Integrating Head Start & K12 School Systems

Anyone who's been around education for more than a little while knows that Head Start and K12 programs don't often interact very much, or very well, even though they're all serving the same kids (sometimes in the same school buildings).

There are complex political, financial, and racial reasons for this, and few successful efforts to integrate everyone's efforts into a system that would help kids more effectively. You should have seen what happened when I once floated the idea of revamping the Head Start formula so that the program served areas with growth in low-income child populations. Most recently, a first-term Bush proposal to bring Head Start over to the Education Department went nowhere.

But now at least some districts are taking steps -- who knows if they're ultimately positive ones -- to do what Washington hasn't. That's the story of this recent Washington Post story (School System Bids to Take Over Head Start), which notes that 19 percent of Head Start administrators nationwide are public school systems, and 15 percent are municipalities. The rest -- roughly two out of three Head Start programs -- are nonprofit organizations. I don't know if this is an increase, but I'm guessing so.