Chalk one up for the 4-year-olds.
Thanks to a relentless onslaught of pleading, cajoling, lobbying and public pressure, Head Start appears to have dodged the federal budget axe — for the time being.
Last month, Donald Trump’s early budget draft called for the elimination of #HeadStart -- the free early-childhood program for low-income families.
#Project2025, the Heritage Foundation’s conservative policy roadmap, also called for the program’s demise, saying it has “little or no academic value.” 
That triggered an all-hands-on-deck response from Head Start staff, families and alumni -- who touted the program’s success in propelling families out of poverty.
The National Head Start Association said advocates sent more than 300,000 letters to Congress,
added more than 50,000 signatures to petitions and attended rallies throughout the country. 

Meanwhile, Head Start advocates took to social media and national TV to plead their case
and visited Republican members of Congress to convince them of the program’s value.
They reached out directly to the White House.
In their free time, advocates said they lobbied everyone from neighbors to hairdressers to gardeners — anyone who had even a remote interest in the program.
It appears to have worked:
The latest draft of Trump’s budget proposal, released last week, doesn’t call for any changes to the $12.27 billion program. 
Still, advocates worry that new cuts may lie ahead.
“We mobilized absolutely everyone,” said Melanee Cottrill, executive director of Head Start in California.
“We launched a very intensive campaign. We still have a lot of concerns, but right now there’s a sigh of relief.”
https://calmatters.org/education/2025/05/head-start-california/

The Real-World Costs of Eliminating Head Start https://otherwords.org/the-real-world-costs-of-eliminating-head-start/

The program was founded as part of the War on Poverty and has made life better for countless children and expecting parents from low-income families suffering from poverty and discrimination.

I know from first hand experience how important programs like Head Start, SNAP (food assistance), and LIHEAP (utility/energy bill assistance) are...

Funding for these programs is a fraction of the taxpayer dollars that go to military/defense contractors, yet they stabilize our communities and give families a chance to improve life for multiple generations...parents, kids, and grandchildren.

CommUnify’s Head Start and Early Head Start programs have served 55,000+ children and families since our first campus opened in 1967,
and currently we operate 20 campuses, serving close to 600 children and their families annually.

But the new administration’s proposed federal budget would completely eliminate Head Start and Early Head Start.

The premise of Head Start is simple:
every child, regardless of circumstance at birth, has the ability to reach their full potential.

Eradicating Head Start and Early Head Start will have an impact on our local workforce:
without these programs many of the parents of these children will not be able to go to work because they will not have safe and affordable childcare. 

Now is the time to stand up and make our voices heard. 
#SantaBarbara #HeadStart
https://www.communifysb.org/save-head-start

Education and child advocacy leaders are warning that a proposal to eliminate federal funding for Head Start could devastate Texas families, erasing decades of progress in early childhood education and worsening an ongoing child care crisis.

https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/education-news/2025/04/28/519970/cutting-into-the-bone-houston-area-child-care-could-suffer-under-looming-head-start-cuts-advocates-say/

But hey, let's make family planning and abortions illegal so we can STARVE more children!!! smh

Trump's #WarOnChildren: #DOGE Guts #HeadStart, #ChildAbuse Programs, #Healthcare & More

http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/24/war_on_children

https://www.europesays.com/1992918/ Trump budget proposal would eliminate Head Start funding #And #Branch #congress #Donald #DonaldTrump #education #EducationMethodologyAndInnovation #Executive #ExecutiveBranch #family #fiscal #FiscalPolicyNews #Government #head #HeadStart #house #innovation #methodology #Negative #News #Overall #OverallNegative #party #policy #Politics #presidential #Republican #RepublicanParty #residence #start #Students #trump #U.S. #U.S.Congress #White #WhiteHouse(presidentialResidence)

“When RFK took an axe to #HHS, he didn't just cut scientific research & major health initiatives.He went after programs that provide critical intervention for poverty-stricken kids.

One former employee familiar w/ #HeadStart told me they knew of an open inquiry into a report of an instructor who struck a child. It’s not clear who’s going to manage that case going forward, the former employee -bc the one who’d been handling it lost their job.”

#ED #PublicSafety #USPol

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/trump-next-target-poverty-stricken-kids-hhs-head-start-early-childhood-child-care-education-programs-federal-cuts

KCLU: Thousands of families in the Tri-Counties impacted by cut to federally funded early childhood education program
https://www.kclu.org/2025-04-04/thousands-of-families-in-the-tri-counties-impacted-by-cut-to-federally-funded-early-childhood-education-program

“Rs have tried for years to cut$$ for these programs, have generally been unsuccessful. Head Start childcare funds are popular -may be a backdoor way of defunding: just fire all the people who process grant apps & cut the checks. At the very least, slows down$ getting out the door. PJ25 explicitly called for eliminating Head Start.”
-C Rampell

Defunding programs for young children, is an ongoing Republican battle, that primarily targets working women.

Trump is attacking poor children by making #Headstart funding unpredictable. Of course he is, but let's take a moment to remind ourselves how cruel that is, as well as why we need to keep fighting. The most vulnerable people in our country simply can't. #fighttyranny #savedemocracy #protectchildren

https://prospect.org/health/2025-02-12-trump-attacks-child-care-for-most-vulnerable-head-start/

I've been having a lot of talks about how things are going right now, and everyone says I have to be hopeful. But...why do I have to be hopeful? Why can't my fellow Americans (you know which ones) show EMPATHY?

I learned about kindness and sharing in pre-k (thanks #Headstart) and remember it 20+ years later. What happened to the rest of them?

"Last week, #Trump pulled back the across-the-board 'freeze' on all federal grants and loans, but despite the alleged 'unfreezing,' reports are streaming in from various states that money for #HeadStart has disappeared, forcing some centers to close or lay off staff. This is likely the doing of #Musk, who has been interfering with the #Treasury Department systems that disperse funds." https://www.salon.com/2025/02/06/elon-musks-on-head-start-childhood-education-exposes-how-pro-natalists-are-really-anti-woman/

Hmm. #WashingtonPost appears to have nothing about Head Start #HeadStart, as of today.

Today's #Congress outreach:
I was so busy today I couldn't make phone calls before offices closed. I did write a letter to #Warren, #Markey, and #Pressley demanding that they do something about #HeadStart programs being denied access to funds. Maybe you'd like to join me in asking your electeds to act on this? If so, you can use my petition:
https://resist.bot/petitions/PKGLRW
Until we beat back the #coup, you, too, should be calling and writing your electeds in Congress daily!
#politics #USPol #MAPoli

#DDoSed by Policy: Website #Takedowns and Keeping Information Alive

As of February 2nd, thousands of web pages and datasets have been removed from the U.S. government agencies following a series of executive orders. The impacts span the Department of Veteran Affairs and the Center of Disease Control and Prevention, all the way to programs like #HeadStart.
#cdc #va #eo #executiveorder

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/02/ddosed-policy-website-takedowns-and-keeping-information-alive