WASHINGTON (AP) — Automatic federal spending cuts will reduce the number of low-income children in Head Start’s preschool programs by more than 57,000 during the next school year, the Office of Head Start said Monday.

More than a million children are served each year by the programs, which are a legacy of President Lyndon B. Johnson 1960s war on poverty. The programs help prepare children for elementary school and also provide them with meals and health care. Twenty-nine percent of the participating children are black, 37 percent are Latino and 41 percent are white.