Inside the Heated Dispute Over Proposed Changes to Head Start
Source: Governing.com. Original article available at the link below; full text pasted below.
Federal officials say removing regulations would simplify things, lower costs and offer flexibility for states; opponents say it could put children at risk.
Sep. 21, 2026 •
A child plays at Southweest Human Development's Head Start program. (Victoria Martz)
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In Brief:
The federal government is proposing removing many regulations that govern the Head Start program.
Some Head Start providers and early education researchers say the current regulations are essential to making the program effective, and that undoing them would harm the disadvantaged kids the program serves.
Federal officials say other Head Start providers have asked for more flexibility in how they achieve program goals, and that current regulations are costly to follow, reducing the program’s ability to serve everyone who wants to attend.
Many children and parents have gone through the doors of Southwest Human Development, a nonprofit in Phoenix, Ariz., where Eve Del Real directs a Head Start program. But for Del Real, one person is often on her mind: a 19-year-old mom who had only one place to take her infant to escape the baking Arizona heat.
“[She] would spend all day on the bus … she had no other resources available,” Del Real says.
When the mother began attending Southwest Human Development’s program, she and her infant had a safe place to be. Program staff helped the mother find temporary shelter, get healthcare for herself and her child and join a work training program. She went on to become a dental assistant.
“We are genuinely breaking this generational cycle of poverty and adversity,” Del Real says.
Southwest Human Development operates a Head Start program — a federally funded, locally administered program that focuses on helping low-income infants, preschoolers and their families. It offers early education, healthcare screenings, and various kinds of family support.
Head Start programs across the country could soon see big changes, as the federal government proposes eliminating many of the regulations that currently govern them. That announcement sparked alarm from some Head Start providers and early education researchers who say the current rules, if numerous, are essential to maintaining the program’s high quality.
If the proposed changes go through, Head Start providers would only be held to state and local governments’ generally more relaxed rules, unless jurisdictions change their policies or providers voluntarily opt to exceed requirements.
“Head Start is a very compliance-driven program because it's implementing high-quality statutes,” says Del Real, who is also president of the Arizona Head Start Association. Running the program without current rules would be very different, she says: “Our thresholds for childcare licensing are so low [in Arizona].”
But Administration for Children and Families Assistant Secretary Alex Adams doubts that current regulations — last updated in 2024 — actually improve quality. He and other federal officials say the rules are burdensome and have driven up costs, preventing providers from serving all families who want to participate.
Adams says the proposed rule change is a response to visiting and speaking with Head Start providers.
“We’ve heard feedback from, ‘There's too much federal micromanagement generally’ to ‘What if we had alternative pipelines to teaching?’” Adams says.
Last year, the federal government considered eliminating Head Start’s funding on the basis that its curriculum was an “indoctrination of our children,” but ultimately did not do so. In June, the conservative Heritage Foundation recommended the Trump administration deregulate and phase out Head Start, arguing the program is insufficiently effective. Head Start supporters fear this might be the first step of a larger plan to do away with the program entirely.
Adams says he believes in Head Start and the federal proposal is not part of any wind-down.
“This is part of an effort to make Head Start better and brighter. This is part of an effort to reverse previous mistakes, to increase the number of kids who have access to Head Start, and reduce the heavy hand of the federal government,” Adams says. Spending on Head Start has risen since 2015, while the number of children served has declined, he adds.
Weighing the New Rulebook
Critics of the proposed rule changes are particularly concerned that class sizes and adult-to-child ratios could expand. Head Start requires one adult per every four 2-year-olds, while 24 states allow at least twice as many. (Florida and Texas allow 11 2-year-olds per adult, and Mississippi allows 12).
A low student-to-teacher ratio is important for giving young kids the attention they need, especially for the disadvantaged kids the program focuses on, says Dr. Shantel Meek, executive director of the Children’s Equity Project at Arizona State University. Meek served as senior policy adviser for early childhood development at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under the Obama administration.
“Having one adult with 12 toddlers … you’re barely keeping up with diaper changes,” Meek says. She likened such a class size to “warehousing” children and says research suggests low-quality early care and education can have negative effects on kids.
Adams says program providers would still be bound by the Head Start statute, set in 2007, that more broadly outlines the expectations of the program. But the community members and parents who help guide their local Head Start programs would get more flexibility in determining how to achieve these outcomes.
“If the program likes its ratio, it can keep its ratio,” Adams says.
The proposed rule change also removes regulations regarding facility space, suspension restrictions and health supports (such as eliminating the requirement to help kids with daily teeth brushing). The proposal also adds the requirement to teach kids only in English, among other changes.
Meek says the current Head Start regulations go beyond the statutes to provide important details. For example, they specify exactly how quickly a child in a program should receive vision hearing, developmental and health screenings. The statute only says that the screenings should be offered annually “when needed.” Without clearer timelines, program providers might offer drastically different access to screenings. “One might be in a month, one might be sometime in the school year, and that can make a world of difference to a child,” Meek says.
While early childhood educators and governments debate what shape Head Start should take in the future, others question whether the program should have a future at all.
Heather Mac Donald, a Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, says program outcomes haven’t justified the taxpayer expense. She points to a federal study that found kids who entered Head Start in 2002 showed initial gains compared to their peers who attended a different program or stayed at home, but that many of the non-Head Start kids caught up in cognitive and academic outcomes by third grade. (Still, findings are complicated: some demographics of Head Start kids had persistent gains.)
Another study, meanwhile, finds kids who attended in the 1960s and 1970s earned more money as adults and were less likely to need public assistance.
Officials will need to weigh what it all means. The public has until Oct. 6 to submit comments.
At the moment, nothing is set in stone: “A proposed rule is just proposed,” Adams says.
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