NEWS STORY: Religious Groups Help Stall Head Start Bill

c. 2003 Religion News Service WASHINGTON _ House Democrats said Thursday (July 17) that they had teamed with educators across the country to stall Republican plans to reauthorize the almost 40-year-old Head Start program. Among those educators who are opposed to the current version of the bill: religious sponsors of Head Start programs. “Our whip […]

c. 2003 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ House Democrats said Thursday (July 17) that they had teamed with educators across the country to stall Republican plans to reauthorize the almost 40-year-old Head Start program.

Among those educators who are opposed to the current version of the bill: religious sponsors of Head Start programs.


“Our whip count showed that House Democrats were united against this bill,” said Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., the House minority whip. Had Republicans kept the a scheduled vote on the bill for Friday (July 18), “the GOP very likely would have suffered a very embarrassing defeat.”

It was not clear when House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., would try to schedule another vote on the Head Start bill.

Some religious groups that run Head Start programs are fighting the Bush administration’s attempts to overhaul on a state-by-state basis the early childhood education program, fearing that if states are in control of the money, they will spend it on secular children’s programs.

The federal program provides educational, health and social services to low-income preschoolers, and it served more than 900,000 kids last year.

Only about 5 percent of Head Start programs are sponsored by religious or faith-based groups, said Mark Lynn Ferguson, a spokesman for the National Head Start Association, a nonprofit group that promotes the federal program.

The rest of the sponsors represent a “really wide range of secular organizations,” he said.

Currently, federal grant money to fund Head Start programs goes directly to local organizations. The Bush administration wants to phase out direct funding to local agencies and to transfer power to the states. The Bush plan would begin by sending federal block grant money directly to eight states rather than to local agencies so they could merge Head Start programs with state-sponsored early childhood education programs. It would incorporate more states over time.


The administration’s proposed changes would disrupt the nature of a program that has been functioning well since its inception, according to Sharon M. Daly, vice president for social policy at Catholic Charities USA.

“Turning Head Start over to states could result in public school systems becoming the `default’ choice for local administration of the program,” she said.

Most states, she added, are already strapped for cash and struggling to keep existing programs running, including trying to meet the requirements of the Bush administration’s education reforms. Giving states another program to handle would only add to their burden and would detract attention and money from Head Start program needs that currently are being met, she said.

Further, 37 states have provisions that make it illegal for state education departments to fund private or religious agencies.

“In those states, and in others,” she said, “continued sponsorship of Head Start by Catholic Charities agencies and Catholic schools as well as other religious organizations could be at risk.”

Her group’s agencies serve about 20,000 children each year through Head Start programs.

The Children’s Defense Fund, an advocacy group for children, also opposes the Bush plan. “The Bush administration’s proposal to dismantle Head Start is part of a bold plan to break the sacred covenant between people and their federal government,” according to CDF president Marian Wright Edelman.


“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” she said. “More importantly, if it ain’t broke, don’t break it.”

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As part of his faith-based initiative, Bush also wants to give religious organizations that receive federal money _ including those that implement Head Start programs _ the power to use faith as a factor in their hiring practices. Some religious groups see this as an unforgivable violation of civil rights, while others, including Catholic Charities USA, support the change.

“One’s faith does not determine how one reads a book to preschoolers or sings the alphabet song,” Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, wrote in a letter last month to Congress. “We expect government-funded programs to hire the people who are most qualified, not those whose religious beliefs best match those of an employer.”

KRE END DAGOSTINO

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