’s deputy chief for early learning.
The district uses that money to directly operate Head Start programming in more than 60 school buildings, mostly elementary schools, throughout the city, she said. It also works with approved contractors who run Head Start classrooms at approximately 75 childcare sites in Philadelphia, Castelbuono added.
Asked for comment on the proposed changes, the school district said in a statement that the Head Start program has “positively impacted” students and that district officials “remain committed to preserving the robust standards that have proven essential to our program’s success.”
‘Stunned and sad’
While only Congress can repeal the statutory authorization for Head Start, which has an annual budget of about $12 billion, opponents of the Trump administration’s proposal warn the new rules would weaken the program to the point it became unrecognizable — or stopped existing altogether.
The plan, called “Reducing Federal Burden for Head Start Programs,” was released Aug. 7.
Public comment will be accepted until October, when the administration hopes to finalize the rules.
Kush Desai, a spokesperson for the White House, said the changes would enable the government to provide a stronger program that ensures services “are delivered effectively to children and families in need” by reducing “unnecessary administrative burden.”
Advocates who have spent their late-summer vacations reading the complex, nearly 200-page document say they are in the process of marshaling opposition, which they hope will delay or alter the administration’s plans.
“There’s so much to unpack,” said Kara McFalls, executive director of the Pennsylvania Head Start Association in Harrisburg. “We’re checking with experts to see if Head Start becomes gravely harmed.”
Advocates say initial readings of the new rule justify their concerns.
Beyond altering teacher-child ratios, the administration would lower the cap on Head Start administrative program costs from 15% to 5%, which means local programs could spend only up to 5% of their total budget on operational overhead like management, human resources, IT, and administrative salaries.
That would be “devastating,” McFalls said, making it harder for programs to pay staff working in these departments.
Additionally, the administration would require instruction to be conducted in English only — which could hit several Head Start programs across the city that offer bilingual education.
“That policy would be ridiculous and biased,” said Rachel Sanders, executive director of Your Child’s World Learning Center, which includes Head Start programs in Southwest and Northeast Philadelphia, as well as in West Oak Lane. “Our children speak multiple languages.”
While all primary instruction is in English, Sanders said, children who speak Spanish, Mandarin, Arabic, or another language are taught the lessons either by teachers fluent in those languages or by translators brought in to help. She added that 50% of the students in the Northeast location do not speak English on the first day of instruction, but that the additional support helps them eventually learn the language.
“No way would we ever discontinue translating,” she said.
Under the Trump administration plan, requirements for math and literacy curricula would be removed. Also gone would be stipulations that programs check on whether families have provided their children with immunizations, dental visits, wellness checks, and mental health consultations.
And hygiene training — including the Head Start tradition that children brush their teeth in class — would end.
The proposed changes “left me stunned and sad,” said Chandell Craig-Cromwell, 39, of West Philadelphia, a mother of two Head Start graduates who works in human resources in a city agency.
“This isn’t just education, or babysitting. It’s developmental support,” she said. “I’m upset for all the moms who’ll get this new version of Head Start.”
If the administration alters Head Start so profoundly, said Sharon Wolf, an early education expert at the University of Pennsylvania, she questioned whether the program should still keep its name.
“I fear we could be moving to weakened, ordinary childcare,” she said. “Then, is it Head Start anymore?”
Madison Marino Doan, a policy analyst in the Center for Education Policy at the conservative Heritage Foundation, disputed the notion that the administration’s proposal represented an effort to eliminate Head Start.
“The current proposal under consideration is an effort to deregulate the program and give states greater flexibility to design programs that reflect the needs of their communities while maintaining current funding,” she said.
Doan added that Congress should simply end the program — a recommendation made in the foundation’s Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for a second Trump administration.
Some advocates warn the administration’s push to change the program has more to do with ideology than concerns about efficiency.
Tyrone Scott, a director at First Up, a Philadelphia-based early education nonprofit, said he often runs into people who self-identify as conservatives at public forums who say that part of Head Start’s true mission is to “indoctrinate kids with a political ideology that includes ideas like racial justice.”
But, he said, the mission of Head Start is a lot simpler than that.
“It teaches kindness,” he said. “That isn’t a political philosophy.”
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