$180 Billion Failure

One of the criticisms of liberal solutions to our nation's problems is that 1. They're usually expensive and 2. They rarely work. Welfare is a good example, subsidizing green energy is another. A recent article at Heritage.org by Lindsey Burke and David Muhlhausen tells us about yet another. They write about Head Start, a program initiated to prepare poor kids for school so that they don't fall behind in the early grades and condemn themselves to a lifetime of underachievement.

Since its inception in the 1960s we've spent over 180 billion dollars on the program and we're discovering now the disheartening news that the children we had hoped to help are doing no better than had there been no Head Start program in the first place.

The following excerpt is taken from the opening paragraphs of the article:

In 2008, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) completed data collection for its third-grade follow-up study of Head Start, a federal preschool program designed to improve the kindergarten readiness of low-income children. Four years later, just before Christmas, the agency finally published the results of the congressionally mandated evaluation.

The report’s publication date reads October 2012, meaning the final product sat at HHS for two months before being released.

Since 1965, taxpayers have spent more than $180 billion on Head Start. Yet, over the decades, this Great Society relic has failed to improve academic outcomes for the children it was designed to help. The third-grade follow-up evaluation is the latest in a growing body of evidence that should urge policymakers to seriously consider Head Start’s future.

The timing of the release raises questions about whether HHS was trying to bury the findings in the report, which shows, among other outcomes, that by third grade, the $8 billion Head Start program had little to no impact on cognitive, social-emotional, health, or parenting practices of participants. On a few measures, access to Head Start had harmful effects on children.

The details are at the link, but here's one that's particularly worrisome given the ineffectiveness of the program:

Congress will soon vote on a supplemental aid package to Hurricane Sandy victims that includes $100 million in additional Head Start funding. The Senate Appropriations Committee notes that 265 Head Start centers will receive the funding, which equates to more than $377,000 per center.

Somebody's evidently benefiting from taxpayer contributions to the program, but it's not the children.