August 2018 CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE Head

CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE

Head Start and Academic Performance

A graduate project submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements

For the degree of Master of Public Administration,

Public Sector Management and Leadership

Cicily Williams

August 2018 The graduate project Cicily Williams is approved:

______Dr. Mylon Winn Date

______Dr. Rhonda Franklin Date

______Dr. Henrik Minassians, Chair Date

California State University, Northridge

Table of Contents

Signature Page ii

Abstract iv

Introduction 1

Literature Review 2

Methodology 9

Background 10

References 14

iii

Abstract

Head Start and Academic Performance

Cicily Williams

Masters of Public Administration,

Public Sector Management and Leadership

Research indicates that children learn best when their parents are involved and supporting their learning therefore promoting children’s social success (Crosnoe,

Leventhal, Wirth, Pierce, & Pianta, 2010). Head Start programs were established in order to design a comprehensive program to help young low-income children (Gormley Jr,

Phillips, Adelstein & Shaw 2010). The signing of Elementary and Secondary Education

Act of 1965 raised educational attainment levels, narrowed educational inequalities, and supported the goal put in place for children living in low-income families. Efforts are being made to promote Head Start programs to children living in low-income families due to a significant increases of their chances of starting well-behind their advantaged peers. In the pursuit to bridge this gap, Head Start creates an environment where parents and teachers can be involved in the impact of early education.

Introduction

In President ‘s 1964 State of the Union address, he announced his effort to not only relieve the symptoms of poverty but cure it and prevent it from taken place

(Matthews, 2014). As part of the War on Poverty, President Johnson aligned the following four major pieces, The Social Security Amendments of 1965, The Food Stamp

Act of 1964, The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, and The Elementary and

Secondary Education Act 1965. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act 1965 was associated with the four major pieces of President Johnson legislation to escape poverty and develop a form of equality (Matthews, 2014).

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 opened the window for

Head Start programs to reach the goal to improve school readiness of low-income children (Puma et al., 2012). Low-income children usually enter school below more advantaged children academically-related domains such as vocabulary, literacy-related skills, cognition, and social-emotional and regulatory functioning (Love, Chazan-Cohen

& Raikes, 2013). Head Start is designed to reduce the gaps in school readiness between low-income children and children with more of an advantage to the educational system

(Love et al., 2013).

Literature Review

President Johnson 1964 State of the Union speech illuminated the best way to break the cycle of poverty was through education (Johnson, 1964). Based upon the urgent concern to break the cycle of poverty, the Elementary and Secondary Education

Act of 1965 (ESEA) got on the agenda to support Head Start. Head Start is designed as a comprehensive program with objectives in the fields of health, social service, and education for low-income children (Gormley Jr. et al, 2010). The signed legislation raised educational attainment levels, narrowed educational inequalities, and supported the goal to increase access to early childhood education for low-income children (Bitler &

Hoyes & Domina, 2014). Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 permitted

Head Start to pursue the goal to improve the social competences of low-income children and assist with handling their present environment along with the responsibilities they will encounter in school and life (Start, 1997). The signing of Elementary and Secondary

Education Act of 1965 (ESEA) allowed federal aid to primary and secondary education

(Paul, 2016).

Head Start is a federal funded program which provides a broad range of early childhood development services for low-income children since 1965 (Butler & Gish,

2003). The implementation of Head Start addresses the concern of low-income children having less cognitive and linguistic stimulus than children in higher-income families

(Love, et al., 2013). Head Start also provides services to include child development, preventive medical care, nutritious meals, health, education, and social activities to

prepare low-income children entering kindergarten (Garces, et al. 2002; Butler & Gish,

2003).

Head Start programs are locally designed and managed by system of 1,500 public and private nonprofit agencies (Butler & Gish, 2003). Head Start funds are distributed directly to independent local agencies instead of through the states (Bitler & Gish, 2003;

Henry & Gordon & Rickman, 2006). Head Start federally funded early childhood education program was developed to decrease socioeconomic disparities in school readiness with low-income children (Bierman, et al., 2008). In 1965, Head Start launched in the summer serving over 560,000 children with an annual federal operating budget close to $7 billion. (Bitler, et al., 2014). By 1966 Congress authorized Head Start as a part day nine-month program (Butler & Gish, 2003). By the 1970s, Head Start became an all-year program to serve low-income children (Garces, Thomas & Currie,

2002).

With Head Start being one of the largest public early education programs, they continue to revise the policy in order to ensure the program provides low-income children an opportunity for a positive future through learning the skills needed to contend early and often (Smith, 2012; Butler & Gish, 2003). In the 1990s, Congress passed the Head

Start Expansion and Quality Improvement Act in order to reauthorize Head Start and set funds aside for programs to strengthen the quality of service being provided. This reauthorization permitted major program quality improvements, established performance standards, and employed more qualified teachers (Henry, Gordon & Rickman, 2006).

Each reauthorization from 1994-2007 with the Head Start policy, was intended to expand 3

the expenditures and increase the amount of low-income children to receive services from the Head Start program (Henry, Gordon & Rickman, 2006; Smith, Butler & Gish, 2003).

Despite the reauthorization of Head Start to improve the quality of service being provided, policy makers continue to evaluate the long term impact of the program (Butler

& Gish, 2003). Studies during the 1980s and early 1990’s show significate short-term gains and benefits of low-income children attending Head Start, but no substantial evidence of the long-term impact (Start, 1997). However, these studies were not able to conclusively confirm the reason behind the long-term impact results (Start, 1997).

Researcher continue to explore if the decline is based upon poor quality of the schooling received after attending Head Start or the child’s Head Start experience (Butler & Gish,

2003). Recent studies have found the difference in children’s environment during the early years of education may have a linkage to school age outcomes (Love, et al., 2013).

The quality of the program also has substantial part in the experience low-income children receive when attending Head Start (Ludwig & Phillips, 2007). Despite the difference in studies being administrated, results show being exposed to education early is the most promising periods of investment in low-income children (Bitler, Hoyes &

Domina, 2014). Early educational attainment through Head Start generates the probability of positive academic fulfillment (Campbell & Ramey, 1994).

Head Start is configured as an early intervention program to enrich the learning environment of children in low-income families that provide less opportunity for informal learning (Burger, 2010). Head Start is structured to promote higher levels of early

vocabulary, reading, mathematics, and academic success in elementary and middle school are associated comprehensive preschool interventions programs (Yoshikawa,

Weiland & Brooks-Gunn, 2016).

Children living in low-income communities significantly increased the possibility of them being well behind their advantaged peers in school (Bierman et al., 2008). This disadvantage would occur due to low-income children typically starting school without social-emotional maturity, which obstructs their rate of progress once in school

(Campbell & Von Stauffenberg, 2008).

Children living in low-income families significantly increases their chances of starting well-behind their advantaged peers, efforts are made to reduce this gap by promoting early education through Head Start (Bierman et al., 2008). Head Start attempts to prepare children to meet academic grade level performance through school readiness.

School readiness allows children to develop literacy and numeracy skills earlier as a precursor to development of being able to achieve higher reading and writing skills

(Bierman et al. 2008).

In 1998, Congress understood the reauthorization of Head Start policy needed to place a stronger emphasis on the educational function of the program and the result in low-income children performance (Butler & Gish, 2003). Understanding academic skills are cumulative, Head Start has shown to be valuable based upon research learning trajectories in elementary school and beyond (Bitler, Hoynes, & Domina, 2014). In the effort to bridge this gap, Head Start creates an environment where parents and teachers can be involved in the impact of early education. 5

Parent’s interest and involvement appear to be the first and foremost inspiration on their children’s education (Bogenshneider & Johnson, 2004). Parent’s management of their children education is a key mechanism on a positive outcomes on their early education outcomes (Cooper, 2010). Parents are able to show a concrete value in their children’s academics attainment by helping their children learn at home, volunteering in school, and being active participants in Parent-Teacher Association (Bogenshneider &

Johnson, 2004). In the effort to ensure parents are able to be involved in the outcome of their children academic performance, policymakers advocate for programs like child care, summer school, and out-of-school programs to assist with resisting the decline in academic achievement (Bogenshneider & Johnson, 2004).

Policymakers recognized the importance of addressing Head Start classrooms predictor of low-income children academically (Raver et al., 2008). State policymakers took into serious account of parent’s participation in their children education. In order to address this issue, a California bill was passed to allow employers with 25 or more employees up to 40 hours for employees to participate in their children’s schooling

(Bogenshneider & Johnson, 2004). This bill advocated for significant amount of parent engagement to focus on their children education. Parents who seek early educational outcomes see a benefit in participating Head Start programs with their children (Gormley

Jr., Phillips, Adelstein & Shaw, 2010).

Head Start Research Based, Developmentally Informed (REDI) program was also developed from the reauthorization (Butler & Gish, 2003). Head Start REDI program learned from programs like High/Scope curriculum developed in 1962 and Creative 6

Curriculum for Preschool developed in 1978 the importance of children learning being supported by positive teacher’s relationships and tactical learning collaboration with parents (Bierman et al., 2008). Head Start REDI program was designed to provide teachers with tools to strategically address the sequence of social emotional and language emergent literacy skills (Bierman et al., 2008). In 2003, Congress mandated 50 % of teachers to have a Bachelor of Arts degree to improve educational credentials to help improve the educational credentials of Head Start Teachers (Gormley Jr., Phillips,

Adelstein & Shaw 2010 and Henry,Gordon, & Rickman 2006).

According to the Administration for Children and Families, the conception of school readiness is enhancing the social and cognitive development of children through the provision of education and other services to enrolled children (Gormley Jr., Phillips,

Adelstein & Shaw 2010). To examine the results of Head Start programs impact on low- income children, the Head Start REDI program intervention involved forty-four randomly chosen Head Start classroom targeting the promotion of specific school readiness competencies in the field of social-emotional development, linguistic, and developing literacy skills (Bierman et al., 2008).

The Head Start REDI program trail consisted of a large group of culturally diverse four-year-old children. The group was pretested as they entered Head Start classrooms and were received a posttest at the end of the year. Head Start REDI recognized the importance of a child receiving the full benefit of attending Head Start through teachers receiving training workshops and ongoing weekly mentoring support to use the

curriculum and teaching strategies to acquire both social-emotional competencies, linguistic and literacy skills (Bierman et al., 2008).

Head Start REDI program helped low-income children develop language skills to promote effective social interaction and social-emotional competencies to motivate and provide important opportunities for language learning, cognitive development and foster transactional processes promoting cross-domain and comprehensive school readiness

(Bierman et al., 2008).

Head Start programs have been a public issue for over fifty years. Head Start programs are generally viewed by policy makers and the general public as achieving the goals put in place and a benefit to the community with low-income children (Currie &

Thomas 1993). Although, Head Start REDI program was able to succeed at their goal to help low-income children become prepared to enter school, Head Start REDI has not completely broke the cycle of poverty (McLoyd, 1998).

Despite Head Start program not being able to end poverty, it has permitted low- income children opportunities to start school on an equivalent stage with children who are more privileged (Lee & Leob 1995). Head Start program have also been successful at low-income children parents receiving the proper tools to prepare their children with skills to be effective and efficient learners and ensure teachers are qualified to close the gap on educational attainment (Holt, 2006 and Pianta, Barnett, Burchinal & Thornburg

2009).

Methodology

A qualitative approach is the design that was going to be applied in this study to uncover data pertaining to the research topic being explored. The qualitative inquiry process would have included recording and analyzing collected data from subjects in an attempt to grasp a deeper meaning of the lived experience, including the behaviors, beliefs, and emotions of the participants. The qualitative research design would have offered the opportunity to inquiry and explore the perspectives of the participants to gain an understanding of real life experiences, providing richness when used to discover salient themes and categories of meaning (Miles & Huberman, 1994; S. Taylor &

Bogdan, 1998).

The targeted population for this exploratory qualitative research study would have been Pre-Kindergarten Teachers. The sample would have been drawn from Pre-

Kindergarten teachers working in schools located in a low-income population. The participants would have been informed of the title and purpose of the research study, the research method, participant eligibility requirements, and the data collection procedures that would have been used in the study. The research study would have been an open- ended, semi-structured individual interview with probing questions used to engage the respondent in providing rich, authentic details that describe the phenomenon being explored.

Background

Head Start was designed to help break the cycle of poverty by providing poor children a comprehensive program promoting school readiness at an early age. During his first State if the Union Address in January 1964, President Lyndon B. Jonson declared an “unconditional War on Poverty” (Johnson, 1964). President Johnson discussed the symptoms of poverty and not only how to cure it, but prevent it (Bailey & Duquette,

2014).

President Johnson’s “War on Poverty” was the start of Americans attempt to build a “Great Society”. The concept to build a “Great Society” was to eradicate the dilemmas of the underprivileged and gesture people lives to match the wonderful products of their labor (Johnson, 1964). Johnson believed the War on Poverty would permit people to take care of themselves and carry their own weight instead of getting something for nothing.

(McKee, 2010) President Lyndon Johnson thought the pursuit of happiness for the people would be based upon protecting the life of our nation and preserving the liberty of the citizens (Johnson, 1964). President Lyndon Johnson pushed the model of a Great Society in order to profess an end to poverty and racial injustice (Johnson, 1964). Great Society would give all children the ability to discover knowledge to enrich their mind and expand their talents (Johnson, 1964).

President Johnson goal centered around The Social Security Amendments of

1965, The Food Stamp Act of 1964, The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, and The

Elementary and Secondary Education Act 1965 in order to relieve the symptoms of

poverty (Matthews, 2014). 10

The Social Security Amendments of 1965 resulted in the passing of Medicare and

Medicaid. Medicare and Medicaid started as basic insurance programs for Americans who didn’t have health insurance (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, 2015).

This amendment expanded Social Security benefits for retirees, widows, college aged students and the disabled (Matthews, 2014). The Social Security Amendment of 1965 closed the gaps in the economic security for the elderly by providing protection against high charges of hospital and medical care (Cohen & Ball, 1965). Continuing to have these programs in place protects the health and welfare of millions of American families, saving lives, and improving the economic security of our nation (Centers for Medicare &

Medicaid Services, 2015). Social Security Amendments of 1965 also provided additional cash benefit through payroll taxes. These additional general benefit increases were designed to keep pace with inflation to protect families (Martin, 2005).

Food Stamp Act of 1965 was another program designed to buffer the discretion practiced by different States in setting rules and benefit levels of anti-poverty programs

(Almonds, Hoynes & Schanzenbach, 2008). The Food Stamp Program (FSP) is a federal funded program with the goal to improve nutrition among low-income population

(Almonds et al., 2008). Low-income children families who have participated in the program in comparisons to low-income children families who have not, are healthier and have better access to health care (Almonds et al., 2008). The introduction to food stamps to low-income children lead to the increase in the quality and quantity of food. This increase has a strong association between health and income (Almonds et al., 2008).

During the 1960’s, there was a lot of racial tension encumbered by economic inequality (McKee, 2010). It became apparent that antipoverty efforts needed to emerge and the best way to do this was by offering educational and vocational programs to allow low-income families an opportunity to acquire social status, material comfort, wealth, and personal security (McKee, 2010). The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 purpose was to cure inequality by providing an opportunity instead of an opiate (Johnson, 1964).

Job Corps, VISTA program and federal work-study program were established through the

Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 (Matthews, 2014).

The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 indorsed young men and women an opportunity to be placed into work training programs to prepare them to become productive citizens if they were displaced due to being out of work (Johnson, 1964). The

Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 established the Office of Economic Opportunity

(OEO), which was responsible for implementing the creation of Head Start Program

(Matthews, 2014).

In order to create a need for early education for children living in low-income areas, a public policy was created. It was imperative for President Johnson to illuminate the need to have Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA) on the agenda as a way to bring education into the forefront of the national attack on poverty and represent a groundbreaking commitment to equal access to quality education (Paul,

2016).

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965 was signed into law in April 9, 1965 with appropriations to be carried out every five fiscal years (Paul, 12

2016). The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965, was a key factor of President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty and one of the central achievements of the Great Society (McGuinn & Hess, 2005). The mission of ESEA has not completely changed, but has evolved to include specialized at-risk factors and provisions are in place to guarantee ESEA children presenting improvement and are able to reach proficiency at their grade level (Thomas & Brady, 2005). Studies have demonstrated The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965, aided Head Start program in being successful in supporting low-income children and their families.

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