The Trump administration recently caused uproar from the Left by proposing the repeal of thousands of regulations in Head Start, an early education program for low-income children. Critics argue that the action strips the program of important standards. But in reality, these regulations have increasingly held back the very communities this program was supposed to put ahead.
Head Start was one of the hallmarks of President Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty, with the goal of helping low-income children succeed in their education and development. But the program has long struggled to attain the outcomes policymakers promised.
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The Trump administration’s proposed rule change seeks to cut Head Start’s most wasteful regulations — roughly 1,400 provisions. Many of these regulations are redundant with federal and state law or are simply not required by statute, adding unnecessary federal bloat.
TRUMP’S HEAD START REFORM COULD SERVE 236,000 MORE CHILDREN — WITHOUT SPENDING A DIME
The administration states the goal is to place parents and communities in control of the Head Start program. Replacing detailed decrees from Washington with outcomes-based measurements redirects a program that has long struggled to hit its mark. Communities will also see the benefit of more resources available for additional enrollment slots in the program.
Those on the Left confuse efforts to streamline the program with lowering standards. Many repeat an Obama-era talking point that hundreds of pages of regulations make Head Start “distinct from mainstream preschools.”
But standards that fail to improve quality or outcomes are merely dead weight.
Attempts to shore up program outcomes led to the proliferation of new regulations in the last decade. In 2016, then-President Barack Obama added a myriad of new mandates, including full-day and full-school-year instruction, reducing program flexibility and enrollment slots.
Later, the Biden administration added more onerous mandates governing staff wages and benefits — even requiring some programs to facilitate free or low-cost access to healthcare, mental health services, childcare subsidies, and student loan forgiveness for all employees, even for some part-time workers.
Obama and former President Joe Biden imposed these mandates in the name of improving program quality but left poor children and families behind. Funding per enrollment slot goes half as far as it did in 2016 as new regulations inflate costs.
The projected costs of the Biden regulations were $1.4 billion per year. The administration estimated that Head Start programs would have to reduce slots by 13% relative to 2024 numbers to accommodate the changes.
The number of funded slots in 2024 was already dramatically declining — falling by 15%, or about 120,000 slots, since Biden took office. About half of this decline occurred after the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency.
The effects of onerous regulations are not isolated to Head Start.
Particularly among preschool and Early Head Start programs, hosting organizations commonly offer services outside of Head Start. Many are schools, community centers, and preschools that bear additional facility-wide costs and administrative burdens as Head Start regulations increase. Additional strain on these systems translates to reduced availability of services and higher costs for families in communities struggling the most.
WASHINGTON IS FAILING HEAD START. WE’RE EMPOWERING PARENTS INSTEAD
Repealing many of these duplicative Head Start regulations allows states and communities to establish the same strict standards that daycares, preschools, and other private facilities are already required to follow. Studies show that overly prescriptive regulations, such as child-staff ratios, do not meaningfully improve quality or safety but increase costs to families.
The Trump administration’s reforms in Head Start are a welcome departure from the status quo. They refocus the program on a mission it has long abandoned. After all, if regulations, not results, are what make Head Start unique, then the program merely exists in the name of bureaucracy itself instead of serving children in need.
Niklas Kleinworth is a public policy scholar advancing reforms that lend to a freer, more prosperous, and self-sufficient America. He writes on issues concerning healthcare, government finance, human flourishing, and free markets.
