Once again Congress is attacking the poor working families. These are the families that rely on programs like Head Start to get their children started in education the right way. Time and time again is has been proven in studies like this one from the US Dept of Health and Human Services, that head start programs help children excel in school. These types of programs have an even bigger impact on the low-income communities, who who otherwise not be able to send their children to a pre-school class.
The gains of pre-school education have been seen by everyone all the way up to the White House. This is why President Obama pushed for an expanded pre-school program in his State of the Union address.
“Study after study shows that the sooner a child begins learning, the better he or she does down the road. But today, fewer than 3 in 10 four year-olds are enrolled in a high-quality preschool program. Most middle-class parents can’t afford a few hundred bucks a week for private preschool. And for poor kids who need help the most, this lack of access to preschool education can shadow them for the rest of their lives.
Tonight, I propose working with states to make high-quality preschool available to every child in America. Every dollar we invest in high-quality early education can save more than seven dollars later on – by boosting graduation rates, reducing teen pregnancy, even reducing violent crime.”
If Head Start is so good then why is Hudson Head Start forcing more kids out of the program. You can thank the Tea Party Republicans who forced us into the Sequester.
The Sequester is the government debt reduction plan, that slashes 5% of funding for every line item in the budget. The Sequester was a bad idea when it was proposed, and everyone knew it. Nobody including the President every thought Congress would let the sequester actually happen. The sequester was ment to be something so bad that both sides would actually work together to ensure that it never went into effect. That was the plan, and the plan was and #EpicFail.
New Hampshire may be one of the smallest users of head start, but that does not mean it is not being effected. Due to sequester cuts NH will loose $733,000 in head start funding. These cuts are forcing the closure of two classrooms by Southern New Hampshire Service who oversees the program in parts of Southern NH. They will be shutting the door to 9-11 employees and forcing 18 children to find another head start school (if they can) to attend.
This may seem like a minor inconvenience for a few people and a few of the families in Hudson. But this is Husdon, NH. They have less that 25,000 people in the town, and this is what they are doing to their Head Start program. Can you only imagine what that will mean for bigger school districts, and communities with much higher levels of poverty than Hudson?
Across the country these ridiculously stupid sequester cuts will slam the door of economic and educational opportunity for more than 70,000 children. Head Start is specifically targeted to those families who could not otherwise afford to send their child to a pre-school program. Once again, Congress is balancing the budget on the backs of working families. They are taking away the programs that are designed to lift low-income families out of poverty.
Tell Congress you will not stand for this any longer. Tell Congress they must end the sequester cuts now. We have seen over the last few weeks how fast Congress can act when they actually want to pass legislation. They need to act like that now! They need to work together to save programs like Head Start and the hundreds of other programs being slashed by the sequester cuts.
