According to the federal Administration for Children and Families, 3,491 preschoolers from low-income families in the District of Columbia were enrolled in the federal Head Start program in 2011. The federal government spent more than $27 million to provide these youngsters with extra help to get them academically ready for school. It was all a waste.

As Wednesday’s Washington Examiner editorial (“Head Start finally gets tested — and flunks”) pointed out, a congressionally mandated federal study that followed Head Start participants to third grade found that the program had “no statistically measurable effect” on the cognitive abilities of 3- and 4-year-olds on 41 different measures of achievement, including language and math skills.